Recent Posts

2301

General Software Discussion / Re: Q-Dir (File Manager)

« Last post by rjbull on April 17, 2008, 09:58 AM »

I took a very quick look; it's definitely one of the souped-up-Explorer ones, as opposed to Norton Commander ones.  Most unusual feature seems to be up to four directories on one screen.  The only one I've seen with more is mtExplorer with up to six, and free and portable, though its feature set is minimal.

I don't think I'd use Q-Dir partly because it seems not to have a built-in file-finder, something I expect in a file manager.  Depends on what you want.  If you stick to freeware, it's up against very capable alternatives such as XYplorer, which is based on file-finding.

2302

General Software Discussion / Re: My favorite software! What's yours?

« Last post by rjbull on April 14, 2008, 10:36 AM »

Other than that I think MemPad is the strangest program I can think of. You have to forget everything you ever thought you knew about how to create a note, in order to use this weird program! Or were all of my problems with MemPad maybe because of unavailable hotkeys, or my unstable PC? Hmm...

-Curt (April 14, 2008, 08:41 AM)

No problem here with Alt-Ins or Ctrl-Alt-Ins?  And you have the two buttons just to the right of the "NEW:" button?

2303

General Software Discussion / Re: My favorite software! What's yours?

« Last post by rjbull on April 11, 2008, 04:52 AM »

Mempad's lack of unicode is a deal breaker for me though. And the author said it was an incredibly hard thing to implement it in mempad and couldn't promise it in future release.

-najja (April 10, 2008, 04:39 AM)

Unicode doesn't bother me, but if you use other than European languages, I suppose you have little choice 

Did you look at the minipad2 mentioned in this DC thread?  I don't know it has Unicode, but it's made in China, so presume Unicode is necessary.  I can't access minipad2's Web site at present, though.

2304

Coding Snacks / Re: IDEA: Ability to set certain programs/windows to open and close in unison

« Last post by rjbull on April 11, 2008, 04:43 AM »

when AU3 Spy gets focus, you can press the down key to select all text.

-lanux128 (April 10, 2008, 10:47 AM)

Thanks!  I didn't know that.  DC's a great place for sharing know-how 

another good alternative is AHK Window Info 0.9 which is being actively developed by toralf at the AHK forums.

Thanks again...  I sometimes use ShoWin or WinScraper, but they don't always work.  The Window Info built into PowerPro also doesn't have a way of saving the data automatically, thought there's a script to do it that I haven't tried.

2305

Coding Snacks / Re: IDEA: Ability to set certain programs/windows to open and close in unison

« Last post by rjbull on April 10, 2008, 03:47 AM »

you can use the "AU3 Spy" program that is available with Autohotkey.

-lanux128 (April 09, 2008, 09:20 PM)

Lanux128,

Is there a direct way to save the AU3 Spy information to a file?  Or do you just have to run the mouse over the AU3 Spy window to mark the text and save it via the clipboard?

2306

General Software Discussion / Re: My favorite software! What's yours?

« Last post by rjbull on April 10, 2008, 03:38 AM »

One of my absolute favourites was just updated, rewritten from scratch:

Some features that will appear in future versions: support of portable mode, search through the whole database, automatic backup, Drag&Drop of Notes on the tree.
/quote]

And, may I add, it still pops up like a flash... 

http://softvoile.com...load.php?s=news3.0fn

-Curt (April 09, 2008, 05:20 PM)

Absence of "search through whole database" would be a deal-breaker for me.  As things stand, Horst Schaeffer's MemPad has all those features (as far as I understand them) except drag & drop.  That is - small, free, fast, portable, hotkey to toggle between full screen and tray, search entire database, and you can encrypt your files if you want to.

2307

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by rjbull on April 10, 2008, 03:33 AM »

And the ability to see two directories side by side is a very key thing to me...

-wraith808 (April 09, 2008, 06:19 PM)

It's invaluable when you want to compare directories.  Twin-pane Total Commander has very good compare and synchronize features.

2308

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Instant Text V Pro - more than the usual features of a text expander

« Last post by rjbull on April 08, 2008, 06:04 AM »

Going back to the original topic - who'd have thought of that?     I see Instant Text has a per-user license, see their ordering page.  That makes the steep price rather more tolerable.

2309

General Software Discussion / Re: Your experiences with disc catalogers and most wanted/used features

« Last post by rjbull on April 07, 2008, 10:02 AM »

Lazycat [...] Try to get V1.2beta.

