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General Software Discussion / Re: RunInTrayMod 1.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 28, 2011, 12:15 PM »

What "performance" are you referring to and what is "excessively?"

RunInTrayMod sleeps in a loop. There is no performance. Only memory usage.  Try running something trayed and watching in Task Manager rather than making theoretical objections and you may see for yourself.

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General Software Discussion / Re: RunInTrayMod 1.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 27, 2011, 07:41 PM »

I didn't update the version number.  But I added a call to EmptyWorkingSet() every minute in the idle loop. It seems to cut down the memory shown in Task Manager to less than a MB. Should be acceptable for running several apps Trayed.

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General Software Discussion / RunInTrayMod 1.33

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 26, 2011, 05:40 PM »

RunInTrayMod 1.33 I found an AutoIt3 utility to run a client app minimized to tray here:

http://www.cellswort...ed/96-runintray.html

(It seems the above link may be dead. I got a 404.  But I will leave it struck out in case it is
just a network glitch.  I want to credit the original author if possible.)

I made several modifications and included a tool to generate a shortcut from the client app's shortcut.  The shortcut generator optionally runs the client to capture the exact window title for inclusion in the shortcut.

I call my mod RunInTrayMod.  The modified version with shortcut generator may be downloaded here:

http://www.milesaheadsoftware.org/

Since AutoIt3 creates a Tray Icon by default, RunInTray substituted the icon from the client exe for it's own tray icon.  Double clicking the tray icon toggled show/hide of the client app.  The program depended on the Window Title for all window manipulation.


RunInTrayMod is set up to toggle window hide/show just by left clicking the Tray Icon.

RunInTrayMod gets the title in most cases from the executable process
name. Once the client window is recognized, a window handle is stored
for window manipulations. This allows the window caption to change
without breaking the connection to the window.  Also windows are
closed rather than killed. Less chance of lost data.

Another modification is the short name to the client application is
associated with the tray icon as a ToolTip. For example if Notepad.exe
is the client, hovering the mouse on the tray icon should show "notepad"
in the ToolTip.

Note that if you have several Trayed shortcuts in StartUp Folder it may be advisable to space them out with a startup delay utility. A lot of window creation goes on at logon. A client app that minimized to tray fine when tested alone may have problems with window detection or hiding on startup.  Spacing out the opens and using exact window titles should minimize(pun intended) errors.

Also not every app is compatible. Some will leave orphaned Taskbar icons after being hidden etc..  Some apps such as DVD Flick that have a splash screen may work if the exact window title is specified during shortcut creation.  Otherwise what you get is toggle of the splash screen show/hide.

I recommend putting a shortcut to StartMinShortcut shortcut generator in your SendTo Folder.  That way you may right click on any app shortcut and select it from SendTo rather than the tedious process of navigating with the FileOpenDialog.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Fold 2.2.0.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 25, 2011, 02:56 PM »

Fold 2.2.0.0 Now uses clipboard to speed up FreeCommander New Tabs.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Fold 2.1.0.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 25, 2011, 01:21 AM »

Fold 2.1.0.0 If Fold.ini has a valid path set for FreeCommander, the folders will be passed to FreeCommander instead of Explorer.  New Tabs are opened if needed and the folder names sent via macros.  This assumes FreeCommander v. 2009.02b with default key bindings for New Tab(Control-t) and for opening the tab edit line(Alt-g).

To revert to Explorer just delete the FreeCommander path from Fold.ini.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 Default Program command line switches?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 23, 2011, 11:41 PM »

What I'm getting at is back in XP and earlier you could specifically edit the "edit" and "open" verbs to include stuff besides "%1".  Seems now that's been removed. I solved the immediate problem that made me want to do it.  Looks like it's just one of those things with no good solution.

I thought there might be some Windows hack rather than writing a software.  But anyway.

