Recent Posts

36576

Find And Run Robot / Re: Feature Request v2 - appearance and name?

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2005, 06:41 AM »

well i tend to agree..
rest assured no skin support will be added until all other features are implemented.. it's just an idea i wanted to throw open for discussion to get an idea of how many people would like such a thing, and it would only be implemented if it could be done without impacting performance, and as a completely optional feature, etc.

the reason i have become more open to the idea is that while working on the Cheat Sheeter app, i used this excellent free, well known toolbar component toolbar2k, and its has a completely native win feel, but does support optional skins, so i realize skins can be added in a way that will not compromise the ability to run the program in plain normal windows mode for those of us that prefer that.

36577

Find And Run Robot / Re: Feature Request v2 - misc. bug fixes

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2005, 06:36 AM »

agreed, that interface could be made clearer and cleaner, with support for more keyboard interaction as well.

36578

Find And Run Robot / Re: Feature Request v2 - file explorer/browser mode?

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2005, 06:35 AM »

yes, this is definitely an idea that i am considering..
it might work like this, an "expandable" (or configurable) 'preview' panel.
so that when you click on an item (whether folder or file), it would show in the preview panel.
in the case of clicking on a folder, it would show the contents of that folder (or locate the folder in a folder tree and show the contents?)
if you clicked on a file, it would preview the contents of the file (or locate the parent folder in a folder tree and select the file and show where it is?)

this is an intriguing possibility for sure.. and we should talk about it more because it's possible that if this request is desired, maybe all shell operations (dragging out of window, right clicking for full context menu), would be more easily handled as operations from this panel rather than from main results panel.

36579

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - Speeding up searches?

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2005, 06:30 AM »

this may not make it into version 2, it's just something to consider and plan for and discuss.

the desktop search tools like google and msn, which search INSIDE of files, work by scanning and reading files in the background (or on demand), and creating a huge database of file contents.

it is this database that is searched then when you run a search.

now i considered having F&R create a database of files and search that..
however my initial feeling was that there would be little payoff from it..
because the operating system should be fairly efficient at cacheing directory listings
and because f&r doesnt search file contents, only file names (though we could debate this)
and because f&r needs to be able to search partial words and arbitrary patterns, which makes it hard to do efficient database lookups.

so, it may simply be that there is no real way to substantially speedup searching, and that implementing a database system and background scanning is more trouble than its worth.. but it's something to consider.

the one thing that f&r does do it is take pains to store any previously launched program in a list and search that first, so the first time you search for "microsoft word" it might take several seconds to locate, but the next time it should instantaneous.  that feature could probably be enhanced to be more clever about what it caches..

any other suggestions are welcome

36580

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - misc. bug fixes

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 10:29 PM »

there are lots of little things that could be considered bugs that need fixing; we can discuss them here.

one is the new focus capturing, which keeps F&R always the focused window.  this is good to prevent losing focus by accident, but as kfitting pointed out, it is not good if you purposefully want to switch windows while f&r is on screen.  this needs to be fixed.

another issues pointed out by someone (i forget who) is that when you select a group alias, it should show all items, and ignore normal limits.

config options need to be better organized, split into dif pages.

shortcut links sometimes not launching in proper 'working directory'.

more?

36581

Find And Run Robot / Re: Feature Request v2 - searching for folders

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 10:24 PM »

another possibility would be a separate editbox (on same line or differnt) for specifying directory patterns to match against
so you would put directory patterns in one box if you wanted, and file patterns in another.

this might be a more general approach, by having like an "expand" button which would show this folder pattern field, and maybe other fields where you could limit the search in other ways.. not a bad idea.

36582

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - appearance and name?

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 10:21 PM »

i generally LOATHE skins..
but if i can keep the normal appearance absolutely unchanged and uncompromised by default, and if the memory/cpu hit is minimal,
i am open to the idea of adding some optional skinning modes, maybe.

i'm also open to the possibility of a name change, though it would be nice to keep it somewhat the same, so that it was still recognizable.

36583

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - take into account external launches

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 10:15 PM »

F&R can be told to search the recently opened documents list
but it doesn't currently search (or list) the apps recently run outside of find&run, or have the ability to score them differently;

people have requested and i think it's a good idea, to be able to treat programs recently executed outside of F&R specially (since they are likely to be things that people want to run again.

a related feature might be the ability to add scoring heuristics based on date of last access, etc.

