Messages

101

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: February 14, 2012, 02:30 PM »

Thanks ewemoa, I hadn't really understood what the catalogs where. It's much clearer now.

I think I can make the configuration keys easier to configure with readable name instead of keycode without too much work.

I didn't know about synapse, it looks really nice. There is a tons of apps that makes me jealous of being on Windows now... It never happened before, the world is changing.

you're trying to keep this as close to quicksilver as possible

Clearly no : we can totally differ if things can be made better. I've never used QS anyway, so most of the time, I'm just guessing
what the quicksilver choice would be. And I don't want to attract a bunch of super fans that will get upset if anything is different.
Really there can be differences.

Also i have the patience of a ant so if something doesn't happen sub second i usually move to the task manager

So I'm am

I have access to a very large number of networked drives. Its forever indexing.

Do you mean the indexing of drives takes forever OR the indexing of files on drives. I have a tons of drives at work and the indexing of drives is quite fast...

Ps i like you can get more than 3 panes

I completly assume that, there is not reason to limit that : the display is not able to handle it for the moment but all the background code works on rules of any length.

May be ecaradec will make skins more like plugins...

Sure !

102

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: February 13, 2012, 05:42 AM »

Hum, hum, I think that I went a bit too fast with the window thing. I really should not display the hidden windows AND check against upper case characters AND make search fuzzy. That's what happens when you develop without thinking. On the positive side, adding source is really simple now if the data are easy to get.

The other thing that is starting to annoy me is that all the types tends to land into the first pane. Do you know how QS used to solve that ? I was considering allowing only selected sources to show up in the first pane by default, then add either prefixes to enable them or alt+left/right to force select a single source. What would be the best for you ?

I noticed too that the reload and quit seems to be slightly unreliable, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. I'm stopping the indexing thread to reload and quit now. I suppose that something is preventing the thread to stop here. You're correct when you supose that I don't restart the whole process, I just reload the rules and reread the settings files.

For the sound thing, I think you might use the nircmd thing. It seems to handle the win7/vista sound system properly.

I agree that the xml format is less readable than the .ini thing. That was one of my grip with xml. I might remove the item thing if you have a single verb to make the thing more readable :

[Select]

<rule>
    <arg>TEXT</arg>
    <arg>
        <lbl>test</lbl>
        <ico>test.ico</lbl>
    </arg>
</rule>

But multi-elements pretty much require it, I'm not sure that this is a good idea.

I've the extra character when adding a return char. I suppose that it is measured as a printable character. I'll change that.

I've a bit of an issue with the left key for completion. It's not very nice with standard keyboard. I was thinking about something like ctrl+. or ctrl+! or some other easy combination. Or may be I should just start working on creating a dialog for editing shortcuts. No keys are probably going to be usable for everyone.

103

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: February 12, 2012, 02:21 PM »

I've added a few things we've been talking about :

- The biggest thing from a user point of view is that the format of the settings file changes to an xml format. It will make the structure easier to maintain instead of putting indices everywhere. Your old settings.ini file won't load anymore, you'll have to replace it with the settings.xml provided.
- Very simple plugins can be created. Actually it's just what could be done within the settings.ini file but qatapult will now load  plugin.xml files from the plugin folder. That will make rules easier to share as we'll be able to distribute them as a single zip file. You can add executables and icons you need in the same folder. I've included the ewemoa largetype plugin as an example.
- A reload command can now reload all the config file without quiting and restarting qatapult
- You can now add new line in text by pressing shift+enter
- You can now add multiples items when you're using lbl+ico items. You can differentiate between the one that are selected with the $x.text variable
- There is now a WINDOW source that list the currently active windows that can be queried for $x.title and $x.hwnd. I haven't made any rule with those, but there is probably a ton of uses

I've changed the internal structure of the command, as this can impact a lot of things there might be a few bugs in this version. These kinds of changes are hard to test, I'll be happy if you can report about that too

104

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: February 12, 2012, 05:02 AM »

Wow ! Very impressive ! The integration is awesome, especially considering what you have access to. Yes a shift+enter is totally possible for entering new lines. I'll probably use it for the email as well : taking the first line as the object and the rest as the body.

105

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: February 11, 2012, 09:59 AM »

Are you actually pasting text into qatapult or sending it in some way via autohotkey ? If you send it as char it would be as if you hit the . key, and as qatapult is doing some special use with it it doesn't work. Autohotkey also has special send commands that behave differently, one of them might work better...

