Recent Posts

226

Living Room / Re: I'm getting married, wish me luck!

« Last post by Nod5 on April 15, 2019, 02:08 AM »

Waaay too late

-ScreenManiac (March 10, 2019, 10:59 AM)

Hold my beer! 

Great to hear this mouser. Congratulations to both of you!

227

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Subfolder Creator

« Last post by Nod5 on April 15, 2019, 02:02 AM »

At present it is for downloaded newspaper pages, where they may not be sequentially named. So dropping into the right folder allows for a subsequent quick rename using the folder as the new filename. Only 150 years of a weekly papers to work through.

Wow, that's a lot!

If you're downloading the pages for one paper issue in the right sequence and without gaps (download page 1 first, then page 2, ...) you might be able to rename in one go with a script that reads the "date modified" metadata. At least if there is reliably one or more second time difference between each download. See variable A_LoopFileTimeModified for Loop command.

228

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Subfolder Creator

« Last post by Nod5 on April 14, 2019, 05:37 AM »

You've enhanced the program to accept multiple folder drops at once - nice going! 

Tip: when you add code to a forum post use the "code highlighting" dropdown to colorize the AutoHotkey code, like in my posts.

In my working version I have moved the box creation to the top which seems to work, but is there a reason not to do this?

No problem in this case. But with more complex GUIs putting Show first can result in the user first seeing a blank window and only later text, buttons, editboxes. Avoided by putting Show last. Just to illustrate that try what happens if you add in a delay, like so

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. Gui, Show, w300 h300, Subfolder Creator
2. Sleep 700
3. Gui, font, s14 cBlack bold
4. Gui, Add, Text,x150 y150,Drop folder

To me the logical progression is make a box, chose pen and ink, and write something with it.

Makes sense in the sketching/planning phase. But that can differ from what is later on the best code order. It often helps to comment (shown in green here) the code to make it more intuitive to read later. For example

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. ;Main GUI window where user drops folders
2. Gui, font, s14 cBlack bold
3. Gui, Add, Text, x150 y150, Drop folder
4. Gui, Show, w300 h300, Subfolder Creator

I created a gosub for folder creation and dropped it to the bottom with the appropriate entries for folder creation.

That works. Just for example, another way to do it without the gosub. Notice: continue instead of break.

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. #NoEnv
2.     #SingleInstance force
3.     Gui, font, s14 cBlack bold
4.     Gui, Add, Text,x100 y120,Drop folder
5.     Gui, Show, w300 h300, Subfolder Creator
6.     return
7.      
8.     GuiDropFiles:
9.      Loop, parse, A_GuiControlEvent, `n, `r
10.       {
11.         folder := A_LoopField
12.         if !InStr(FileExist(folder), "D")
13.           continue
14.          FileCreateDir, %folder%\subfolder name
15.          FileCreateDir, %folder%\another subfolder
16.          FileCreateDir, %folder%\subfolder 3
17.       }
18.     return
19.      
20.     GuiClose:
21.     exitapp

Or alternatively with a function instead of gosub

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. #NoEnv
2.     #SingleInstance force
3.     Gui, font, s14 cBlack bold
4.     Gui, Add, Text,x100 y120,Drop folder
5.     Gui, Show, w300 h300, Subfolder Creator
6.     return
7.      
8.     GuiDropFiles:
9.      Loop, parse, A_GuiControlEvent, `n, `r
10.       {
11.         folder := A_LoopField
12.         if InStr(FileExist(folder), "D")
13.           MakeFolders(folder)
14.       }
15.     return
16.      
17.     GuiClose:
18.     exitapp
19.  
20. MakeFolders(folder) {
21.   FileCreateDir, %folder%\subfolder name
22.   FileCreateDir, %folder%\another subfolder
23.   FileCreateDir, %folder%\subfolder 3
24. }

One great thing with AutoHotkey is that it is relatively easy to get going with commands and make small programs. We can then gradually move from commands/gosub style coding to expressions, functions and objects as the programs get more complex.

If all your subfolder names will have an increasing pattern you can shorten code by replacing all the FileCreateDir lines with a loop

Simple example, but without padding so the folders get named p1, p2 ... rather than p01, p02 ...

