Recent Posts

37751

Find And Run Robot / Re: New Version

« Last post by mouser on March 25, 2005, 06:34 AM »

did you notice i added the alpha-blen (transparency) control?

37752

Find And Run Robot / Re: New Version

« Last post by mouser on March 25, 2005, 04:10 AM »

just again wanted to say how much i appreciate the beta testing!!
as a programmer it's so nice to know people who are willing to try these intermediate releases and report back, it's so much harder to fix these problems without such help.

37753

Find And Run Robot / Re: New Version

« Last post by mouser on March 25, 2005, 04:08 AM »

here's what i can tell you about the fix to shortcuts,
there is a windows API command called ShellExecute (google will find you lots of pages).
it can be used to start programs from within other programs, and can be used to tell windows to open an arbitrary file,
in which case windows is supposed to go looking for the program that handles that type of file and open it.
so basically ShellExecute does it all.

by default, F&R was invoking ShellExecute on the files selected for launching, whether they were exe files, other documents, or shortcuts to exes or documents (ie .link files).

apparently there were 2 problems with this.

the first was this policy i didnt know about which says the ShellExecute essentially hangs while waiting for the parent application of a document to start up and be ready to take input.  this was causing F&R robot to just sit on screen waiting and helpless.

the second problem was the fact that it seems on some computers, when ShellExecute is called with a ".lnk" file (shortcut file), it refuses to launch it.  i'm still not sure why certain machines do that and others don't.  it sounds like it could be a security issue but i've never heard it discussed before.

the solution to these problems were, first, to manually decode the shortcut file inside the program to recover the file being pointed to, whether it be an exe or a document.  then the second was to write a tiny like 1 line helper windows utility that basically just takes the name of a document on the command line, and calls ShellExecute on it to have windows open the appropriate program.  By using a separate helper to call ShellExecute, and by invoking that helper with a *different* kind of spawning api call (CreateProcess) i was able to hand off the "waiting for ShellExecute" responsibilities to a separate process and thereby let F&R get back to its job of minimizing or exiting after a launch.

probably more info than you wanted to know, but there it is


hehehe, well as i was telling someone before,
find&run is not really a competition for the desktop search engines which can actually look INSIDE files, find and run just works on file names, and because it actually searches for files on demand, its probably not ideal for searching entire hard drives over and over; in such cases its better to have a large database-driven constantly updating indexing system like one of those desktop search things.

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Find And Run Robot / Re: Thanks, with questions...

« Last post by mouser on March 24, 2005, 06:40 PM »

woot! yippe.

im still not entirely sure why the shortcuts weren't launching on your machine.. maybe some security setting..
i just changed the method from depending on the system to launch the shortcut link to interrorgating the system to find the linked to object and launching it directly.

there is an added benefit from finding this bug though, which is that this method lets me use the new helper exe i just added which means that F&R can just hand it off to the other helper and resume its work more quickly.  so overall its a win.

strange about that gray bar - i thought i fixed it... well i'll just call it a feature and move on 

i think i'll make this an official release..

and then decide whether the next round of work will be on new features in F&R or on Process Tamer improvements.

thanks for the help testing.

37755

Find And Run Robot / Re: Thanks, with questions...

« Last post by mouser on March 24, 2005, 05:57 PM »

yes, if this latest version doesnt fix it im going to make a version that produces log output to help us find the problem.

but try this first:

https://www.donation.../FindAndRunRobot.zip
or
https://www.donation...AndRunRobotSetup.exe

37756

Find And Run Robot / Re: Thanks, with questions...

« Last post by mouser on March 24, 2005, 04:39 PM »

anyone else with win2k can give a second opinion on some of these win2k issues?

the .lnk thing is the one i absolutely must fix immediately, its driving me crazy that this one main feature of the program is not working properly for you.

can you see if there are some .lnks that work and some that dont..

if we can find some that work and some that don't it could be the clue i need.

and if you go and find these .lnk yourself and double click them, do they launch ok?

37757

Find And Run Robot / Re: Thanks, with questions...

« Last post by mouser on March 24, 2005, 03:44 PM »

hi kevin,

ok upped a new version:
https://www.donation...AndRunRobotSetup.exe

something really strange happens in excel - for some reason the system hotkey triggers twice in close succession which was wrecking havock.  a new check for this condition seems to solve the problem.  let me know your results.

i also implemented a special tiny helper utility which now assumes responsibility for launching documents, to avoid this problem where f&r was having wait for excel (or similar app) to fully load before being allowed to go away.

its so typical the MS programs are the worst behaved ones on their own operating system.. boggles the mind.

look forward to hearing your results and if the cursor issue is still present, which is quite strange to me.  but it could be a win2k issue like different keyboard controls.

37758

Find And Run Robot / Re: Thanks, with questions...

« Last post by mouser on March 24, 2005, 02:01 PM »

np, i will start uploading the exes alone.

at least i think i have a much better feel for the excel problem at this point, that it is all based on this ShellExecute thing, and the fact that the less memory version works as a pair of programs, a tiny helper and a main app, and that the second launch is confusing the helper to launch another app, which triggers a chain of bumbling after that.

i have to tell you guys, in case you don't already know, having beta testers willing to try out these unofficial releases is an indescribably helpful thing.

i'm going to try an alternative way to launch document files that doesnt require hanging around and waiting for the target app to launch.

side to side huh, lol, thats kinda strange.. if you try the down arrow while a search is ongoing, does it work then? if so then i know the problem.