36584

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - time to get started

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 10:12 PM »

ok, i'm preparing to do some major work on Find&Run Robot, probably enough to push it to version 2.

and i'm trying to get my hands around all the requests and figure out what the scope of work to be done looks like.  expect this to take several weeks to a month since there is a lot to do.  but hopefully at the end f&r will blow away all of the competition. so i'm hoping you guys will work with me to make sure we find the best ideas that other tools have and do it bigger and better in F&R 2.

i think i have a pretty good handle on most of the feature requests; there are a couple though that i still don't know the best way to address,
that were raised in the first feature request thread.

so anyway, im trying to work out these ideas and sort out all the other suggestions.  i'd appreciate anyone who thinks they can recap their feature requests in a concise way to post it again to this thread, as clearly as you can.  once i sort out the scope of what i plan to add in version 2 i will go over it with you guys and make sure we are all agreed about the new system.

36585

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - file explorer/browser mode?

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 10:11 PM »

cracksloth has made a good case for this feature in previous thread, and for the implementation of plugins and stuff, but i'm afraid that it may just be too much of trying to add a totally independent application to f&r.  in other words, why would it be better to use f&r to do this compared to using a real (but small windowed) file explorer?  ie if it uses none of the features of f&r, then it probably doesn't belong in f&r.  there is so much to do with f&r that i think we should focus on a search tool rather than a generic "small window popup tool" which can host any plugins.  [we can talk about such a project as a separate tool later, perhaps as a generic docking bar thing]

having said that, there were ideas that cracksloth raised about adding file browsing or file previewing capabilities that i am still tempted by.  for example, it might be useful to be able to search for folders, and then double click to launch them in a (customizable) file browser.  so for example if you typed "mymp3s\"  then it might find all the DIRECTORIES with the string mymp3 in them (maybe scoring those ending in mymp3 highest, since its probably what you were looking for), and then you could double click to launch and browse that directory in your normal file explorer.

or if we really wanted to get fancy we could try implementing one of those kinds of file "preview" panels so that when you clicked on a file or folder an optional panel would show you a preview of the file contents (depending on the file type), or folder contents.  but then i think this might be more work than its worth, and we might be better off letting a standalone preview/explorer tool do the job.

i'm also still struggling with the extent to which f&r should move to be a more effective document (as opposed to program) searcher.  ie allow people to more easily specify dynamic folders to search in for each search; ability to search within files; ability to search things like mp3 tags, etc.

36586

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - improving search for special files like bookmarks

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 10:08 PM »

its been suggested that F&R might add some special features to make it more suitable for searching favorites - like for example being able to search titles of internet favorites or mp3 tag info (artist, songtitle,album,etc)
other ways to aid in using F&R with internet bookmarks are welcome.

36587

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - toolbar and custom tools

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 10:05 PM »

i think i'd like to add a toolbar row to f&r, where the user can configure custom tools on small buttons, like you might configure a text editor,etc.
then you could launch it by clicking the button, or drag a result onto it.

it would just be a nice fast way to launch certain common utilities.
another good idea might be to let buttons be configured to trigger searches, or load config files.. yes i like that idea.

36588

Find And Run Robot / Re: Feature Request v2 - search results coming too fast while trying to launch

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 10:01 PM »

i've changed the name of this post to fit in with new feature request threads.
any suggestions about the best way to solve this would be very welcome.

36589

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - searching for folders

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 09:58 PM »

kfitting and i have talked about this a long time ago and it will definitely be in v2.
the tricky part is how to let user say to search folders.

i was thinking to use the / or \ character to mean folder.

so if you type mp3/
then you would be asking f&R to find all FOLDERS(DIRECTORIES) that have mp3 in them.
files would not be listed.

if you typed
mp3/cat
or typed
mp3/ cat
you would be asking to find all FILES with the word cat in them, that have the word mp3 in one of their parent directories

and maybe

mp3/cat *.mp3 would say
find all FILES with the word cat in them, that have the word mp3 in one of their parent directories, and end in *.mp3


and double clicking on a folder would launch your file explorer (or a custom configured file explorer) to that location.


any suggestions welcome

36590

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - more right click options

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 09:52 PM »

in addition to supporting shell right-click, some special right click options, or else toolbar button options will be available for results.
one will be a set of tools for quickly adding a result to a group alias, or making a hotkey for it, etc.
any other suggestions are welcome.

