Recent Posts

26

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS Feature Request: Switch to "New" folder on certain hot-key actions

« Last post by superticker on September 17, 2012, 04:05 PM »

Have you tried searching the entire clip database for the text to see if maybe its just going into the wrong group?

-mouser (September 17, 2012, 03:41 PM)

I'll try that next time it fails. That's an interesting idea.

Since the CTRL-C function works correctly, why not simply have the CTRL-ALT-C function call the CTRL-C function as a subroutine, then open the CHS window with "New" folder selected? In other words, simplify the code to fix the hidden problem.

27

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Append function

« Last post by superticker on September 17, 2012, 03:42 PM »

appending clips was going to be added to CHS, has this been done?

-delgado92651 (September 17, 2012, 02:14 PM)

I think the existing merge function is much more powerful than any append function because you can selectively pick which clips you want to merge and which can be ignored (as append mistakes). And with the SHIFT key, you can quickly select contiguous clips to merge.

I wouldn't add too many redundant features; otherwise, CHS could get too confusing.

28

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS Feature Request: Switch to "New" folder on certain hot-key actions

« Last post by superticker on September 17, 2012, 03:19 PM »

As for the not always capturing--that sounds like a real bug i haven't seen.. Any more clues about it?

-mouser (September 17, 2012, 02:12 PM)

You worked on this bug before about 1.5 years ago, and the fixes you added did improve it. But occasionally, it still fails. What I can tell you is the capture sound always plays even when CTRL-ALT-C fails to capture anything. I'm usually doing this capturing in my email client (Courier) to correct spelling, although other apps are affected as well. I'm running Windows XP SP3 and CHS 2.11.01.

I'm mentioning this bug now because you'll be looking in this area of the code again when adding the switch to "New" folder feature.

Since the sounds always plays and the CHS window always comes to the front (as expected), I'm now wondering if the clip is put on the Windows clipboard buffer okay, but the clip just occasionally fails to show up in the "New" folder for some reason when CTRL-ALT-C is used? I guess I could try a paste operation upon failure and report back to you. Give it a couple weeks to happen again, then I'll report back.

29

Clipboard Help+Spell / CHS Feature Request: Switch to "New" folder on certain hot-key actions

« Last post by superticker on September 17, 2012, 10:35 AM »

Whenever I add a new clip via CTRL-ALT-C, and the Clipboard Help+Spell window opens, it's not always on the "New" folder as expected. It would be nice if it automatically switched to the "New" folder with this hot-key action.

I'm not so sure, however, if it should switch to the "New" folder with a CTRL-C action alone.  I'll have to think about that.  I think the switching to the "New" folder should only happen when the hot-key action grabs a new clip and presents the CHS window altogether.

There's still a bug present (from a year or so ago) in the CTRL-ALT-C hot key where the clip-capture sound is played, but the new clip isn't actually captured. The work around solution is to use a CTRL-C followed by a CTRL-ALT-C combination to capture clips and bring the CHS window up front. This work around works well.

30

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS: New Formatting Dialog

« Last post by superticker on October 09, 2011, 10:54 AM »

A saved preset saves/applies ALL formatting on all tabs.

-mouser (October 09, 2011, 10:35 AM)

I have an operational question. How can you make creating/using presets intuitive if saving a preset means saving across multiple tabs? In my mind, this design is counter intuitive. (I wonder if Steve Jobs would approve?)

Maybe you could group all the formatting operations that are commonly done together on a single tab. If that's done, then this issue is moot. This also means minimizing the number of tabs in the UI design.

31

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS: New Formatting Dialog

« Last post by superticker on October 09, 2011, 10:23 AM »

I think you need something in the middle. The new design has too many tabs, but the old design doesn't have enough. Maybe create just three tabs where related items are grouped together.

This also brings up another issue. If the changes you want to make require operations on two different tabs, does that now mean you have define (and execute) two separate PreFormat definitions to get all these changes?