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. Loop, 12
2.   FileCreateDir, %folder%\p%A_Index%

This gives padding

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. Loop, 12
2. {
3.   if A_Index < 10
4.     FileCreateDir, %folder%p0%A_Index%
5.   else
6.     FileCreateDir, %folder%p%A_Index%
7. }

This gives padding in a shorter way by using expressions and the Format() function.

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. Loop, 12
2.   FileCreateDir, % folder "\p" Format("{1:02}", A_Index)

229

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Subfolder Creator

« Last post by Nod5 on April 13, 2019, 05:35 PM »

Ok, here is a basic version. You could enhance it in several ways: Edit the subfolder names of course; Add editboxes so the user can change subfolder names on each use; Change the color, font and look of the window; Accept dropping more than one folder at a time; and more. If you look up the commands on each line in the AutoHotkey manual you'll quickly get ideas on how to tweak things.

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. #NoEnv
2. #SingleInstance force
3. Gui, font, s14 cBlack bold
4. Gui, Add, Text,x100 y120,Drop folder
5. Gui, Show, w300 h300, Subfolder Creator
6. return
7.  
8. GuiDropFiles:
9.  Loop, parse, A_GuiControlEvent, `n, `r
10.   {
11.     folder := A_LoopField
12.     break
13.   }
14.   if !InStr(FileExist(folder), "D")
15.     return
16.    FileCreateDir, %folder%\subfolder name
17.    FileCreateDir, %folder%\another subfolder
18.    FileCreateDir, %folder%\subfolder 3
19. return
20.  
21. GuiClose:
22. exitapp

Here is how it looks in Windows 10

230

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Subfolder Creator

« Last post by Nod5 on April 13, 2019, 01:49 PM »

An example, just to see if I understand the request.

If the user drops the folder
C:\this\folder
on the GUI dropzone then the program should create
C:\this\folder\somesubfolder
C:\this\folder\anothersubfolder
C:\this\folder\third

And similarly create the same named subfolders if we drop the folder C:\other\directory and so on.

If that's it then AutoHotkey can do it.

But if you want to learn perhaps you'd like to give it a shot yourself first? Help on commands to use
https://autohotkey.com/docs/Tutorial.htm
https://autohotkey.c...ocs/commands/Gui.htm
https://autohotkey.c...Gui.htm#GuiDropFiles
https://autohotkey.c...ds/FileCreateDir.htm

231

N.A.N.Y. 2019 / Re: NANY 2019: Shorthand 3_2

« Last post by Nod5 on April 11, 2019, 07:23 AM »

Hi Maestr0, I'm learning to use Everything from within AutoHotkey so I peeked a little at your source code. I see you use ES on the command line rather than the Everything SDK/API. Was there some reason for that in this case? Speed? Stability? Other?

I have myself only very quickly tested the SDK/API so don't know what the advantages/disadvantages are in actual use.
There is sample AutoHotkey code here
https://www.autohotk...php?p=118613#p118613
and the Everything creator has well written SDK documentation here
https://www.voidtool...port/everything/sdk/

232

General Software Discussion / Re: youtube downloader?

« Last post by Nod5 on April 08, 2019, 07:44 AM »

Those using Find And Run Robot can make a simple alias for youtube-dl with settings like these:

regex: ^yt (.+)
results: youtube-dl | C:\folder\youtube-dl.exe -o C:\savefolder $$1

To use it when browsing YouTube
1. focus the browser's URL bar
2. press ctrl+C to copy the URL
3. open FARR and type "yt "
4. press ctrl+V to paste the url
5. press Enter

Even more convenient, but a bit more complex to set up, is to have an alias use AutoHotkey to grab the active browser tab URL and feeds it to youtube-dl.

233

Post New Requests Here / Re: auto create .lnk shortcuts for all currently installed Windows Store Apps

« Last post by Nod5 on April 06, 2019, 02:22 AM »

Ok, here are .lnk files for Calculator and Xbox as generated by the StackOverflow python script.

edit: I compared the python generated Calculator shortcut with one made through the context menu in the AppsFolder (win+R and then shell:AppsFolder, right click Calculator, "create shortcut"). The two files are identical except for block (decimal)number 22, which has the value 00 in the python generated file and 08 in the other.