36591

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - shell operations

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 09:51 PM »

the new F&R results window will allow you to drag results out of the window into other programs, just as with normal shell drag and drop.
and you will be able to right-click on results to bring up normal shell context menu.

36592

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - multiple term search

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 09:49 PM »

right now, F&R treats multiple words as phrases..
i propose to allow multiple words to be treated as multiple keywords for searching, ie AND or OR or NOT, or some combination.
im not sure if this should be default, or if you should have to use like + or -
suggestions welcomed.

36593

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - hotkeys

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 09:47 PM »

you will be able to customize the hotkey to launch F&R,
and also assign hotkeys to arbitrary search patterns.

such hotkeys can thus be used to dynamically run a search with arbitrary keywords, OR to directly launch a program, OR show a menu of commands.  so this will be usable as a general hotkey system, and for showing menus or running searches.

36594

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - custom commands

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 09:45 PM »

custom commands will be added to version 2.
you will be able to specify arbitrary sets of regular expression patterns, and then menus of one or more programs to launch based on the command.

this will let you do things like design commands for searching the web, ie
"search mangos"
could be set up to launch a browser and perform a google search for "mangos"

stuff like that; should be very general and very flexible.


we will add special features like being able to paste text in current application, etc.
i'd be interested in people who use such tools that let you type keywords to expand in text, about what kinds of things would be nice to support.

each command will be able to be configured with a single action to perform when you hit return after typing the pattern,
OR with a menu of actions that you can select from using the 1-9 keys like you handle search results.

36595

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - removing/streamlining some features

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 09:08 PM »

ill add replies as i think of stuff id like to do.  and also things i think should be removed.

1) remove the different viewing modes.
instead, it will always be in detailed list mode (no more icon mode), but you will be able to customize exactly which columns you want to see.
maybe we can add special columns (like if people want mp3 tag columns, or whatever)

2) i think the two launch modes will be gone in version 2, and i will eliminate the "less memory but loads slower mode"
this was something that some people i know like, because it means F&R uses almost no memory at all until you hit break key.
it does this by running a helper tiny tool that just monitors for the break key and launches main program when triggered.
the problem is that this approach will no longer be viable when F&R supports more hotkeys and hotkeys for dif launchings.

3) streamline the start-with-windows handling, so its reliable and simple, and avoids issues people have had in past.

anyone feel like losing these are going to ruin the program for them?

36596

Find And Run Robot / Feature Request v2 - multiple configurations

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 09:00 PM »

lots of people have requested support for multiple configurations.
here are the issues to be resolved:
1) having totally different configurations is troublesome because things like aliases and commands probably should be shared between all configurations.  so what config info should be in a configuration file, and what info should be shared?
2) how should user be able to switch between configurations? is a menu sufficient, or do we also need configurable hotkeys to switch.

36597

General Software Discussion / Re: Open/Save Dialog Utilities - response to Nudone's Blog from May

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 07:07 PM »

lets post the urls when we mention software:

filetargets: http://www.moonsoftware.com/freeware.asp

definitely a great tool (though i can't get it to work on my current pc for some reason.. directory opus conflict? i dont know.)

36598

Find And Run Robot / Re: Possible bug in Find and Run?

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 04:39 PM »

well i couldn't have fixed it without your help.
i will now send the info we have found to the author of the freeware hotkey component i use, so really we will have helped him as well; so overall a nice team effort.

regarding the calendar tool - this is probably because f&r is failing to launch the calendar tool in the proper "working directory" - i will try to fix this since your calendar tool is surely not the only program that could react this way.

thank you so much for being so patient and being willing to try all those tests - i can't tell you how much i appreciate it.
and like i was saying before, for every person who has the patience to help me find such bugs, there are countless others who encounter the bug and give up on the program in disgust, so it really means a lot to me when i find someone willing to help me fix such things.

ok now we can get onto adding some new features to this baby..

36599

Living Room / Re: SUPER IMPORTANT NEW SITE FEATURE!!!

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 04:16 PM »

if anyone has donated in the past, and doesn't want to donate again to an individual author, but would like some of their original donation earmarked to go to individual authors, just email me and tell me how much of your original donation you want me to re-donate to an author, and specify who i should donate the money to, if you have a preference.

36600

Living Room / Re: Remote control for PC

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2005, 04:14 PM »

i have to say, that looks like a damn good one.

i have a really tiny one, which might be nice if you like the idea of a small remote.  it works quite well:
http://www.keyspan.c...omepage-Remotes.spml