Recent Posts

26501

General Software Discussion / The Great Software List

« Last post by mouser on June 24, 2007, 11:32 AM »

A ton of people came to visit us this last week to read Zaine Ridling's massive review of Word Processors, but some don't realize that Zaine is also the person who created The Great Software List:

https://web.archive..../software/index.html

In fact we've written about The Great Software list quite a few times in the past and it was somewhat of an inspiration for DonationCoder.com, but zaine has been quietly making it better and better.  If you haven't visited it recently you really need to check it out!

26502

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Choose which browser will a url from external app

« Last post by mouser on June 23, 2007, 10:52 AM »

it would also be extremely useful if you can say that certain urls (or urls open from certain programs) can launch the configured browser you've already set (without prompt), while others prompt you and let you cancel.  kind of like a browser opening firewall.

i hope here someone will write this.

26503

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Choose which browser will a url from external app

« Last post by mouser on June 23, 2007, 08:14 AM »

personally i think this is a nice idea.. essentially it's like a url-launching "proxy".
it wouldn't be too hard to do, you basically need to write a small program that registers itself as the default browser -- then it will get called to open urls.  then it's job would simply be to ask user (or use some rules to decide) which actual browser to launch with th eurl.

26504

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Lovely piece of software with one little irritation...

« Last post by mouser on June 23, 2007, 08:10 AM »

I'm not 100% sure i'm following the question/issue. Maybe you could attach a screenshot of what launchbar commander is displaying? and then tell me what you want it to display?

Did you find the custom font settings in the dock preferences tab? go to the dock you made and click on it and then at the bottom are settings for custom fonts.  Does that solve the problem? Or perhaps that is what you are saying causes the problem?

26505

Official Announcements / Re: DC-IRLDD #2: DonationCoder Real Life Dinner+Drinks, Sat 7/14, Champaign Illinois

« Last post by mouser on June 22, 2007, 04:17 PM »

josh can plan all he wants, my plan is to have snipers on the rooftop awaiting his arrival.

26506

DcUpdater / Re: DcUpdater - Coming Soon - Teaser Screenshot

« Last post by mouser on June 22, 2007, 10:55 AM »

regarding proxy: i use an open source cross-platform library called "libcurl" to do the downloading, it has it's own proxy settings.

as for agreeing on a universal format, i'll have a look.
i read your comments -- you seem to be suggesting to use pad files -- we must be thinking alike because that's always been my plan, and dcupdater will be able to check for updates by reading pad files.  However, as wordzilla pointed out to me, this could cause a huge amount of bandwidth since pad files are so big, so dcupdater now supports checking a kind of tiny pad/xml file which contains only version info.  it will be able to download the full pad file to get more detailed information if the user requests.

26507

Living Room / Re: Thank you for this site and the people here.

« Last post by mouser on June 22, 2007, 07:13 AM »

Joto's post reminded me of something -- a lot of us hang out in the irc channel and chat (via text not voice!) during the day as we work.  Anyone is welcome to join if you need some company.

You can join the discussion via the web by clicking the "chat" button at the top of the forum, or better yet install a proper irc program (mirc, xchat, etc) and join the #donationcoder channel on efnet.

26508

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.100 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - June 07, 2007

« Last post by mouser on June 22, 2007, 07:10 AM »

What version are you running diz? Do you remember what you were doing when the crash occurred?

26509

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Secondary monitor support

« Last post by mouser on June 22, 2007, 07:09 AM »

I'm afraid it currently refuses to dock on secondary monitor -- it's something i need to add.

26510

Find And Run Robot / Re: image search alias for farr

« Last post by mouser on June 21, 2007, 11:20 PM »

cool.

ps now that farr v2 supports separate alias files, i hope people will start sharing alias lists like this by creating a standalone .alias file and attaching it to their post.  makes it easier to install and keep separate and organized.

26511

Living Room / Re: Why I haven't made a donation to DonationCoder.com -- and why I might later?

« Last post by mouser on June 21, 2007, 10:55 PM »

Thanks for that post nosh..  Actually i don't think anyone expects anyone else to donate if all they do is talk/read the forum.

I mean theoretically you might donate to help pay for hosting costs, since we don't run ads, but the cost is not high enough to really make that something we would ask for.

The donations are really intended not for the forum, but to support the programmers who write the software on our site if you use that software.

See software made by people on this site here:

• https://www.donation.../Software/index.html
• http://codingsnacks.donationcoder.com

So the donations are really to support those programmers.  Additionally, we ask people who like the reviews we do to consider donating to the site and giving out their donations to the people who write reviews and minireviews, to support their work and encourage more.

To see these reviews on our site see:

• https://www.donation...m/Reviews/index.html
• http://minireviews.donationcoder.com

Hope that answers your question -- whether you decide to donate or not I appreciate the opportunity to clarify the confusion about donating just as a forum participant.

-jesse (mouser)

ps. I take your point about labeling people on the forum visitors even after they have been participating for a while.  usually i will change non-donator status of members to something above visitor after a while if its clear the person is hanging around and participating

26512

Living Room / Shuffle - Flash Game of the Day

« Last post by mouser on June 21, 2007, 09:36 PM »

Shuffle - Flash Game of the Day

Here's a really simple but cool game where you have to knock the other guys marbles off the board.  Too bad there isn't a version where multiple humans can go head to head.

http://www.shockwave...ffle/sis/shuffle.swf

from http://www.goodexperience.com/games/

26513

Developer's Corner / Re: Here's Why You Shouldn't Program Alone

« Last post by mouser on June 21, 2007, 07:31 PM »

gothic i couldn't agree more with your points, very well said.