234

Post New Requests Here / Re: auto create .lnk shortcuts for all currently installed Windows Store Apps

« Last post by Nod5 on April 05, 2019, 02:57 AM »

Thanks for continuing this detective work 

The Python script doesn't create any icon image files per se. In the hex editor the .lnk contains these relative path strings

[Select]

Assets\CalculatorMedTile.png
Assets\CalculatorAppList.png
Assets\CalculatorWideTile.png
Assets\CalculatorLargeTile.png
Assets\CalculatorSmallTile.png

The matching Assets folder has for each of the above multiple .png files with the same start name then a dot and some size/color specification. For example

[Select]

CalculatorAppList.contrast-black_scale-200.png
CalculatorAppList.contrast-black_targetsize-16.png
CalculatorAppList.contrast-black_targetsize-20.png
...

It looks like one or other of the .png that start with CalculatorAppList is used for the icon for the .lnk when I view it in Explorer.

But the .png in Assets are black and white while the .lnk icon is white with blue background. (But maybe the blue is dependent on some Windows theme?)

I examined a few more of the python generated .lnk in the hex editor but can't see any simple consistent pattern in the name of the .png filenames.

Anyway, recreating the look and feel of the icons in the python generated shortcuts involves both finding the right .png to use and transforming its color.

I attach one of the .png files and an overview screenshot from Explorer with many of the image files.

Shortcut files are more complicated that one might have though
https://github.com/l...K)%20format.asciidoc

235

Post New Requests Here / Re: auto create .lnk shortcuts for all currently installed Windows Store Apps

« Last post by Nod5 on April 04, 2019, 01:35 PM »

what is the shortcut Target that is generated by the above script?
Does it use explorer.exe shell:.... or does it resolve to the executable?

-4wd (April 04, 2019, 06:25 AM)

It isn't an ordinary .lnk shortcut file. The target field is greyed out in the file properties window. This is for Calculator app:



The target field contains only Microsoft.WindowsCalculator_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App, so the Explorer.exe shell:Appsfolder\ part from the regular shortcuts isn't there.

When I open the .lnk in HxD Hex Editor it decodes to among other things this path string
C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.WindowsCalculator_10.1902.42.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
which is a protected folder that contains these files

[Select]

AppxBlockMap.xml
AppxManifest.xml
AppxSignature.p7x
Calculator.exe
CalculatorApp.winmd
resources.pri
WinMetadata

and subfolders

[Select]

AppxMetadata
Assets

The .lnk file also contains strings that are paths to .png icons files in the Assets subfolder above.

I'm not familiar enough with the Windows API and python stuff in the StackOverflow code to understand what it is doing line by line.

236

Post New Requests Here / Re: auto create .lnk shortcuts for all currently installed Windows Store Apps

« Last post by Nod5 on April 01, 2019, 10:18 AM »

Simple Powershell script

-4wd (April 01, 2019, 04:40 AM)

Great!

To get the script to work on my PC I had to do these things
- the multi line comments at the top gave errors, but changing /* and */ to <# and #> fixed that.
- run the cmd window as administrator
- add the Bypass argument, like so

[Select]

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -F C:\folder\Apps2Shortcut.ps1

Then it works and outputs .lnk shortcut files in the desktop folder "Installed-Apps". Nice!

But I can't get it to run within AutoHotkey, even as administrator. I've tried

[Select]

Run powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -F C:\folder\Apps2Shortcut.ps1
Run powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoExit -F C:\folder\Apps2Shortcut.ps1
RunWait powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoExit -F C:\folder\Apps2Shortcut.ps1

and some other variations without success. Similarly, this and variations of it also do not work

[Select]

Run powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -C "Get-StartApps | Out-File C:\folder\test.txt"

I don't have to use AutoHotkey of course. But remaining issues I'm trying to solve are
1. how to automatically run the script at least every time Windows starts, to keep the .lnk files up to date?
2. how to make it easy for end users (ideally not running as administrator) to set this up once and for all?
And also
3. is there some way to add the matching icons to the shortcuts?

edit:
This handles issue 1 above. Run the AutoHotkey script as administrator creates a scheduled task that in turn on each logon runs the powershell script to create .lnk files.