32

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Quick CHS Tip: Pasting current clip as plaintext

« Last post by superticker on September 18, 2011, 02:48 PM »

Because CHS works with plain text clips, the easiest way to ... [paste the last clip as plain text], instead of pasting with the normal system CTRL+V hotkey, just bring up the CHS quickpaste menu (defaults to Ctrl+Alt+Q), and select the most recent clip (usually bound to shortcut key '1').

-mouser (September 18, 2011, 02:27 PM)

Just to clarify, the MS Windows clipboard works independently from CHS and preserves all text formatting. So what you're doing above is washing the clip through CHS to sanitize out the text formatting otherwise saved in the Windows clipboard. That converts it to plain text.

When I first started using CHS, I mistakenly thought the Windows clipboard and the CHS clipboard were the same; they are not.

33

Living Room / Re: what are the merits and limitations of the different types of flash memory?

« Last post by superticker on September 06, 2011, 11:44 PM »

This is why solid state drives are purchased primarily for read applications (e.g. a web server) and not write applications (e.g. a database server). The solid state drive will really speed up any read-application heavy work.

-superticker (August 22, 2011, 09:38 PM)

I can assure you that today's solid-state drives are purchased for write-intensive applications as well, and they really do shine there compared to magnetic storage drives too - the management firmware doesn't "just" do remapping to reduce wear & tear, they also stripe the data across flash channels to achieve higher speed.

But there's that detail with pendrives vs. sata devices again.

-f0dder (September 01, 2011, 12:02 PM)

It might be the SATA drives use DRAM (with battery backup) rather than flash; otherwise, you would have a really high failure rate in write intensive applications. I do know the SATA solid-state drives fail much more than their mechanical counter parts, and they fail without warning. That seems odd to me for a flash failure, but it would make sense in a DRAM design if the battery backup suddenly failed.

Come to think about it, it makes more sense to use DRAM over flash in a SATA drive design just because flash write speeds are so slow and their write times can be somewhat non-deterministic because of the MM firmware execution involved.

34

Living Room / Re: what are the merits and limitations of the different types of flash memory?

« Last post by superticker on August 22, 2011, 09:38 PM »

No wonder that random-writes are slow,...

-f0dder (August 22, 2011, 03:02 PM)

Writes are slow in flash memory for important reasons. For today's flash, you can only write in the same physical memory location 15,000 times before that location will fail (because of a silicon metal state change). (That number was 10,000 times about 6 years ago.) So to prevent writing in the same location all the time, there's memory management (MM) firmware to map the writes evenly across the entire physical address space. So you need to factor the execution time of that MM firmware into the write speed.

This is why solid state drives are purchased primarily for read applications (e.g. a web server) and not write applications (e.g. a database server). The solid state drive will really speed up any read-application heavy work.

35

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: No html / wysiwyg support?

« Last post by superticker on August 02, 2011, 08:22 AM »

I'll try to add more formats like html/rtf later this year.

-mouser (August 02, 2011, 07:19 AM)

I wish the desktop version of The Form Letter Machine had an XML format so I could import data from the web version. Actually, with an XML format, one could convert to any other format (like HTML) or XML schema (like RSS). And since Windows Vista, Windows is able to compress those verbose XML files nicely.

36

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: V2 Beta of Clipboard Help+Spell With Support for Images

« Last post by superticker on March 08, 2011, 01:48 PM »

Just three questions:

• How is the new image features for Clipboard Help+Spell going to be any different from Screenshot Captor?
• Would it make more sense to enhance Screenshot Captor so it would work more like Clipboard Help+Spell for images?
• After enhancements, could COM/OLE calls be added so the two programs could work seamlessly together to manage images?

37

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: V2 Beta of Clipboard Help+Spell With Support for Images

« Last post by superticker on March 08, 2011, 12:47 PM »

... ready to add image support to Clipboard Help+Spell, iff it's something enough people really want.