106

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: February 10, 2012, 04:13 PM »

finding that its defaulting to text straight away

-pigeonlips (February 09, 2012, 06:41 PM)

That's definitly a mistake. It should still be the last result unless you add a '
Fixed !

There is a ton of new ideas, I've read them. I'll take the time to answer later it's time for relaxing and medition tonight

107

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: February 09, 2012, 05:13 PM »

I hoped to see that much excitement !   

I've made a test that allows to enter text mode with '.' or 'insert' and exit with 'esc' and 'insert'. It should be an usable configuration for most people laptop or not.

The thing I'm not sure about is if the dot is a good key for entering text mode. I often type a dot when I want to filter for an extension and erroneouly enter text mode. Insert is way more convenient for me : I don't use text mode very often, and dot is a too easy key to hit for such a uncommon behavior. Get a new version to try for yourself.

I've added ' as a prefix for forcing text mode result. If you want to avoid moving down the list to select the text result, start your query by ' and it should be the first result. We could imagine other prefixes to boost some type of results if you have other ideas.

I think that it could be useful to add filter options to sources too. Sometimes I'd like to pick a folder only or a png file, path restriction etc... I think it could be doable to add that. It would be associated to rules items in my mind : you could say you want a FILE source but only folders... But it could also be a can of worms, I need to meditate about that before moving on...

Another thing I'm thinking about is restriction on the apparition of labels : If you want to create a 'resize to' function that only apply to images, you'd need a way to have it only appears on images preferably.

108

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: February 08, 2012, 03:53 PM »

I've completed a first version that support user defined rules. Rules are the way you can define new multipanes commands. I've converted the old verb customisation to this, as this is much more flexible. Here is an example :

[Select]

[rule_0]
0_arg=FILE
1_lbl=Cmd here
1_ico=icons\command.png
cmd=cmd.exe
args=
workdir=$0.directory

The configuration still has to be done via the ini file for the moment. Here is how it works :
- Firstly define a new [rule] block and give it a number starting from 0

- Then you can set two kinds of things :
    - a (x)_arg parameter to decide that the x parameter is of some predefined type. Useful predefined types right now are : FILE, CONTACT, CLOCK, WEBSITE and TEXT
    OR
    - a (x)_lbl + (x)_ico pair to add a custom word with an icon. You'll usually use those to put a verb

- Then define a cmd, args and a workdir. In those 3 fields you can use variables to access the values of the panes. The syntax for this is : $(pane_nb).(value). pane_nb can be any number from 0 to rule length (1 or 2 under the current ability of the UI ) . 'value' is the interesting thing : you can access any value that compose a type. For a FILE you can access path, directory, filename; For a CONTACT you can access display and email; For a WEBSITE you can get display, href, searchHref, icon; For a TEXT you can get text; CLOCK doesn't return anything yet, but it would probably time something.

@pigeonlips : don't invest too much on file verbs, tell me what you think about this .

109

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: February 07, 2012, 04:49 PM »

Here is a bug fix version :
- It  fixes the issue that displayed incorrect results to popup. It happened when you typed extraneous tab.
- The missing pane bug should be fixed too. It'll display an empty result if there are no other results left now.

110

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: February 06, 2012, 05:42 PM »

I noticed the email and search with bug too. I uploaded a new version that fix that. I broke something in the selection of rules, in the previous version and this was causing a lot of issues. Check if your second issue is gone too, I suspect that it should.

The pane thing looks really bad. Your diagnotic is correct, Qatapult resize to two panes : no rule match anymore, so Qatapult doesn't know how many panes to display. I didn't bother fixing it till know as it's not super easy and is not very fonctionaly annoying, but I will as soon as possible.

I agree the dot is annoying when typing things. I was considering the same solution : use . to enter text mode and then esc to exit, but allows to type . when in text mode.  

The last item result is always the text result. If you want to search notepad on google then type your query and select that last results, it'll give you the text verb. It didn't always appears in older version but this should be ok now. I could also add a ' prefix that would enable text result only.

I also get lost when typing. I'm not sure about what I can do without degrading the look and feel of the ui. May be I could switch to text mode automatically if nothing is typed for a few sec ? I think that QS cancel the search if you wait too long, but I'm not sure if I like it or not.

Thanks for the report  

111

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: February 06, 2012, 07:18 AM »

Hi,
I've uploaded a new version with a few polishing changes :

- the text now don't display vertically anymore
- the completion don't automatically select the first subfolder
- you don't need to hit the down key twice to browse the results
- results are cleared when you hide the ui, so that it's always clean when you invoke qatapult
- fuzzy matching on some results like on the startmenu items : "moz firx" will match firefox. All characters must be in the name in the correct order to match. That allows to miss a char and still get the correct result.