[Select]

RunWait schtasks /Create /SC ONLOGON /TN Apps2Shortcut /TR "powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -F C:\folder\Apps2Shortcut.ps1"

The same task can also be created manually (and deleted if no longer needed) through the Task Scheduler (win+I and search for "schedule tasks").
Not a very end-user friendly way to set this up though.

edit2:
This Python solution works for me without running as administrator https://stackoverflow.com/a/43635956
I had to use Python 2. The .lnk shortcut files also get icons (issue 3 above).
Perhaps the approach there can be reproduced without Python.

237

Post New Requests Here / auto create .lnk shortcuts for all currently installed Windows Store Apps

« Last post by Nod5 on March 31, 2019, 12:56 PM »

Coding Snack request
a script/tool that auto creates .lnk shortcuts for all currently installed Windows Store Apps.

Background
Users of Mouser's Find And Run Robot (FARR) requested an easy way to launch Windows Store Apps. The problem is that those apps do not create .lnk shortcut files FARR can find when searching files and folders. Users can manually create .lnk shortcuts one by one. But an automated method would be more user friendly. A standalone tool could also be useful for people who don't use FARR.

Research done

1. syntax for .lnk shortcuts to Windows Store Apps

Windows Store Apps can  be run from .lnk shortcuts with a target that has this format

[Select]

explorer.exe shell:Appsfolder\<AUMID>

where AUMID (Application User Model ID) is a special string for each app.
For example on my PC we can launch Windows Calculator with

[Select]

explorer.exe shell:Appsfolder\Microsoft.WindowsCalculator_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App

2. Powershell command to get a list of AUMID
The Powershell command

[Select]

get-StartApps

returns a list with an App name and its associated App AUMID on each line.
More details here https://docs.microso...-of-an-installed-app

3. Making .lnk shortcuts programmatically
AutoHotkey has the command FileCreateShortcut, https://autohotkey.c...leCreateShortcut.htm

What has already been tried
I didn't find a working way to use AutoHotkey to run Powershell with the get-StartApps command and output the resulting list to a .txt file.
I get this error

[Select]

'get-StartApps' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet

Instead of banging my non-powershell experienced head more against powershell error message walls, perhaps someone else here can think of a quick fix or different solution, using AutoHotkey, Powershell or some other method? 

238

Find And Run Robot / Re: Launching Windows Apps

« Last post by Nod5 on March 30, 2019, 10:56 AM »

This page
https://docs.microso...-of-an-installed-app
describes a Powershell command to get a list of the names and AUMIDs (Application User Model ID) for all apps installed for the current user

[Select]

get-StartApps

For example the list has this line on my PC

[Select]

Calculator        Microsoft.WindowsCalculator_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App

The string on the right is the AUMID. We can use it to start the program from a cmd window like so

[Select]

explorer.exe shell:Appsfolder\Microsoft.WindowsCalculator_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App

Those are the main ingredients we need. For FARR to automatically be able to run any such app installed either of these two solutions should work

1. Mouser codes FARR to at some interval get and parse the AUMIDs list and in some special way include the app names in FARR search results so users can search for and start them

2. A separate tool is made that gets AUMIDs and for each creates a shortcut .lnk files with the application name as filename and

[Select]

explorer.exe shell:Appsfolder\<AUMID>

as target. The tool runs at Windows start or every hour or some such. The user sets FARR to include that folder with the .lnk files when searching.

Alternative 2 could be a good Coding Snack challenge perhaps?

239

General Software Discussion / Re: What kind of software to use for storing lots of information?

« Last post by Nod5 on March 30, 2019, 10:16 AM »

Cool project! It sounds a lot like a wiki when you describe it, doesn't it? I thought of something like https://gameofthrone...f_Thrones_(TV_series) . Not sure what local software is best for that sort of thing though.

If you for the time being stick with a Google Sheet type approach but want to enhance it in various ways then check out https://airtable.com/ . I like how you can make multiple filtered views for a sheet and toggle quickly between those views. Cells can also easily include image thumbnails. The free version has quite a lot of features.

240

DC Gamer Club / Re: Stadia Google

« Last post by Nod5 on March 24, 2019, 09:47 AM »

Related read
https://arstechnica....treaming-skepticism/

Google came to the id offices to set up a "Pepsi Challenge"-style blind test between Stadia and local hardware "to keep themselves honest and really drill down on eliminating perceivable differences in the play experience. They also wanted to demonstrate that Stadia could be superior to a local experience in certain eyes." In that blind test, you could "hardly tell what was local and what was remote," according to Land.