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General Software Discussion / Re: TicClick 2.4.0.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 23, 2011, 05:44 PM »

TicClick 2.4.0.0 Added Hotkey Shift-NumPadMult to open the Gui.  Also added keyboard support.  You can press a number for a button instead of clicking the mouse.

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General Software Discussion / Re: New member

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 23, 2011, 03:48 PM »

I personally think FileHippo has an exceptionally good (if not the best) setup for downloads. Everything on one tabbed page per title including links to previous versions. Very clear design.

I never really checked the site out before. I see what you mean though.  Bookmarked.

Forum based boards can throw you a bit. If you've been on a bunch you kind of assume the rules will be pretty similar and may not read them carefully.  Subtle differences can be annoying. But I do think it's a bit counter-productive not to at least ask one question before throwing up one's hands and kicking the chess board over.

I see more and more sites trying to filter out "fake complaint spam" for lack of a better term. They start out Register before you can post.  Then Register and click link in activation email. Then Register with link in activation email but before you can do that you have to decipher some Capcha' Crap, register, then use the link.  Then if it's a software publisher it becomes "registered users only" may post.

The net is really turning to crap fast.

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General Software Discussion / Windows 7 Default Program command line switches?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 23, 2011, 03:38 PM »

This seems to be an area where something working got broken.  When setting default programs for a file type there seems to be no method in the user interface to specify any command line switches.

This is problematic especially for browsers that have command line switches with no corresponding settings.

There should be a better method than hunting down the command string in the registry and editing it.  I tried using the Default Programs Associate a program with a File Type and using a shortcut with the switch.  It didn't like it.

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General Software Discussion / Re: HalfShell 2.3.0.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 22, 2011, 06:04 PM »

HalfShell 2.3.0.0 Enhancements for users of FreeCommander v. 2009.02b.

If Use Alternative Shell mode is active and FreeCommander has been set as the Alternative Shell, HalfShell will use macros to open multiple selected folders in new tabs.

FreeCommander has layouts for your frequently used sets of folders/tabs.  But say you have an Explorer window open to C:\ and you just want to select 5 folders and have them opened in FreeCommander.  Select them and hit Shift-Enter.  As many tabs as needed will be opened and the folder name sent as a macro.  It's kludgy but it actually works pretty well.  If FreeCommander is not already running it is launched with a couple of folder names on the command line.  When it comes up, if there are still folders to open, the tabs are added.  If FreeCommander is already running the new tabs are just added to the side with the keyboard focus once the FreeCommander window is activated.

Another thing I just found out after using FreeCommander all this time:
If you have the option "always keep 1 tab open" set, then you can drag folders with the mouse and drop them on the Tab Line to have views of them opened in new tabs.

The advantage of using HalfShell is that in the above situation, if FreeCommander is not running you can still hit Shift-Enter to bring it up and open the folders in tabs.

edit: Another change when using an alternative file manager. No assumptions are made for apps other than FreeCommander.  The processing loop doesn't stop at 4.  If x files are selected they'll be appended to the command line paramaters.  It's left to the app to ignore the extras or the OS to give an error if the param string is too long.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Special File Recovery Software

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 22, 2011, 02:44 AM »

@IainB you're welcome. I like Shadow Explorer. No need to read a manual. Nice intuitive interface, and free.  The author did a good job.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Special File Recovery Software

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 21, 2011, 06:41 PM »

Shadow Copy is apparently only in Win7 "Business" and "Ultimate" versions though. Bother. Mine is Home Premium.

ShadowExplorer works on my Vista Home Premium fine.

The data is still saved. It's just that Windows doesn't give you that "previous versions of files" in the property page. Basically ShadowExplorer was written as a way to get that backup file out of the shadow copy on flavors of Windows that don't have the option in the property page.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Special File Recovery Software

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 21, 2011, 03:03 PM »

What OS are you running?