26514

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.100 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - June 07, 2007

« Last post by mouser on June 21, 2007, 06:28 PM »

thanks for the bug report, adding to my todo list to fix in next version.

26515

General Software Discussion / Re: Making the Switch-05: Ten Great Ideas of GNU/Linux

« Last post by mouser on June 21, 2007, 09:42 AM »

Very nice 

ps. I hope you also do a "10 Horid Ideas of GNU/Linux" blog, if you can think of them -- I think it would help complete the picture.

26516

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.100 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - June 07, 2007

« Last post by mouser on June 21, 2007, 06:55 AM »

good question..
you can't really provide parameters on the fly for any program.. though i could add a special modifier that would let you do that (not a bad idea).

i think they key insight though is that there are not going to be too many programs you actually need to provide arguments for i dont think, and you are well advise to create an alias for such programs.

to do this, just go to the aliases and create a new one, and provide a regular expression pattern for the program that looks something like:
myappnickname (.*)
and for the results, add this to the end of the launch string:
$$1


now you can launch this program with the arguments you wish by typing
myappnickname commandline arguments

26517

Site/Forum Features / Re: new forum feature coded - ability to inline link attachments!

« Last post by mouser on June 21, 2007, 06:47 AM »

Hi Timo,

This is a nice idea actually.. Let me add it to the code and test, and then paste instructions on where to do it.

-mouser

26518

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR newbie - need help for alias creation

« Last post by mouser on June 21, 2007, 06:25 AM »

first answer:

Here's instructions for making an alias that shows the contents of a directory and let's you narrow the search:
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=8781.0
(caveat: i may have broken something that causes this technique to stop working in the latest version! when i double checked it now it wasn't working for me -- looking into it). my mistake, it works fine -- i just forgot how to use it 

second answer:

It's not possible to show only 9 most recent or to specifically say to sort by recency, but these are actually nice ideas about features to add.  i think i will at the least add some special modifiers (or plugin ability) to say to sort the results by date. so good idea 

26519

Official Announcements / Re: Zaine Ridling's Massive Word Processor Review is now Live (Jun 14, 2007)

« Last post by mouser on June 21, 2007, 12:26 AM »

Lifehacker !
That explains the server unresponsiveness!
We've been lifehackered!

26520

DcUpdater / Re: DcUpdater - Coming Soon - Teaser Screenshot

« Last post by mouser on June 20, 2007, 09:24 PM »

looking good!
btw, How many hours do you estimate you will have spent on the app once you release the first version? (I am thinking of learning visual basic 2005 to build apps more advanced than ahk scripts, I am wondering if it will be a major waste of my time or not )

-justice (June 19, 2007, 04:09 PM)

i'd say it's about 1-2 weeks of coding now, but that includes being able to reuse a lot of code i've written in the past for other projects.

it's coded in Borland's C++ Builder by the way, but visual basic is a similar RAD type environment.

some things you are going to be able to do faster and easier in ahk, but a good rule of thumb is probably that the bigger and more ambitious the program, the better off you would be with a more large-scale programming language vs. a script-centric thing like ahk.

for me, i make heavy use of third party libraries and components (in this case im using libcurl, tinyxml, and a nice grid component called NextGrid); plus i'm a huge fan of object orientation and using classes and stuff that ahk is not really suitable for.

it's possible to use ahk to do some great stuff, but for larger programs i don't think it's the most appropriate (though it should be said that some people are clearly using ahk to do some pretty substantial stuff).

26521

General Software Discussion / Re: Is an Organized Efficient Start Menu the Holy Grail of Daily Computing?

« Last post by mouser on June 20, 2007, 03:13 PM »

i think this is a wonderful idea as a farr plugin, perhaps focusing on the idea of letting user TAG entries in the start menu with keywords/tag, and then browsing or searching using the keywords.

the built in farr VERSION2 aliases can kind of do this already for the most part -- ie make an alias called graphics and put all graphics programs in that alias, and when you type graphics youll get that list of programs, which you can then filter out more.

however, that farr alias search thing will only work for one keyword at a time, you couldnt find the intersection of graphics and smallapps tags.

26522

Living Room / Re: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs [humor]

« Last post by mouser on June 20, 2007, 02:50 PM »

funny stuff

26523

General Software Discussion / Re: Is the Windows start menu dead?

« Last post by mouser on June 20, 2007, 02:40 PM »

Shameless plug for my own LaunchBar Commander:

https://www.donation...Commander/index.html



Personally, even though i use FARR, i like to have a visual display alwasys docked on my screen of my most used programs, organized into virtual sections and folders.  I also use it to show virtual folders in menus and other stuff.  (It's very similar to free launch bar / true launchbar).  I also dont like using the start menu, but i wouldnt dare be without a "launch bar" of some type.

26524

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: Update of FarrFox Plugin (v1.03.01) for FARR v2 - Mar 29th, 2007

« Last post by mouser on June 20, 2007, 02:20 PM »

ah i understand..
so first things first, you know you can create easily regex supported aliases in FARR that will let you do this.
for example, check out the built in aliases for imdb, just type "imdb slackers" to open imdb and search for that movie.

the farr aliases are going to be faster than searching your ff bookmarks and so would usually be preferred.

however, that's not to say that it wouldnt be useful to add this support to farrfox, and it might be a nice excercise, so i will put it on my todo list.

still, i think you should consider just using normal farr aliases to do this because of the speed advantage.

26525

General Review Discussion / Re: Best spreadsheet

« Last post by mouser on June 20, 2007, 01:26 PM »

Let's just let people make suggestions here in this thread, since i don't have the slightest idea which software to add to the poll.

So all you spreadsheet users, please tell us what programs you like best for working with spreadsheets!