The company also sees big benefits in the reduced friction of users not having to download game files and the added security of the game binary not being exposed to the end-user.

241

DC Gamer Club / Re: Stadia Google

« Last post by Nod5 on March 23, 2019, 04:47 PM »

I like it. I don't play much, only a few Steam games now and then and with a lower end GPU. Every time I do play the Steam client is annoyingly slow to start and always has to download updates first. Understandable since it was weeks/months since the last use, but still a wait. I'd gladly skip upgrading the GPU again in a few years time and by then instead switch to some Stadia type game streaming service if it is like Netflix: pay for a month and play anything in some basic package. I'd accept a little extra latency for that gain in convenience.

I'm curious how Stadia, if it becomes a thing, could shake up the currently walled in console platforms. Might for example Nintendo get on board and offer Switch games through the service?

242

Find And Run Robot / Re: #filecontents FILEPATH -- how does it work?

« Last post by Nod5 on March 06, 2019, 04:17 PM »

I've now tested the beta. Sorry for the delay mouser. I tested the portable version on a Windows 10 64bit PC.

#filecontents
I confirm that the icon problem is now solved. Nice!

Aside: I know that FARR isn't unicode compatible, but it would be useful to remind users of that near #filecontents in the helpfile (and similarly for the fileresults command in helpfile). For the record, this is what happens with files with non-ANSI:
- If a .txt used with #filecontents has utf-8 encoding then non-ascii characters are garbled, as expected.
- If the .txt is utf-8 BOM encoded there is an additional issue, less expected: the lines/filepaths from from the .txt are shown in FARR (non-ascii characters still garbled) but the first item in the results list also has no icon. If I select that first item then the statusbar shows the filepath but with a prefix of 3 garbled letters. I suspect FARR is tripped up by the BOM part at the start of the file.

fileresults
It works as expected in my small tests. For example this

[Select]

appcap C:\test\test.exe ;;; fileresults C:\test\test.txt

where test.exe was a compiled AutoHotkey script that appends a line to the test.txt file

[Select]

FileAppend, `ntesting, % A_ScriptDir "\test.txt"

Adding an extra sleep command also works

[Select]

appcap C:\test\test.exe ;;; sleep 2000 ;;; fileresults C:\test\test.txt

I noticed also that the fileresults command skips all blank lines in the .txt file, which is good.

I'll post again later if I run into any issue when using the fileresults command in more complex aliases. But looking very good so far!

appcapresults
I tested this very briefly. Worked when the application printed all of its output immediately in one go.
For example running ping.exe without parameters prints a few lines of help text in the cmd window. Those lines show up in FARR if we run this alias

[Select]

appcapresults ping.exe

But this on the other hand does not work

[Select]

appcapresults ping.exe google.com

After a second an error popup shows with the text "Error: Access violation at address 00598228 in module 'FindAndRunRobot.exe'. Read of address 656D696C." Perhaps the problem is that ping.exe outputs lines incrementally as it gets results back from the ping and FARR's appcapresults expects the output all at once?

But perhaps this test is contrieved and unlike what the appcapresults was meant to do? I don't plan to use the appcapresults command myself so only tested with the first command line tool that came to mind. Anyway, might be good to handle that error somehow or warn in the helpfile against using apppcapresults with external tools that outputs lines incrementally (if that is the problem here).

243

Post New Requests Here / Re: Does any folder in tree have more than one file in it?

« Last post by Nod5 on March 03, 2019, 12:52 PM »

Wonder if you can 'and' in a not 0 file count also?

-4wd (March 02, 2019, 05:23 PM)

Yep, this works

[Select]

"C:\base folder\" !childfilecount:1 !childfilecount:0

but nkormanik found the shorter

[Select]

"C:\base folder\" childfilecount:>1

Sooo many additional options as well.  Never knew.

-nkormanik (March 02, 2019, 11:50 PM)

Indeed, Everything just keeps on giving. It is in that sweet spot of having a simple looking UI yet is very rich in features and syntax options. I actually didn't know about the childfilecount: command until I read this thread and thought "I bet Everything has some way or other to do this". 