-mouser (March 08, 2011, 11:49 AM)

There are two different problems here: (1) Image capture and (2) image archiving/photo album. I would start by creating an image photo album program (with plugins for the different image formats), then add image capture to it later.  I would leave Clipboard Help+Spell out of it.

Another approach would involve changing the name of Clipboard Help+Spell to something with "image clip" in it, then temporarily add the feature only to spin the feature off later into an image archiving program. But this seems like an awkward approach to me.

At any rate, you can always implement COM/DCOM calls (Microsoft OLE) so that both Clipboard Help+Spell and the image archiving program can talk to one another just as MS Word and MS Excel work together as a seamless solution. My only reservation is that the API for COM/OLE is so darn complicated beyond the "standard services," OPEN, PRINT, WRITE.  You almost need a Microsoft architect to design the calling sequences.

38

Living Room / Smartphones get NFC chips for wireless credit card payments

« Last post by superticker on February 21, 2011, 02:57 PM »

Instead of using your credit or debit smart card to pay with, Near Field Communications (NFC) chips are now being added to smartphones. It's estimated the new smartphones coming out at the end of 2011 (iPhone 4 maybe) will have them. The Google's Nexus S already does. Now we need to encourage PayPal to process these wireless NFC transactions.

Read about NFC chips in cell phones.

39

Living Room / Micropayments now officially supported by PayPal

« Last post by superticker on February 13, 2011, 01:26 AM »

PayPal now officially supports 3 types of micropayments, which include (1) one-time micropayments, (2) pay-as-you-go, and (3) subscription models. One can make payments with two clicks of a mouse without leaving the vendor's website. See this Yahoo news article for more information.

40

The Form Letter Machine / Re: Importing an XML data (tree) file

« Last post by superticker on November 10, 2010, 02:02 PM »

... nervous about using the web technology in the desktop version, but on the other hand there are lots of neat things you can do with the web version that would be nice to bring into desktop version, and i really don't want to be maintaining two separate systems.  Having a single shared data and rendering system just seems more sensible ...

-mouser (November 10, 2010, 01:24 PM)

I would maintain a single source-code base regardless of what you do.

There are two very different options:
1) There are some tools that will turn a desktop application into a web application. They work okay, but you have to install a special run-time library.

2) Since most people already have the Java virtual machine installed, it may make more sense to just use Java coding for everything. The Web side can do everything in Java applets or beans. And Java has a nice database facility to work from. My only concern is:

2a) Java applications execute very slowly.
2b) I'm not sure where Java is going now that Oracle owns it.

41

The Form Letter Machine / Re: Importing an XML data (tree) file

« Last post by superticker on November 10, 2010, 01:16 PM »

tflm doesn't support xml import (yet).... importing xml back into the form letter machine is more troublesome...

-mouser (November 10, 2010, 11:00 AM)

Most SQL interfaces/databases can go either way. I'm not sure why the database for TFLM would be different.

... and there is a question of whether i should re-write a Form Letter Machine 2 from scratch, rather than try to improve it around the edges.

-mouser (November 10, 2010, 11:00 AM)

So what are the issues surrounding this question? What's wrong with the current design for extensibility, and in what way would a new design architecture be more extensible?

Were you going to switch to a different SQL database that supports XML imports/exports in both directions? Would this new SQL database also be used in other DonotationCoder applications (including JavaScript Web 2.0 apps) enabling collaboration? (Did some users request groupware features?)

The current program works well for my needs.

42

The Form Letter Machine / Importing an XML data (tree) file

« Last post by superticker on November 10, 2010, 10:57 AM »

I needed to make some global spelling changes in one of my Form Letter Machine data files.  So I exported it as an XML file and made the global substitutions in my XML editor. Now I'm trying to figure out how to import the edited XML file back into The Form Letter Machine. The Form Letter Machine seems to open with the old binary data file even when I click on the newly edited XML data file. How do I import the newly edited XML file?

