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General Software Discussion / Re: XML Viewer editor with exporting?

« Last post by sphere on June 09, 2021, 10:39 AM »

Had not thought about nirsoft for this. Thanks

I will look into Universal Viewer Pro and Editpad pro. Looking through the forum, it also looks like Ultraedit is highly regarded. Have also been looking through this list.

In searching I came across XMLSPY which is known for its “grid view”

Xmlspy is very expensive.

Ideally a single application that allowed you to not only edit, but build the viewer data table. I looked to excel/libre calc because most people are more likely to be familiar with them I know I could map the cells in a spreadsheet to the data in the XML file, but I need to do this with 100s of files.
https://help.libreof...urce.html?DbPAR=CALC

Something like powerquery might work.

I would like to be able to point the application to the directory with all of the xml files (within folders) and have ti automatically build the editable table. I realize that might not be possible without the use of a database or some other methodology.

I am stretching my knowledge some with this search, which makes it difficult. But I am enjoying broadening my horizons.
Thanks for the help!

General Software Discussion / XML Viewer editor with exporting?

« Last post by sphere on June 08, 2021, 01:48 PM »

I am trying to replace a viewer that is now longer working. I need a user friendly program that can open many xml files organized in hundreds of folders that were generated daily. After opening them, I would like to be able to view, edit, and export the data as well, if possible.

The viewer that is no longer working used to display all of the xml information in a table consisting of 9 columns, though from looking at the files in notepad, the viewer ignored alot of the data.

Once it loaded the data, it would be displayed in a a table and could be sorted by column, edited, searched and exported. It would be great if it would be possible to do that with another application, but just being able to view the data and edit it would be a great help.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

Any suggestions or ideas?

General Software Discussion / Re: What's the future of OneNote?

« Last post by sphere on June 05, 2021, 10:36 AM »

It's scanned paper forms for reports and such. Works really well for it- one of the things that many find annoying (the fact that the page is nothing but elements) works really well for random forms as you just have to click where the field is and start writing or typing.
-wraith808 (June 04, 2021, 08:23 PM)

I see. I could see that working. Are you actually typing into the pdf forms fields?

General Software Discussion / Re: What's the future of OneNote?

« Last post by sphere on June 04, 2021, 06:25 PM »

I used to know the answers to some of the questions. I'd use both the 2016 version (all the old functions + Onetastic macros) and the latest version (for better cross-platform & mobile access). Couldn't answer the questions when I saw them, because, it seemed to me, that the best answer was to stop using OneNote, which is what I have clearly done.

I always had a love/hate relationship with it anyway.
-Dormouse (June 03, 2021, 05:50 PM)

I used it back in 2009 or 2013 and it really was pretty amazing at the time. At the time it was the , least known but still a very powerful app. If I were to decide to use it, my use case would be similar. I need to be able to choose what I put on the cloud, and frankly, I do not want to pay to the volumes of data I work with online if I do not need to.

My guess is that they had a strategy. Then they changed it. Then they modified their stance, a bit. For now.
Next there will be another strategy.
I think their problem is that OneNote is a large and complex program that few Office customers use. And the free cross-platform giveaway has probably not gained huge traction, but those users will make only simple demands of it.
But those customers who do use the complexity are often very keen indeed.
afaics, it will either die, be killed, mutate into something different and simpler, or will become an add-on to Word.
(The last mightn't be okay if they did it properly - first time for everything - option for better file management for some files via a ON database, more tools, and a couple of different views.)
-Dormouse (June 03, 2021, 05:50 PM)

MS is pushing pretty hard for people to use 365, and I think One Note is used to entice people into the platform. They also push the use of teams for collaboration. Onenote also is an alternative for many Evernote enthusiast. It can be an “everything” bucket with OCR and pretty good search. I think the decision to attempt to kill of the desktop version was to get people dependent on their cloud services and one they are there, they can sell other services. I do not want it to die, I just want to be able to use the desktop app and store information locally.

irc 365 saves notebook on OneDrive
In 2016, using the same account, you can access the cloud file and then save it locally.
-Dormouse (June 04, 2021, 04:28 AM)

Thank you.