Nothing fancy, but that's should make Qatapult easier to use.

112

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: January 31, 2012, 05:31 AM »

[pigeonlips]
Well done with the db pigeonlips . The website source is really subpopulated.

I've seen the vertical text issue too. The Windows gdiplus api that measure the width of text sometimes returns invalid results. I've still to understand how to use it to avoid that issue. It seems to occur on some matches of results and query.

[ewemoa] : I'll add a font selection (at least in the settings ) so that you can confirm that this is ok. It seems to work with less exotic characters, so I suppose it should be ok still.

113

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: January 30, 2012, 04:42 PM »

I've been playing with it for a while now and have to say i really like it. Thanks for the great tool

Thanks  !

I could add raw text support but I fear that I'll change the format to support the more flexible rule description as it will give the ability to create 3 pane commands (like [text, appendto, file] , etc... ). That would break all configurations done there. I have to think about this a bit before moving on.

Custom icon on file verb works. Try adding an icon with the same name as your text. This may not last forever, but this works for the moment.

I'll add the hwnd soon. There is a lot of potential for extensions there.

Yes, the icons looks bad because of Windows XP. The support for large icon began with vista, although I might add a way to override the default icons with your own. That way you could have good looking icons for your favorites apps and it would allows for themes too.

114

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: January 30, 2012, 05:29 AM »

Do you think using the left arrow key is a bad idea?

-ewemoa (January 30, 2012, 12:46 AM)

No that would be actually better, because ctrl+back means precedent word or slash whereas ctrl+left or ? would mean only precedent slash and it would be coherent with the \ and right completion.

About the command object : this is very nice. I wasn't sure at first. I understand that this mean assigning a keyword on a set of multipanes selection. You can then reinvoke the command later. Do you understand it that way too ?

115

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: January 30, 2012, 05:08 AM »

I didn't find Qatapult to handle some non-Latin text (e.g. CJK)

-ewemoa (January 29, 2012, 09:04 PM)

I think that this is font related. The font I use is arial, and it probably doesn't handle cjk characters. I'll need to give an option to use alternate font so that it works.

116

Find And Run Robot / Qatapult a new launcher

« on: January 29, 2012, 07:39 AM »

I feel that a few people who like FARR might also like Qatapult. It's a keyboard launcher inspired by the Quicksilver launcher on the mac. I wrote it for NANY, but it's a long project and I'm still improving it. Here it is :



If you want to suggest feature and submit bugs report or just chat about it, it's here :
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=29595.0

117

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: January 29, 2012, 07:31 AM »

Good spot with the properties. After a quick look I found that it's not the "current selection" that doesn't work but rather the properties command.

Selection should be a quick add for the keyboard, but the mouse would be a pain : I didn't found a good way to get the position of characters with the gdiplus lib. If someone know a way to do it I'd love that.

Multiple file support is totally on my list for the exact same kind of need you list : zipping. I'm not sure at which point I'll add them, because it's a rather large change, involving UI and changes in the way I store and release memory.

You can go up one level in the hierarchy by using ctrl+backspace right now, it will go back to the precedent space or \ like in the text edition mode. ? is a good idea but I'm not sure what I'm going to do on my azerty keyboard. I was really thinking to have \ complete the current folder, this is the reverse, I think I'll add it too. I'll probably move some keys on my keyboard

The one thing that I'd really like to do now is to allow users to create custom rules from the settings. Rules are the internal way I store the various arguments and available command of items. The current idea I have is to allows the writing of description of that form (3 examples ) :

rule=FILE,"zip to",FILE
rulecmd=zip %p0 %p2

rule=FILE,"zip here"
rulecmd=zip %p0

rule=TEXT,"append to",FILE
rulecmd=appendtext "%t0" "%p2"

That should open a lot more possibility.

I'd also like to give rules special background : a google look when you search google, an amazon look for amazon, but this is more for the fun...

118

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: January 29, 2012, 07:06 AM »

I wrote a somewhat official announcement and slightly humoristic announcement of Qatapult on my blog here : http://emmanuelcarad...airy-tale-for-the-99 .

