Messages

1051

Developer's Corner / Re: Any ideas for a small contest to give away a copy or two of Borland Dev. Studio?

« on: February 09, 2007, 12:45 PM »

If only one could write a Firefox plugin in Delphi What's FARR?

1052

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: January 30, 2007, 12:51 PM »

is there a note taking program that uses individual txt files as the individual notes AND has a tree structure type view so you can see all the files/notes. even more than this i'd like the program to be able to show a tree view of txt files that are in different locations on the hard drive - and the ability for it to remember this each time i run it.

-nudone (January 30, 2007, 05:34 AM)

If I understand your requirement correctly, KeyNote can do precisely this. The feature is called "virtual nodes". The easiest way to make it work is to drag one or more txt files into the tree panel (not the editor area). KeyNote will prompt you to 'select import method" - choose the last option, "Import as virtual nodes". The term "import" is somewhat of a misnomer here, because the txt files will stay on disk, and KeyNote will read their contents when you open the knt file containing those virtual nodes. You can also turn any normal node into a virtual node (txt or rtf).

If you have already considered and rejected that possibility, never mind

marek

1053

Developer's Corner / Re: SQLite Administrator

« on: January 21, 2007, 12:39 PM »

Well, it does say it's beta They have a forum for bug reports here: http://www.orbmu2k.d.../showboard.php?id=13

1054

General Software Discussion / Re: Mozilla Firefox 3 (codename Gran Paradiso) alpha 1

« on: January 19, 2007, 06:39 AM »

What planet are they using for the logo graphic? It sure isn't the Earth

1055

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Giveaway of the Day - True Launch Bar for free - today only 23 hours 45mins

« on: January 14, 2007, 11:29 AM »

I've no opinion on GiveawayOfTheDay, but just wanted to say that True Launch Bar is an awesome piece of software. Along with File-Ex, it's become a core part of my system, to the point that a Windows installation feels bare and awkward without it. It's way more convenient than the Start menu, can be used easily via the keyboard, and has never caused me any problems, as some shell enhancements can. Check out the site for the various plugins (free once you have a licensed TLB). It's updated fairly often and can be customized to no end.

I'm only missing one feature, a more capable implementation of "virtual folders". Currently you can create virtual folders which become menus displaying the content of a physical folder, optionally with a filter. An improvement would be to virtualize the concept entirely, so that a virtual folder in TLB could be a collection of links to arbitrary filesystem objects anywhere on the machine. Even then, TLB is really fantastic, especially the keyboard navigation (you can assign hotkeys that open menus), and how it can pop up on moseover (no need to click).

1056

Developer's Corner / Re: Help with Delphi Console Keypress

« on: January 05, 2007, 08:37 PM »

Correction, I wasn't remembering clearly:

When you declare a var as AnsiString in Delphi, you get the old-style statically allocated string with max length of 255.

-tranglos (December 20, 2006, 09:33 AM)

The above is wrong. Here's what really happens: when you declare a var as AnsiString, you do get the "huge" string variety. This does not depend on the "Huge strings" compiler switch, since you're explicitly asking for one. The compiler switch only affects declarations of "var s : string;"

But as mouser said, please give a bit more info on your code and the specific error.

1057

Official Announcements / Re: The 2006 Best Of Year-End Wrap.. Online!

« on: December 28, 2006, 06:44 PM »

Okay, I now have a dozen new bookmarks to read *urgently* Lots and lots of great reading, thanks mouser!

1058

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: A minor update to KeyNote - only on DonationCoder :)

« on: December 28, 2006, 06:41 PM »

Thanks, AbteriX - the version number updated, to 1.6.9. now. The link hasn't changed.

Anyone who downloaded this version before 28 Dec 2006, please update with today's bugfix. When I said (elsewhere) that KeyNote was unmaintainable, I told the truth! There are, for example, several paths in the code that can lead to creating a new tree node, and as a result, the advertised new feature didn't always work: new nodes didn't always get their creation date assigned.

Learning is a good thing, but it makes you cringe when you look at code written six years ago...

(For the coders here - I can't set creation date in the constructor, because all your "old" nodes would appear to have been created the day you opened an old file with the new version of KeyNote. Nodes have no creation date if the knt file doesn't carry this information, so only newly created nodes acquire the date.)

Anyway, this new release fixes that, and I'm hurrying back to my current project, which will hopefully be less jinxed

marek

1059

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: A minor update to KeyNote - only on DonationCoder :)

« on: December 24, 2006, 01:19 PM »

Thanks all!

I should add that the zip file linked to above contains only the latest version of the executable. Please use it only if you have KeyNote already installed. When installing for the first time, first download and run the full installer package:

http://www.tranglos....e/files/kntsetup.exe

and then unzip the update into the installation folder.

...And how could I not think of DonationCoder, the site which gave KeyNote the absolute winner in compliments given to *any* piece of software ever!
https://www.donation...oteTakers1/index.php

.marek

1060

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / A minor update to KeyNote - only on DonationCoder :)

« on: December 24, 2006, 09:22 AM »

And it has nothing to do with the time of the year

About 4 years late I decided to implement one of the major missing features in KeyNote: ability to maintain creation and modification dates for tree nodes. It's one of the relatively few things that can actually be implemented without a rewrite, so here it is. The dates need a place to display them, so I've added a small optional panel above the editor area, to show the active node title and creation/modification dates, and a right-click menu with a few options.