General Software Discussion / Re: What's the future of OneNote?

« Last post by sphere on June 04, 2021, 06:24 PM »

I still use OneNote. I would have to check which version it is.
-Tuxman (June 03, 2021, 03:35 PM)

Thanks. Knowing you use it is helpful.

I have to use it for work, and use it for marking up some forms that I use for personal work, and it appears to store the notebooks offline and sync them if you are connected. I don't know if it is manually transferrable- I've never done it that way, preferring to just download it from OneDrive.
-wraith808 (June 03, 2021, 10:02 PM)

Thanks… when making things up, are you using pdf forms or other forms?

I have the Office365 version - the latest, really (comes with everything else). I've tinkered with it a bit, but never could bring myself to use it. I could never get past it's wanting to create a textbox every I placed the cursor in empty space. That, plus a bunch of usability features are lacking (IMHO) and it uses that awful ribbon invention. I avoid using Microsoft Office if I can help it.
-BGM (June 03, 2021, 10:23 PM)

Would love to hear what usability features you feel are missing and where you might be getting those features if you are using another software.

Living Room / Re: Opt out of Amazon sharing your bandwidth with your neighbors

« Last post by sphere on June 03, 2021, 10:19 PM »

Actually, the devices that I'm using don't.

And in any case, that's a false equivalency, as data caps are different as you pay a flat fee for data under the cap.
-wraith808 (June 03, 2021, 10:02 PM)

Agreed. What irks me is that not only is it using someone else's data, it is also using someone else's electricity. What ever they are doing to extend their services and reach, is being done on someone else's dime and without the paying party truly consenting. I do not have any amazon devices.

General Software Discussion / Re: What's the future of OneNote?

« Last post by sphere on June 03, 2021, 03:09 PM »

I am looking for people's thoughts about where Onenote has gone since this post in the fall of 2019? I have a relative who has asked for help learning how to use OneNote and ot jas rekindled my interest.

Were there any “gotchas’” like ones you used the cloud you were not allowed to save the files locally?

I would be interested in being able to store notebooks locally.
I am correct that is still possible without any issues with Onenote 2016?
Is that possible with OneNote for Win10 (the webapp)
If a file is stored locally, can you transfer it to another system, and open it with another version of OneNote be it 2016 or OneNote for Win 10?

How does working offline work? Does Onenote just cache the files locally somehow?
Are you required to login to Microsoft? If you are not using the cloud services?

I believe that Onenote can run OCR on different types of images that are put in notebooks. Is this done locally or is it done in the cloud.

An earlier version of Onenote (Onenote 2010 or Onenote 2013) used to index audio files. I have not been able to get that to work in Onenote 2016. It did not work well in the previous version, but it was able to search for things that otherwise would not have been searched for.

I have a copy of OneNote 2016. I have not used it a lot, but it appears you can save locally. If I want to save to the cloud Office asks me to set up an account. Onenote for Win 10 requires you to sign in I believe.

My primary use case is taking notes where have the audio synced with the notes would be extremely helpful. I am also interested in being able to import pdf/power point documents and annotate them. There are not many alternatives that can do that live. I also realize that onenote is extremely powerful, and able to deal with many different types of digital media.