119

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: January 28, 2012, 01:56 PM »

I've switched my default keyboard launcher from FARR to Qatapult. There is still a few things that I miss like the fc plugins for math things. I'm carefully documenting the shortcomings of Qatapult, so I found a bunch a small little issues and I added some big things :

• Qatapult now knows your network shares. That make browsing network share much easier : it did worked earlier if you typed the exact path, but now it's much better.
• Qatapult remembers the last files you got from the file explorer. Just time the name of that file once you used it once and it should be there.
• The email source didn't worked anymore. This is fixed. If you tried getting your contacts from gmail and it didn't work, try this version.
• "Current selection" pseudo object (Quicksilver call them proxy ) is now the currently selected file from the explorer (ewemoa special ). I don't have multifile support inside Qatapult, so it will only take the first file for the time being but it would be totally possible to add the whole selection.
• The text moves are more complete with ctrl+back, ctrl+del, and control moves, etc.. (ewemoa special )

120

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: January 21, 2012, 07:58 AM »

I also noticed that period as a text input mode enabler is not very good since it prevent to type anything with a dot. I also found myself under cases where I'd like to filter extensions of some type and then typing a dot would prove useful.

By the way, I noticed that Home and End keys don't seem to work in text input mode.  Do you think it would be worth having (most?) editing-related key sequences work under those circumstances?  For example, for path-related editing, control+arrowkeys, control+shift+arrowkeys, control+delete, control+backspace seem quite handy.

Yes I know that some basics of text editing are not there right now. That's due to the fact that I need to reimplement a full text editing control that can work within a transparent window. Noone seems to have developed and share a control like that. Handling all common control shouldn't be too hard anyway.

raw text is not available for new command right now but I'll add these for sure. I also need to add some contextual mode selection so that text commands only appear when text is available and file commands only availables when a file is selected. That's should not be a problem anyway.

He he.  Sorry if this is too much

Don't worry your feedback is very welcome.

121

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: January 21, 2012, 05:06 AM »

Hotkeys configurability is complete. You can now use your favorite key shortcut to invoke Qatapult.

122

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: January 21, 2012, 04:25 AM »

The first idea is very good, I'll need to polish my code a bit before adding it. It didn't work when I tried but I feel that cycling around the panes would feel a bit more free instead of just locking on the last pane. That way you could just tab-tab-tab and polish your command before running it. However I think that it will be a bit hard to maintain the other panes selected if you go back, but the UI idea is very good anyway.

The context idea is also very nice, and I will investigate in that way. I was considering adding sources of information like current HWND, title, clipboard as primary source of content for use with future extra hotkeys.

123

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: January 17, 2012, 04:17 AM »

Commands only appears when you have a file selected. Sounds stupid but I didn't mention it... Are you trying to see them on the first pane ?

124

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: January 16, 2012, 06:52 AM »

Interesting -- I see a single large pane when I enter that mode.

I watched some Quicksilver video and the interface seems to behave that way. I actually liked the idea as it gives more space and make things much clearer when you need to edit things. I was a bit annoyed of allowing to edit paths inside the thumbnail that I used to display text.

If there are more than two commands, does the value of count need to be updated?

Yes, you need to update the value of count.

Also, I have not succeeded in getting "Cmd here" and "Explore here" to appear in my UI.  Typing either cmd or explore and looking through the results doesn't appear to show the associated custom commands.  Any hints?

Hum, I put the "cmd here" and "explore here" in the settings.default.ini, you need to copy these lines inside your settings.ini. The default is just here to be used if there is no local settings.ini file.

What do you think of Firefox's "about:config" UI?  Would it be easy to implement?

That's a nice idea, but I'm not sure that it brings a lot of value over just editing an ini file. I'll probably do a fully featured settings UI, I just need to polish a bit things to make things easier to setup. That's should be ok anyway.

125

Ecaradec's Software / Re: Qatapult

« on: January 15, 2012, 11:02 AM »

Yes, Qatapult is a copy of Quicksilver (for the moment ... but I have terrribles projects )

I don't think Quicksilver ever worked on Unix, I think that it was all objective-c and it may have discouraged any porting effort.

Thanks for the bug report ewemoa, it's fixed.

To add folders to your search path, you can left click on the first item. Try clicking slightly at the beginning of the row, otherwise the component doesn't understand that as an edition. You should be able to add X:\apps there.

I'll allow to change the invocation shortcut soon, I agree with your remark, I tend to invoke it without really willing it.

I also added new changes :
- Text edition mode : you can now switch to edit mode by typing . and then use the arrows and delete keys.
- You can also paste text into the UI with ctrl+v
- There is now support for extra user commands for files : there is no UI, but you can check them in the ini file. I added two examples. You can use %p (path), %d (directory ) and %f (filename ) as inputs

I really need to find a way to simplify the UI of the settings, as it is taking me more time to code that the actual functions...