43

Living Room / Micropayments to DonationCoder could be possible through new PayPal service

« Last post by superticker on August 13, 2010, 04:08 PM »

PayPal is going to introduce a new, low-cost, micropayment service. This would allow making small payments to DonationCoder instead of using DonationCredits as it does now. Yahoo news article: PayPal introduces micropayment service

Honestly, I don't mind using DonationCredits. I usually buy some (say $25 worth) when I want to donate for a new software program I'm using. I give $20 for the program, and I keep the other $5 for future individual donations.

I wonder if the PayPal micropayment service would be more popular than the DonationCredits that DonationCoder uses now? Not everyone uses PayPal, although many people do.

44

The Form Letter Machine / Re: Choosing the right XML export schema

« Last post by superticker on November 21, 2009, 01:54 AM »

can you try to explain this a little more to me

-mouser (November 20, 2009, 11:03 PM)

The goal here is to export an RSS 2.0 "event" feed (XML output) of upcoming events. A second goal is to export an hCalendar microformat output (XHTML/CSS output) that can be posted on the event calendar page of a website.

To accomplish this, the top folder level must define different events with required local variables like %date%, %time% (required for hCalendar) as well as local user-defined variables such as %location%, %price%, etc. for a given event.  A create-event macro can be use to create a new event at the root level and define its local variables.

A check box on each event folder (root level) can indicate if this event is active or inactive (pasted).  Only active events will be included in the exports. (Alternatively, it might be nice to group similar events together in root-level folders instead.  In this case, the event-level folders are just below the root-level folders.)

The subfolders in each event folder will work exactly like TFLM does today.  The only change is that local variable values (for a given event) take precedence over TFLM global variable values when they are resolved in the subfolders.

It would also be nice if the exported formats had the events sorted using the local event variable %date% and %time% as the sort keys.

Does this help make the proposed RSS Writer and microformat hCalendar Writer much clearer?  Did you need references?  I'm doing something like this today with the current TFLM, but without the hypertext tags that the RSS and hCalendar exports would include. I can send you that TFLM event tree if you like.

45

The Form Letter Machine / Choosing the right XML export schema

« Last post by superticker on November 19, 2009, 05:22 PM »

It would be great if The Form Letter Machine supported an XML schema export in either RSS 2.0 or iCalendar for online publishing of events listings.  The problem with some of these schemas is that it would be nice to extend them.  For example, some events (e.g. dances) have "locations" and "prices", but that's not part of the standard iCalendar or RSS 2.0 schema.  Those would be user-defined fields to extend these schemas.

So let's add a "create event" macro that allows a couple user defined variable fields.  The main body of each event can then be managed like TFLM would normally do (check boxes and radio buttons), but local event variables like %date%, %time%, %location%, %price% would be resolved independently for each event.  There should also be a check box to include/exclude each current/outdated event independently.

On XML export, either an RSS 2.0 or iCalendar feed can be created for the checked (enabled) events.  In addition, please include an hCalendar export, supporting microformats, that can be directly posted to a web page.

Perhaps the name of TFLM should be changed to "Extensible RSS Writer".  If there's already a product that can do this selectively like TFLM does, please post its URL.

-----

"Mini" Help & Manual application:  There's a mutually exclusive suggestion--unfortunately.  It might be desirable to employ a very rich XML schema to store TFLM's raw data.  Then its data file could be edited by other high-end tools such as Help & Manual, which uses the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) XML schema for technical documentation.  Unfortunately, this approach is an overkill for most users, and you would then need to employ an XSLT translation script to convert the DITA schema to RSS (or something) to make it usable for most people like Help & Manual does.

46

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: AntispamSniper For The Bat!

« Last post by superticker on November 17, 2009, 04:53 PM »

The advanced settings, e.g. RegExp based rules, are useful for those who receive hundreds ... of spam messages every day. Using the customized set of rules it is possible to block most of spam on the server ....