Would appreciate people’s take on the matter.

https://answers.micr...32-bab5-090a5f6b42e8

Living Room / Re: Opt out of Amazon sharing your bandwidth with your neighbors

« Last post by sphere on June 03, 2021, 02:28 PM »

As long as idiotic data caps are a thing, this is a non-starter for me.
-wraith808 (June 03, 2021, 08:55 AM)

The devices are also using electricity you have to pay for

Living Room / Re: Opt out of Amazon sharing your bandwidth with your neighbors

« Last post by sphere on June 03, 2021, 08:08 AM »

I kind of like the idea of having a more decentralized, mesh-style network for everyone to have access to the internet and reduce the chance of a single point of failure preventing you from being online. But IMO it needs to be an open standard and not tied to any one hardware or software company.
-Deozaan (June 03, 2021, 12:40 AM)

Agreed ... I have been a part of a few projects to create a mesh-style network and the hurdle is the investment in infrastructure. Chances are someone on your street have an amazon device (camera, alexa, echo) product. Now it is being repurposed under the guise of "service."

I am not a fan of these types of things either.

Living Room / Re: Need help recreating some music -- full band needed?

« Last post by sphere on May 01, 2021, 10:43 PM »

Did a quick search to see if I could find an acapella version and did not find one. But I did find this from program "Friends"

Living Room / Re: Need help recreating some music -- full band needed?

« Last post by sphere on May 01, 2021, 10:35 PM »

Very cool
Fiver/ Upwork is a good place for this if you do not find anyone here. You could also try reaching out to someone who has done a cover and ask if they could be willing to do it.

The Odd Couple is often used as a starter song for people learning how to do ACappella etc because if is relatively easy to break into parts and offers some good options to explore how to mimic instruments as well as improvising. I am thinking you might be able to record yourself vocalizing and humming the different parts Bobby McFerrin Style- maybe use a kazoo for the main part - and then sync it.

This would mean deviating from the original feel.

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Qiqqa - Reference Management System - Mini-Review

« Last post by sphere on April 28, 2021, 05:29 PM »

I realize this is a very old thread- however it is a review.

I just wanted to post that Qiqqa is now open source software.

"After 10 years of your support we have decided to make Qiqqa open source so that it can be grown and extended by its community of thousands of active users.

NB: We will be discontinuing Web Library support for Qiqqa at the end of 2020. So you’ll have one year within which to install the latest version of Open Source Qiqqa (which is improving daily), migrate your Web Libraries into Intranet Libraries, and enjoy all the Premium and Premium+ features of Qiqqa for free (except Web Libraries)!
Go to the Qiqqa Open Source GitHub website. "
https://github.com/j...ne/qiqqa-open-source

Community Giveaways / Re: Scrivener 3 for Windows released - Giving away a 50% off Coupon

« Last post by sphere on April 17, 2021, 11:00 AM »

Wonderful news for a rainy Saturday! Thanks for creating this raffle!

Automatic Screenshotter / Re: Add window title to custom naming

« Last post by sphere on April 12, 2021, 12:20 PM »

Organization by application exe name is nice, but I'd really like to add more context to the filename. Is it possible to add the window title to the file naming patterns? Ultimately it is to help name by the browser tab name, which seems to be passed along in window title.

I'm looking at autohokey for inspiration [ Invalid Attachment ]
-bombledmonk (November 10, 2020, 10:58 AM)

Bomblemonk,
I just wanted to make sure you saw that window title has been added to a new beta of the app. It was posted in this thread: "Topic: Automatic ScreenShotter Thoughts"

New beta with %winTitle field you can use:
Beta download of v1.20.01:
https://www.donation...reenshotterSetup.exe
https://www.donation...nshotterPortable.zip

Been a while since I updated my software so I'm a little rusty and thought I'd try a quick one-feature beta release. Let me know if the new %winTitle does what you want/expect.
-mouser (March 17, 2021, 05:41 AM)
-sphere (April 12, 2021, 12:12 PM)

Automatic Screenshotter / Re: Automatic ScreenShotter Thoughts

« Last post by sphere on April 12, 2021, 12:12 PM »

New beta with %winTitle field you can use:
Beta download of v1.20.01:
https://www.donation...reenshotterSetup.exe
https://www.donation...nshotterPortable.zip

Been a while since I updated my software so I'm a little rusty and thought I'd try a quick one-feature beta release. Let me know if the new %winTitle does what you want/expect.
-mouser (March 17, 2021, 05:41 AM)

I have been able to do some testing and this seems to work. Sometimes Automatic Screenshotter mis-names a screenshot, but I believe this is because I am in the midst of toggling windows or changing focus window quickly and it just grabs the wrong name. Being able filter by a certain window name, like a libre writer/ word document is nice.