If it's Vista or W7 and the file existed when you made the last restore point, there's a chance you can pick it out with Shadow Explorer

I don't know if there's anything similar that can look in XP restore points to pick out files.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Selector 3.2.0.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 20, 2011, 06:33 PM »

Selector 3.2.0.0 Added a new Button.  Control-V. Similar to Paste Button but uses Clipboard to send to apps directly. This allows you to use it for things like opening a search engine and filling in the search terms.  Looking up a word in an online dictionary.  Open an editor and paste the text in directly instead of passing a tmp file on the command line.

Using this method you can do a dictionary lookup or search out of any application. Not just browsers.  For it to work it's important that the Short Name in the ListBox is contained in the Window Title when the app opens. Otherwise it won't know what window to paste into.

Here's the help text for the button:

Control-V Button launches selected program and waits for it to open.
It then copies the text to clipboard and sends to the app via Control-v.
For it to work, the Window Title of the app should contain the Short Name
from the ListBox.  Example would be Notepad. If the Short Name in the ListBox
is MyFavoriteEditor it will not work. The Short Name should be Notepad.

Note that there is a time-out waiting for the launched window to become
active. If the launched app is a browser or url that goes to Google
and the browser hangs waiting for DNS respone, the function will just
return. The time-out I use is 8 seconds.

edit: I updated the Control-V Button help entry with an example for adding Google searches using selected text.  To look up a selected word in an online dictionary just create a shortcut to the online dictionary.  The main thing is that when the browser or application opens, the Short Name as it is in the ListBox is contained in the window title.  As example a Short Name of Dictionary should work with TheFreeDictionary.com. Easiest way to fix one that doesn't work is to delete it, go to the original shortcut and rename it, then drag it onto the ListBox.

edit2: also I updated the About Dialog. I didn't bump up the version number.  It adds a line that F1 Help is available while the PopUp Window is open. If you have something capable of displaying TreePad .hjt files the TreePad help file is shown.  Otherwise the Readme file is displayed using the default text editor. It has all the info just not as easy to navigate.

Here's a new screen shot:

4690

General Software Discussion / IndexDotDatCleaner

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 19, 2011, 06:12 PM »

Here's an AHK script to delete all index.dat files on the system partition. It should only be run using Windows Registry RunOnce Key.  See my RunItOnce for a simple way of setting that up.

[Select]

; IndexDotDatCleaner to delete all index.dat files on system
; partition. Should only be run via RunOnce key in Registry
; HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
;
; (See my RunItOnce program for a convenient way to add it.)
;
; It searches the entire partition for index.dat files.  It will slow
; down the boot.  It should only be used occasionally to clean them all out.
;
; MilesAhead
;
#NoTrayIcon
stringleft,sysdrive,A_WinDir,3
SetWorkingDir,%sysdrive%
Loop,index.dat,,1
{
FileDelete,%A_LoopFileFullPath%
}

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General Software Discussion / RunItOnce 1.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 19, 2011, 06:03 PM »

RunItOnce 1.0 as you might suspect is one of those utilities that adds a program to the Windows Registry RunOnce key.  The most convenient usage is to add a shortcut to RunItOnce to the Windows SendTo Menu. Right click a program or batch that needs to be run before Windows is fully engaged, and select RunItOnce from the SendTo Menu.

Run with no arguments it presents a File Open Dialog to select a single file to add to the key. To avoid entries being overwritten in the case you may add several things to be run once, the base file name of the program path is appended to RunItOnce_ to generate a string value that should be unique.  For example if you add MyPerfectBatch.cmd to the run once key, the string value in the key would be "RunItOnce_MyPerfectBatch" etc..

On next boot the program is run and Windows removes it from the Registry RunOnce key.

I made a little AHK script to delete all the index.dat files on the system drive.  Rather than use Regedit or some other utility I figured I may as well make a convenient method to add items to the key.

Deleting all index.dat files requires scanning the entire partition. Not something you want to do on every boot.  It's a good candidate for RunItOnce.

You may download RunItOnce from my current web page here:

http://milesaheadsof...re.org/RunItOnce.zip

(Note: I updated the link to use my current web page.  FavesSoft page has been removed.)