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Find And Run Robot / Re: Thanks, with questions...

« Last post by mouser on March 24, 2005, 01:16 PM »

i thought it would probably be prudent to make this mainly a bug fix release given that a number of issues were discovered,
and then come back to adding more substantial feature once those are cleaned up.

i have some more small things i want to add, but
the next major thing i will add will be the option to grab the internal list that windows tracks of programs run and add an option to start with that in your start list and/or give score biases.

after that i will try to add some folder searching functionality.

please keep posting suggestings, they help me work out what direction to go in.

im primarily concerned with adress the issue of failing to launch shortcuts on some computers and the report of it handing in these cases.  once i get some idea that these issues are fixed i will make this release official and start working on a release with these new substantial features.

37760

Mouser's Zone / Re: Any new ideas for small utilities?

« Last post by mouser on March 24, 2005, 12:23 PM »

sounds nice, looking forward to reading it.

in the blogs you can make a post and mark it as "draft"
which will keep it from being published publically, so you can edit it and preview it until you are ready to post it.

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Mouser's Zone / Re: Any new ideas for small utilities?

« Last post by mouser on March 24, 2005, 10:51 AM »

yeah powerdesk has lots of liltte helpers, and a nice search util.

dir opus has some great features, but its search util takes about 20 minutes to start up, making it very painful to use.
i think a file explorer review is in the works soon.

37762

Living Room / Editing a post when it "times out" and expires: temporary workaround

« Last post by mouser on March 24, 2005, 06:33 AM »

 
someone mentioned this issue before and i have experienced it myself; you can be editing and previewing a post and suddenly the browser claims it has "expired" and wont show the page.

i'll fix this, i promise.
but until its fixed, a workaround is to just "reload" the page.
it will tell you it must resubmit the page data or something.

then your post will come back, it doesnt get lost(!)

37763

Find And Run Robot / Re: Thanks, with questions...

« Last post by mouser on March 24, 2005, 06:31 AM »

i'm uploading a new version to test;
when you get a chance could you let me know if the the launching problems persist in the dif modes;
i just tested it on my win2k vmware machine and it ran ok, so this is one of those things where your help is invaluable.

see future post for url

just exit the program if its currently running, and install this version over old version.

if you'd prefer i upload just the changed exe without installer i'd be happy to do that in the future.

i'm working my way through fix list.  so far things that i addressed:

• fixed bug that could result in program trying to save changed options more than necesary
• changed default launch history to 50 items
• fixed (maybe) gray empty header on launch in details mode with no items
• fixed bug causing flash of previous items when clear on restart is checked
• double click now toggles view when using fast style launcher
• fixed bug where on trigger you would see previous find list first before it resets
• adding exclusion rules for apps now adds these rules to pattern match box not history box, and removes any existing entry from history launch.
• some apparent "hanging" of the program was due to obscured windows, hopefully fixed now.
• adding an exclusion now forces score to -9999 even if a prior rule exists
• new window transparency control in options
• by default moves recent docs and desktop links to top of search list and enabled by default.
• pressing down arrow during search stops search and moves cursor into results view. 
• fixed bug with scrollbars on long listviews.
• slightly improved icon.
• Cursor arrows in and out of search box works better now. 

Note to Upgraders:
i realized from discussions here that the "recent documents" and "desktop" and maybe even "favorites" directory entries in the search path tab should be enabled and moved to top.  they are that way by default with this new version, but if you're upgrading it won't modify your existing settings so i suggest you enable those and move them to top by default.

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Living Room / Re: An idea for "Columnist Corner" - read in please

« Last post by mouser on March 24, 2005, 05:02 AM »

ok great,
we have our 5 starting columnists!

by all means if you want to make long posts go for it
i was just saying this doesnt have to become something that takes up huge amounts of your time,
and while some bloggers work hard to post very frequently like every day, these are really meant tobe weekly posts where people can look forward to reading a new post/column each week.

i guess since we are following the newspaper column model we should say that columns should be available on the morning of whatever day you are responsible for.  the blog software lets you submit posts in advance and scedule them so that is always an option.

this is fun
glad to have you all aboard.

i'm always open to new ideas - if there is someone reading this who desperately wants to be a columnist and thinks they can make a real contribution, we could always do columns on saturday/sunday, or have some rotating thing, etc.  and i'd be happy to give up my slot for someone enthusiastic with something to say.