-Crush (April 06, 2008, 09:03 AM)

Do you have a link for that, please?  I only seemed to find 1.1a.

2310

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Locate 3.0 - great *FAST* HD search tool!

« Last post by rjbull on April 04, 2008, 09:53 AM »

see this post https://www.donation...49.msg86938#msg86938

Is locate better than XYplorer or not? What is the difference in their implementations? This is intriguing. If it turns out that a file manager indexes files as well, then it might be easier to use that one combined utility!...

-vixay (March 27, 2008, 05:50 AM)

Theyr'e different...  Locae32 is indexed, XYplorer has very good non-indexed search.  So does Total Commander, but someone still wrote a plug-in to use Locate32 inside TC, presenting results in a TC pane.

2311

Find And Run Robot / Re: Passing text to batch file.

« Last post by rjbull on April 04, 2008, 03:31 AM »

brimstone,

I take it you're talking about the LOGECHO.COM in Horst Schaeffer's freeware batch file enhancer collection PBATS?

2312

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by rjbull on April 04, 2008, 03:26 AM »

Now assign Ctrl+U to it and you feel real good.

-DonL (April 03, 2008, 10:38 AM)

Done!  It just gets better and better!   

One small thing; if I go to Help -> About, XYplorer shows my registration details, including the full plain text of my license key.  Did you intend that, as it's then  possible for someone to sneak a look at my computer behind my back and copy the key?  I'm more used to seeing the key hidden, or at least masked with asterisks.

2313

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by rjbull on April 03, 2008, 10:28 AM »

So it works as expected?

-DonL (April 02, 2008, 09:53 AM)

Yes!  Full UNC filename+path now copied to clipboard, e.g

[Select]

\\gbmnppfs001\groups\technical\Library\Articles\The_European_Ink_Report_March_2008.mht

Many thanks!   

I'm now a registered user   

2314

General Software Discussion / Re: Download Demons...

« Last post by rjbull on April 03, 2008, 04:06 AM »

there is nothing really that different about the different download managers, they all do segments, browser integration and even look about the same.

-MrCrispy (April 02, 2008, 11:22 PM)

The differences can still be important, though, like whether they support proxy.pac files or not     And IDM has a nice extra, a Site Grabber feature to grab entire Web sites for offline browsing.

2315

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by rjbull on April 02, 2008, 09:42 AM »

I think the for-pay version should have full UNC support, as XYplorer is a good tool for sysadmins, the more so for being portable, and they would really need that.

-rjbull (April 02, 2008, 03:44 AM)

I think so, too, and added it. Check out the next beta version available in the user forum.

-DonL (April 02, 2008, 04:37 AM)

Thanks!   That's great 

2316

General Software Discussion / Re: Download Demons...

« Last post by rjbull on April 02, 2008, 04:05 AM »

IDM Con's:

-Falcon_four (December 27, 2007, 05:22 PM)

Doesn't work with proxy.pac files, either 

2317

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by rjbull on April 02, 2008, 03:44 AM »

Okay, just to make sure: You are talking about the command File / To Clipboard / Item Path/Name(s), right? And there should be one more: File / To Clipboard / Item UNCPath/Name(s), which of course only makes any sense when used on mapped drives. That should be easy to add...

-DonL (April 01, 2008, 05:33 AM)

Yes!  I just wanted to be able to clip names+full paths to the clipboard to e-mail to other people in a form most likely to work for them, whatever their local drive mappings.

I should confess...  I'm not a registered user of XYplorer (yet), and I wouldn't expect all features to be present in the free version.  But, I think the for-pay version should have full UNC support, as XYplorer is a good tool for sysadmins, the more so for being portable, and they would really need that.

2318

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by rjbull on April 01, 2008, 05:27 AM »

UNC no, the rest yes. Simply hide the columns or drag them to the order you like.

-DonL (December 11, 2007, 04:42 AM)

Thanks, DonL!

Suggest you consider UNC for the paid version,  though.

-rjbull (December 11, 2007, 05:55 AM)

You mean to automatically translate the mapped paths, or to add another column for the UNC versions of the mappings?

-DonL (April 01, 2008, 01:22 AM)

I should have been clearer in the first place...  If there has to be a choice, I presume I'd have to plump for the latter.  The scenario is that on the network at work, I need to know what the UNC versions are so I can paste them into e-mails, so recipients can be sure of getting a clickable link to the target file.  That's all, really.