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General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone have IndexDatSpy.hlp file?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 18, 2011, 06:44 PM »

According to instructions on their forum, it's a one off. Meaning I have to open each index.dat file individually, and select "delete on next boot" from the file menu.

When/if my registration is approved so I can post, I'm going to ask why not just a button to delete them all in one shot?  That would seem like something really useful.

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General Software Discussion / Anyone have IndexDatSpy.hlp file?

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 18, 2011, 04:21 PM »

Pressing F1 in IndexDatSpy gets no joy and there is no general help page on the web site that I can find.  Looks like it will still use the IndexDatSpy.hlp file if I could find it.

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General Software Discussion / Re: 15+ useful Chrome Extensions you might not have heard of

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 17, 2011, 06:03 PM »

BTW you should definately try out smooth scroll, it makes all the difference in how much better the experience is getting.

Does anyone have the link for it?  My searches only turn up v. 0.5

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General Software Discussion / Re: 15+ useful Chrome Extensions you might not have heard of

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 17, 2011, 05:59 PM »

(error - moderator please delete)

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General Software Discussion / Re: 15+ useful Chrome Extensions you might not have heard of

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 17, 2011, 05:50 PM »

The latest extension I've added is Downloaders

I use Free Download Manager. I was dragging links onto the target to download with FDM.  Downloaders makes it more convenient.  You can enable download with  your download manager via left click for listed file extensions. If I have a very small file or it's something I want to show up in chromium download status bar I can still right click and use "save link as."

I've been using it for a couple of weeks. I haven't noticed any weird side effects. Much better than dragging links to the target.

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General Software Discussion / index.dat overwrite

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2011, 06:59 PM »

I saw the previous discussion of index.dat erasure but it was like around 2006.  I had reason to look for some free tools today and I found one:

Free Internet Window Washer

Unlike CCleaner, instead of deleting index.dat files on boot, it opens them in place and overwrites the data.  Nice little freebie.  One tiny nag on open asking for donation, but if you hit the Skip button it doesn't do any other things annoying from what I've seen so far.

Also has a feature to run your clean up options on a timer.  There's so many layers of tracking these days I doubt we can clean them all off.  But at least this is one that works for what it does.

The web site states Vista and W7 support so it's either newer than many similar utilities, or they tried it against Vista and 7 at least.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Comment Explorer 2.3.0.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2011, 05:59 PM »

I'm starting to think the mechanism should involve the shadow copy service. Kind of like "versions of files" only you have a db file in the shadow store with the comments indexed.  Doing it from the outside will always be a kludge.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Comment Explorer 2.3.0.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2011, 01:25 PM »

So each time i give a comment for a file  or folder by pressing Shift+ F11 , will i be able to view it any way.???

-hulkbuster (November 14, 2011, 10:49 PM)

I don't understand the question.
The program is designed to me use with Explorer. Not 3rd party file managers.

There are 2 window class names used for Explorer Folder Windows.  CabinetWClass and ExploreWClass.  Only if the active window has one of the 2 class names will the hotkeys fire. That's to avoid interfering with other applications.

If you read the Readme I think this is clearly stated:


        Readme for Comment Explorer 2.3.0.0

  Comment Explorer is an AHK Hotkey Tray Utility
  that allows comments to be associated with files
  in Explorer. When you use the Up and Down Arrow
  keys or click the Mouse to select a file in Explorer,
  if there is a comment for the file, a ToolTip displays.


It doesn't say anything about FreeCommander,TotalCommander or whatever.

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General Software Discussion / Re: HalfShell 2.2.4.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on November 15, 2011, 01:56 AM »

HalfShell 2.2.4.0 Now sorts clipboard contents.  Previously if you had Computer open with C: and D: selected and FreeCommander as alternative shell, FreeCommander would open with D: on the left and C: on the right. Just seemed counter-intuitive.  So I do case insensitive clipboard sort before launching anything.