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Living Room / Re: An idea for "Columnist Corner" - read in please

« Last post by mouser on March 23, 2005, 09:17 PM »

somone suggested we might keep one day a week rotating..
if we have enough people who might be interested in columns we could alternate authors for more days.

if it's something you think you want to do i'd be happy to set you up for thursday and set up a blog and email.  music software would be nice subject.

i dont have specific areas in mind, the main things i think are:
1) the columnists/bloggers should have fun with this - so pick stuff you want to talk about.
2) we are promising people that we will have a new entry each day; columnists can stop whenever they want as long as they give us a weeks worth of notice so that we have time to find someone to take over.
3) it would be nice to have a sort of theme for each column, just so that they would differentiate from each other somewhat.  its ok if they overlap but i think it would just be funner for readers if each blog had a slightly different slant.

make sense?

if you still want to do it email me a desired login name and password for the blog (and nick for the column if different), and whether you want me to set up a @donationcoder.com email for you, and if so whether you want me to have it just forward mail to another account or whether you want a proper smtp/pop login.

-mouser

37766

Find And Run Robot / Re: Thanks, with questions...

« Last post by mouser on March 23, 2005, 09:04 PM »

I have the excel weirdness on Win2K and WinXP.  The first file opens no problem but if the second excel file opens beneath the first one, FindRun just stays open and I have to Ctrl-Alt-Del to get it away.

two questions:

can you get this to reliably happen, ie if i upload an attempted fix will we be able to test it and know whether i've fixed the problem or is this one of those mysterious bugs that only happens on rare occasions.  a reproducable bug is worth its weight in gold..

second question,
are you running it using the "slower but less memory/resources" mode to run the program? and if the bug is reproducable, can you see if the bug happens with both?

37767

Mouser's Zone / Re: Any new ideas for small utilities?

« Last post by mouser on March 23, 2005, 03:18 PM »

well you are in good company here i suspect if you have tiny little pet peeves about your software, many of us are that way here, though there are differences in what we like and dont like.

TotalCommander is another file manager that some people absolutely swear by, though its not my style.
Directory Opus is very expensive, inappropriately so.
Powerdesk is my other favorite.

37768

Living Room / Re: Links page coming

« Last post by mouser on March 23, 2005, 12:58 PM »

updated, added tech support guy forum, and added 2 of my favorite sites for home networking guides.

i think basically what our policy will be is to add sites on a provisional basis and if/when we find other sites that are clearly better than others, we can remove them.  that way we will always be listing a small number of the best sites, understanding that we may need to revise this list as we find out about new sites.

37769

Living Room / Re: Links page coming

« Last post by mouser on March 23, 2005, 12:43 PM »

wow the quantity of posts in that forum is incredible.. this looks like a nice site.

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Find And Run Robot / Re: Feature Requests...

« Last post by mouser on March 23, 2005, 12:41 PM »

i'm very interested in anything that could make it more usable.
i think i may try to work on some of the feature requests and bugfixes for find&run tonight.

could you secribe a little more what you were wanting wrt the cursor keys?

currently you can hit escape to stop search, then tab to go to results, then use cursor keys.
or you can just double click an app to launch it
or press the number key corresponding to the app to run, which is how i use mine.

however maybe there is value in letting you just hit the down key during search to both
stop the search and put the cursor in the results window, this would save from having to click escape and tab...

37771

General Review Discussion / Re: What categories should we review next?

« Last post by mouser on March 23, 2005, 12:37 PM »

point of clarification:

antivir updates are of 2 types
1 type is small download that just updates with 1 click

the other type actually redownloads the entire installer and reruns it
requiring you to step through the installer steps all over again.

it doesnt do the full download every time, but i agree it happens enough to be annoying and a big download.
but its not on every update.  hopefully they'll address this one day.

37772

Living Room / DonationCoder.com IRC Channel

« Last post by mouser on March 23, 2005, 10:06 AM »

In case anyone is interested, we have an irc channel, #donationcoder on the efnet FREENODE network.

For those that don't know, irc is kind of like a chat room system. that has been around for almost 20 years.

More info about irc can be found at http://www.mirc.com/irc.html.

37773

Living Room / Links page - suggestions wanted

« Last post by mouser on March 23, 2005, 07:54 AM »

I'm setting up a page of links to other sites, if you have any ideas for sections or pages please post.

keep in mind that like the reviews our aim here will be to keep this list minimalistic, listing only the very best few sites in each category.

https://www.donationcoder.com/Links/

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Mouser's Zone / Re: Any new ideas for small utilities?

« Last post by mouser on March 23, 2005, 03:00 AM »

the idea of using plain old built-in windows explorer gives me nightmares 
i am one of those people that spends a great deal of their time using a file browser, so to me its important to have a good one, like total commander, powerdesk, directory opus, etc.

directory opus (maybe the others too) has a nice feature that can show hidden files with a different color or something so that you can leave them visible all the time while still seeing them clearly.  i must say i do not like the idea of having them invisible at all.

however i wonder if your problem might not be solvable with a little .reg file pair that toggled on and off the view hidden files registry setting (i'm assuming its a registry setting), and just adding these reg file shortcuts as buttons on the file browser (or desktop if you are using windows explorer).

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Living Room / Re: An idea for "Columnist Corner" - read in please

« Last post by mouser on March 22, 2005, 11:35 AM »

We now have 4 committed columnists.

that leaves 1 space left if we do it every weekday as planned, or possibly 1 or 2 extra spaces if we wanted to do it on the weekend.

so the first columns will come out next week - more announcements as things take shape.