2319

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by rjbull on March 14, 2008, 05:52 AM »

One thing to note about Seeker is that it DOES search within files, which may be why it was taking longer than SearchGT.

-Darwin (March 13, 2008, 03:49 PM)

For speed in looking inside files, you'd have a hard time beating BareGrep Pro or plain BareGrep if you don't need the integrated viewer.  Plain strings or regexps, but sadly no Boolean searching.

2320

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by rjbull on March 14, 2008, 05:48 AM »

Singing the praises of an app that a software addict such as myself can't actually try out is like waving a red flag at a bull.

-Darwin (March 13, 2008, 04:02 PM)

Back in the DOS days, I tried a lot of shareware.  The scenario was often that I'd try several things in one session, only looking at them superficially, and binning them rapidly if they didn't solve the immediate problem.  Then, a few months later, I'd have a slightly different problem, and think hmmm, didn't that such-and-such program say it did that?  And re-test as appropriate.  Because it was DOS, uninstalling almost invariably removed all traces of the program and one could start an evaluation period all over from scratch.  I wasn't trying to rip anyone off, but I don't usually have time or inclination for exhaustive tests, nor can I always see ahead to the next problem.

But the Windows Registry has changed all that.  Software producers have a means of ruthlessly and mindlessly enforcing their policies, as if I had a continuous 30 days or whatever to test their software.  In other words, it's a damn sight harder to test software than it used to be, and more expensive.  I don't really have an answer to that, but miss the good old times...   

2321

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Specialized anti-idle and 'modem booster'

« Last post by rjbull on March 13, 2008, 05:12 AM »

Given the hoops you're trying to jump through with limited resources, would it be easier just to change your ISP?

2322

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Specialized anti-idle and 'modem booster'

« Last post by rjbull on March 12, 2008, 09:37 AM »

I don't understand the sound bit, but could you do the http:// part by launching any old download manager, and setting its scheduler to download a non-existent page or file from a Web site that does exist, repeating as often as needed?

For a keep-awake utility, I used Caffeine by Zhorn Software, much better known as the maker of Stickies.

2323

Mouser's Zone / Re: Multi-browser Bookmark Synchronization Tool and Other Multi-Browser Ideas?

« Last post by rjbull on March 12, 2008, 05:06 AM »

I tried really hard to like website watcher but it's just not made for me - on paper I should just love it but it's too much setup work and then it still managed to puzzle me. Mostly I have tons of bookmarks I check once in a blue moon and just want for reference so I can find them again, and a tiny number of sites i check regularly. It was just too much work to set them all up so it wouldnt show me whenever things i am not interested in are changed...

-iphigenie (March 08, 2008, 05:54 PM)

I agree that WebSite-Watcher isn't made specifically as a bookmark tool, only suggesting it because I thought you had it anyway.  But, I don't think it's hard to use for its main job.  All you need do is put the bookmarks you check often into a folder by drag-and-drop or whatever, and press F9 on that folder when you want its contents checked.  All your other pages can go in an "Inactive" folder, left alone until needed again.

2324

Mouser's Zone / Re: Multi-browser Bookmark Synchronization Tool and Other Multi-Browser Ideas?

« Last post by rjbull on March 08, 2008, 03:17 PM »

I registered LinkStash a while back now, and like it, but it may not have all the features you want.  It now has duplicate detection and dead link checking - I think, haven't tried them - and a good license.  Adding URLs from your browser is done by user-definable hotkey.

iphigenie, if I remember correctly, you're a big fan of Martin Aignesberger's programs.  Have you tried simply using WebSite-Watcher as your bookmark manager?  It puts that little icon at the top of your browser and functions are available from there.

2325

Official Announcements / Re: The site is now back online (March 6th, 2008)

« Last post by rjbull on March 07, 2008, 08:37 AM »

Yes,
BIG THANKs to ALL, mouser Gothic wordzilla for all the hard work

I guess you guys are still busy (or sleeping)
but if you get a chance

...please take this time to walk outside and remember what your family looks like.

-tomos (March 07, 2008, 02:19 AM)

+1.  but I thought DC was pretty close to being family...   

-rjbull (March 07, 2008, 03:16 AM)

I confess ...
I was just having a little dig at the message on the "Server is down" page -
I do get to go out and get fresh air [most]everyday...but I guess dc time often tends to come out of my work time 
having had a break can help me break that habit...
but hey it is nice to be back

-tomos (March 07, 2008, 04:57 AM)

Who'd want to break the DC habit?