-Vetaltm (May 27, 2009, 09:12 PM)

Supporting regexp is very important when configuration a spam scanner for automatic deletion. With any other method, you can have false positives. But a skilled person that understands the mechanics of e-mail headers (and regexp's) can craft a regexp looking for a particular spammer's signature method of hiding his return path in the header. In these cases, you can safely delete his spam.

Regexp's can work other ways. For example, I use the regexp

[Select]

regexp{  Date:[^+-]+(\+[01].|-.[0-29]).0  }

to test for foreign time zones like +0100. Time zones in the US run between -0400 and -0800 generally. Of course, not all foreign email is spam, so this needs to be ANDed with other rules.

47

The Form Letter Machine / Future features & formats for The Forms Letter Machine

« Last post by superticker on November 17, 2009, 02:47 PM »

Did you see the new online version (www.tfdocs.com)?

-mouser (November 17, 2009, 10:23 AM)

I haven't looked at it yet, but I will. So the main idea with the online version is to collaborate with others on building a knowledge tree of answers?

Now that both web and desktop applications support XML export, perhaps the XML format should be the new native (default) application format as it is for MS Excel 2007.  If so, that brings us to a new issue.

Microsoft introduced XPF in Windows Vista to compress XML files into an object-oriented binary.  That really speeds load time for Windows Vista and 7 users. I'm not sure where it leaves Windows XP users though since XML files can be very large.

48

The Form Letter Machine / Bug report: Leading blanks truncated in variables

« Last post by superticker on November 17, 2009, 10:20 AM »

When the contents of Form Letter Machine variables start with blanks, they are truncated.  This problem was introduced to the three latest versions of the TFLM, but doesn't appear in the earlier releases.

---------

Concerning a separate problem, if a target file name is given in the shortcut that launches the TFLM, then the program is exited without saving the output file (i.e. without using the Close button), a 0K output file is created on the disk. It would be nice if this empty file was just deleted.

49

General Software Discussion / RoboPublisher for publishing events to calendars & 4sale items to craigslist

« Last post by superticker on June 17, 2008, 12:55 PM »

I'm looking for an application much like RoboForm that would submit periodical events to different on-line calendars (periodicals).

It would ...

• ... need symbolic variables like %event_date%, %event_time%, %price%, %location%, that are user defined.  There could be both application global (default values for all events, e.g. %username%) and local variables for a specific event (local defs override global).
• ... have bookmark URL profiles for each on-line calendar page where symbolic variable data (event info) would be published out.  (This would similar to a RoboForm "custom page" using symbolic variables.  One or two "semi-global" variables might be assigned here, e.g. %site-password%.)
• ... have a profile definition for each periodical event to be posted defining which above bookmark URLs to publish this information to (on demand).  (Sort of like a RoboForm "identity profile" for an event.)  All "local" symbolic variables would be assigned values in these event profiles.

RoboForm has a SDK for developing such an application, but I don't really have time to write one.  However, I think a RoboPublisher app would be very popular!  Does anyone know of a RoboPublisher app already around?  If so, could this RoboPublisher also the used to publish different for-sale items say on craigslist and eBay as well?

For those interested, there is an online publishing tool discussed here, but it only works for craigslist.

50

Clipboard Help+Spell / Redirecting the userdata tree directory on pre-Vista OSes

« Last post by superticker on October 17, 2007, 12:03 PM »

... for [V1.16.X, the user] database ... will go into the user's My Documents directory if that has been configured as the location in the program config.  For Vista, this is now default.  For XP, it still defaults to the program directory, but you can manually change it by editing ConfigDir.ini in the program directory.

So if I create the file %ProgramFiles%\TheFormLetterMachine\configdir.ini and place the string: %APPDATA%\TheFormLetterMachine inside, will that redirect the userdata directory for all Windows accounts to their respective My Documents directories?  I'm assuming it will create the require directory in My Documents if it doesn't already exist.

This feature seems to be missing in the V1.16.01 Help file.