I noticed there is a difference between

[Select]

"C:\base folder\" !childfilecount:1 !childfilecount:0

and

[Select]

"C:\base folder\" childfilecount:>1

The former lists both the matching folders and their files, but the latter only lists the folders. This means that there are two different workflows to choose among
1. find the list of matching folders and then manually open matching folders in Explorer one at a time and delete unwanted files.
2. find the list of all *files* in matching folders, sort the Everything list by Path and manually delete unwanted files one at a time directly in Everything.
For workflow 2 the search could be one of these

[Select]

"C:\base folder\" !childfilecount:1 !childfilecount:0 file:

[Select]

"C:\base folder\" !childfilecount:1 !childfilecount:0 ext:mp3

[Select]

"C:\base folder\" !childfilecount:1 !childfilecount:0 audio:

244

Post New Requests Here / Re: Does any folder in tree have more than one file in it?

« Last post by Nod5 on March 02, 2019, 05:04 AM »

Not a script but the file search tool Everything supports the syntax to find all folders that contain a specific number of files

Code: Text [Select]

1. childfilecount:<count>

See https://www.voidtool...verything/searching/
You can combine that with restricting the search to some base folder and negate the syntax (to show only folders that contain not 1 file) and only list the matching folders in the results view.

Code: Text [Select]

1. "C:\base folder\" !childfilecount:1 folder:

245

Find And Run Robot / Re: #filecontents FILEPATH -- how does it work?

« Last post by Nod5 on February 18, 2019, 04:04 PM »

I'll have time to test the beta later this week.

246

Find And Run Robot / Re: #filecontents FILEPATH -- how does it work?

« Last post by Nod5 on February 06, 2019, 04:34 AM »

I will try to get this implemented this weekend, with a single command that will run a script/exe and grab its output as a list of results to show.

-mouser (February 04, 2019, 04:40 AM)

Nice! Though I think it would be more versatile if #filecontents was made compatible with ;;; and multiple virtual strings on a results line in the alias setup. That way we could do

[Select]

example | dolaunch appcap C:\program.exe ;;; #filecontents C:\text.txt

where FARR waits for the first command (run a program that outputs something to text.txt) to finish before processing the #filecontents command which imports each line in text.txt as a line to show in FARR's results window.

More versatile since the stdout from many tools isn't in a format compatible with FARR's #filecontents command. If the above method was added then we could work around that by inserting a step that first reformats the text.txt to be compatible with the #filecontents command.

[Select]

example 2 | dolaunch appcap C:\program.exe ;;; appcap C:\script.ahk ;;; #filecontents C:\text.txt

BTW a small bug with #filecontents:
If a line in the text.txt file isn't an existing filepath, but instead some text string, it will erroneously reuse the icon from the previous results line. For example if text.txt contains

[Select]

C:\image.jpg
some text message
C:\image2.jpg

then all three results lines will show the icon for jpg images. It would be better if the middle results line didn't show any icon at all.

247

N.A.N.Y. 2019 / Re: NANY 2019 Release: SCURLed

« Last post by Nod5 on January 10, 2019, 07:04 AM »

Nice work skwire!

Is it by design that the filename of .url files cannot be edited (that editbox is grayed out when I run the program)?

248

Find And Run Robot / Re: Open alias/group in notepad++

« Last post by Nod5 on January 10, 2019, 06:05 AM »

a way to edit aliases in Notepad++ without having to go through options windows. And of course have FARR reload edited aliases.

-ahkscript (January 09, 2019, 10:17 PM)

Ok, here is a quick fix to do that.
Caveats: you'll have to manually edit xml formatted data and you won't be able to disable/enable aliases but can edit/create/remove.

Step 1: create a new FARR alias
Change "<username>" and perhaps the path strings below to match those on your PC

name: notepad++ myaliases edit
regex: ^ali$
results:
edit aliases in notepad++ | C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\notepad++.exe C:\Users\<username>\Documents\DonationCoder\FindAndRunRobot\AliasGroups\MyCustom\myaliases.alias

Step 2: make this AutoHotkey helper script start with Windows
When control+s is pressed in Notepad++ and the active file is named myaliases.alias and FindAndRunRobot.exe is running then the script exits FARR, performs the save and then restarts FARR. In all other cases control+s should perform a normal save in Notepad++.