So this, with a couple of other minor edits, is KeyNote 1.6.8. I suppose it will only be useful for those who are already using KeyNote. At the moment I'm announcing it only here; later on I'll post an update to my site.

Full description of changes in this version:
http://www.tranglos....files/readme_168.txt

Direct download link:
http://www.tranglos....files/keynote168.zip

Bugfix alert! Updated 2006-12-28. Details in the thread below...

General description of KeyNote (along with the full disclosure - it's not actively maintained anymore, though I *am* working on a rewritten version almost every day):
http://www.tranglos....om/free/keynote.html

Best regards to all,
marek

1061

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: 5 Dollar coupon towards the purchase of the TuneUp Utilities 2007

« on: December 20, 2006, 09:45 AM »

IF they make you by an upgrade for a purchase you made under day 5 months ago, please let us all know - because i found that unacceptable and reason enough to never go near such a company again.

-mouser (December 20, 2006, 09:25 AM)

I'm pretty sure it was more than 5 months, though it was this year. (I keep my registration codes in KeyNote, and KeyNote doesn't keep track of the date a node was created, and now I can't check. I kick myself for that omission every day!)

And I do like tune-up Utilities, damn   I guess the question is whether one wants the new features. The new disk doctor looks fine, but since I've never had a disk go bad on me - never, not once in some 15 years - maybe I don't need it that much. Don't need Office 2007 support either. The improved registry cleaner - well maybe, it sure looks pretty, but I'm not using it much. (I have registry entries pointing to virtual drives, and they always get marked as invalid if the drive is offline.)

I'll wait for 2008

1062

Developer's Corner / Re: Help with Delphi Console Keypress

« on: December 20, 2006, 09:33 AM »

BTW - Can you tell me why any string def I use will not allow more then 255 chars?  This even happens when I declare the following...

var
      Longstring: AnsiString;

It's supposed to take 2GB, but I keep getting the error saying it can only have 255?  Weird.

-Farmsteader (December 19, 2006, 05:31 PM)

When you declare a var as AnsiString in Delphi, you get the old-style statically allocated string with max length of 255. It's the same as saying
var
 myStr : string[255];

What you need is
var
 myStr : string;


Also check in Compiler options that "Huge strings" is enabled - it should be on by default, but do verify. If this define is disabled, the above declaration will still give you a 255-char string.

1063

Found Deals and Discounts / Ouch, am I disappointed!

« on: December 20, 2006, 09:17 AM »

I love Tune-Up utilities, one of the best designed and most functional software of this type. I bought version 2006 several months ago, and had no idea a new version was available. The Update Wizard still tells me I have the latest version.

So when I visited the site now it looks like I have to pay almost 20 Euro for the upgrade - the coupon would deduct about 3 Euro. 20 Euro for a new version each year sounds pretty much like a subscription! I guess I should have checked their upgrade policy before I bought it. Too bad.

1064

General Review Discussion / Re: Review suggestions

« on: October 22, 2006, 06:34 PM »

Trying to revive an oldie thread, let's see how it goes...

1. Mind-mapping and diagramming software. The reason I'm suggesting a review of those is that I'd love to read a discussion by those who use such software at an advanced level - because I don't quite understand how it is useful I have a basic technical understanding of mind maps, and I know of course what diagrams are used for, but I've never been able to fit any software like this into my note-taking or planning processes. They confuse me, they interrupt my thinking and try to force me into a mode of working that feels alien to me. I'm much better off with free-form notes. So I'm probably missing some big point of mind maps and/or diagrams. Bonus question: there are specialized mind mapping programs, as well as specialized diagramming software, but in the end it's all about connecting shapes with arrows, filling them with text and moving them around. Could one piece of software serve both needs?

2. Wikis, the web-based ones. There are so many, most of them free, differing in features, backends and formatting syntax. Wikis are primarily intended for collaborative work, but does anyone use them for personal projects? How do they fare as note-taking mechanisms? (For the desktop, there's WikiPad, which I don't think has any competition yet: http://www.jhorman.org/wikidPad/ )

Thanks for listening!

1065

Best File/Folder Compare Tool / Re: What did you think of the review?

« on: October 20, 2006, 05:43 PM »

Well what did you guys think of the review?

-mouser (March 19, 2005, 07:47 PM)

Great review and very useful, as all the others. I am only missing one important data point: Unicode support. I worked recently at a project where manual file comparison and merging was a frequent task. The files were all unicode, and used various encodings: UTF8, UTF16, with or without BOM, etc. It was critical that the compare tool processed all these encodings transparently and did not alter them in any way. The company used Araxis, and I grew to love it, although it is too expensive for my personal use. It performed flawlessly; I loved the ability to click the arrows on the margins to merge one version into the other. Fast, too, even with big files. But correct Unicode handling was of primary importance (those were multilingual files used for software localization).

Does anyone know if Beyond Compare is as good with Unicode? The feature list does mention "Unicode and MBCS support", but this is listed under the "File Viewer Display" heading, which could mean that it does not apply to the editor.

Did I mention all the reviews are fantastic? I only wish I hadn't already bought most of the great software you've managed to get member discounts for