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. #NoEnv
2. SendMode Input
3. SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%
4. #SingleInstance force
5.  
6. ;farr_notepad++_helper_script
7.  
8. farr := "C:\Program Files (x86)\FindAndRunRobot\FindAndRunRobot.exe"
9.  
10. #IfWinActive ahk_exe notepad++.exe
11. ^s::
12. WinGetActiveTitle, win_title
13. if RegExMatch(win_title, "^.+\myaliases.alias - Notepad..$") and processExist("FindAndRunRobot.exe")
14. {
15.   ;if notepad++ active tab is myaliases.alias and FARR process exist
16.   ;then exit FARR, apply save, silently restart FARR
17.   RunWait "%farr%" -exit
18.   send ^s
19.   sleep 100
20.   Run "%farr%" -hide
21. }
22. else
23.   send ^s
24. return
25. #IfWinActive
26.  
27. ;function: check if process exists
28. processExist(process_name){
29.   process,exist,% process_name
30.   return errorLevel ;PID or 0
31. }

Create a backup of your myaliases.alias before testing this in case you or the script unexpectedly mess upp the file.

An alternative to the always running hotkey script in step 2 is to create another FARR alias that only temporarily runs a script with the same exit save restart steps if the last active window before FARR was notepad++ with myaliases.alias open. In this alternative you'd instead of control+s use a FARR alias to initiate the save.

249

Find And Run Robot / Re: Open alias/group in notepad++

« Last post by Nod5 on January 09, 2019, 01:28 PM »

You can already send FARR a windows message (or is it commandline call) to make it RELOAD its aliases after you have changed them outside of FARR.. Let me look it up and tell you how to do that..

-mouser (January 09, 2019, 09:46 AM)

I'm all ears about windows messages for FARR, haven't tried that method. Before using the exit-edit-start method I tried editing while FARR was running and then sending the special string "goareload" to the FARR editbox , but that it isn't silent (FARR must be open and FARR also forces the special string agroups afterwards) and cannot handle enabling/disabling aliases I think since FARR will override the disabled/enabled change from memory or .ini. Previous thread on that here https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=45199.0

250

Find And Run Robot / Re: Open alias/group in notepad++

« Last post by Nod5 on January 09, 2019, 06:27 AM »

FWIW I'm (slowly) working on an AutoHotkey helper program to replace FARR's built in methods for editing aliases. Not ready for release yet, but working good so far in my test use. Some features:
- jump directly to alias editor window from FARR
- search/filter box with live filter (very useful when you have a lot of aliases)
- some syntax syggestions in the alias edit window
- shortcuts to create regex aliases
- FARR is still usable while the alias editor window is open

Here are some notes on where and in what format FARR stores its aliases, based on me testing things and from looking around in FARR files. Mouser can correct me if I'm wrong on anything here.

FARR stores aliases in .alias XML files. The default user file is

[Select]

<MyDocuments> \DonationCoder\FindAndRunRobot\AliasGroups\MyCustom\myaliases.alias

other FARR settings including the list of disabled (uncheckboxed) aliases are in

[Select]

C:\Users\ <user> \Documents\DonationCoder\FindAndRunRobot\FindAndRunRobot.ini

You can edit the .alias file in Notepad++ or any code editor, but it is a bit clunky to manually edit .xml. However if you for example want to change a folder path in a lot of aliases then it'll be easy to do a find/replace all in this file.

Some more notes on interacting with the above files:
- Edits to myaliases.alias have effect when FARR starts.
- Important: FARR adds to .alias the line "<Disabled>true</Disabled>" for each disabled alias. But that only mirrors the authoritative setting in FindAndRunRobot.ini > [Settings] > DisabledAliasStrings
- Edits to FindAndRunRobot.ini only stick when made while FARR is not running, otherwise FARR restores the old values from working memory.

To prevent FARR from restoring old values use this method to change aliases from an external script:
1 exit FARR  (commandline -exit)
2 edit .alias / .ini and save
3 run FARR   (commandline -hide)

Edit: it is easy to mess up with direct edits to the .alias / .ini files so make sure you create backups of them first.