I need to fine tune the pixel changes and get it just right. I think that will be the best way to limit the number of captures I accumulate. I am curious what others have it set at?

Community Giveaways / Re: Scrivener 3 for Windows released - Giving away a 50% off Coupon

« Last post by sphere on April 02, 2021, 06:27 PM »

I would like to be entered to win! Also appreciate this post because it alerted me about Scrivener 3 for windows.

Post New Requests Here / Re: [IDEA] Research Note-Taking Program (MindMapper) - take2

« Last post by sphere on March 23, 2021, 05:49 PM »

Very Interesting Idea

Note-taking
...Each note should be distinguished (by color/icon?) as a quote, a summary, or an idea and have a title and a "body" (like in Biblio) but some other "types" could be glossary, images, and general. Each note should have the possibility of having given tags and linking to other notes for easy cross-referencing and searching (which is the key here and which is what I haven't found in Biblio). I also think it would be great to have the possibility of having hotkeys to create new notes, etc....

When I've finished creating an outline of each book, article, webpage or whatever, I should be able to export it or save it as an RTF or DOC. I should also be able to move around the notes so I can export or print my own mental maps using various notes from various lists (that is, using any note from any book or article). In this case the bibliographical reference should travel with the note and I should have the option of also exporting the reference with the page number at the end (see below).
-vevola (March 23, 2021, 04:44 AM)

I am old school. I remember using index cards to make notes. Each card had the source and page number so that you could take reference/note cards from different sources and mix them and arrange them manually based on what you were working on be it organizing a paper or mind mapping. Being able to do that on a pc would be nice. I have experimented with some options, but it is time consuming entering the text for each file especially when reading articles on the internet.

I think the key here is tagging and linking. If there would be a way to link each note to its reference, and you could create a system of tags, this would help you out in organizing your thoughts and creating effective outlines for your paper.

Often I've seen a lot of software created for almost futile reasons. I think something like this could help a lot of students in effectively organizing their thoughts and their research and be useful in their writing projects.
Hope to find a positive response! All the best!
-vevola (March 23, 2021, 04:44 AM)

In addition to linking between notes, it would be great if you could link back to the resource.

Very cool idea

Automatic Screenshotter / Re: Automatic ScreenShotter Thoughts

« Last post by sphere on March 22, 2021, 03:16 PM »

I also stumbled upon this.
C# FileSystemWatcher listens to the file system and places a watch on a directory, its subdirecttories, and files and notifies if any changes are made to the directory. This class is useful when you need to auto update the updates in a directory. For example, if you want to create an auto backup of a folder, you can implement a File system watcher service that watches a directory or entire machine and find when and what changes are made and copy the changes to the backup device.

https://www.c-sharpc...mwatcher-in-C-Sharp/

Automatic Screenshotter / Re: Automatic ScreenShotter Thoughts

« Last post by sphere on March 17, 2021, 08:38 PM »

New beta with %winTitle field you can use:
Been a while since I updated my software so I'm a little rusty and thought I'd try a quick one-feature beta release. Let me know if the new %winTitle does what you want/expect.
-mouser (March 17, 2021, 05:41 AM)

That is great. I will try to give it a test in the coming days.

...I have occasionally thought of making a kind of hybrid app that was a combination of Automatic Screenshotter plus some more information, with a more flexible system for browsing history of activity, so it could be used more as a way of tracking one's own activity history.. I'd be interested in hearing more ideas along these lines..
I guess the idea is that it would try to log the activity you perform on your computer, with screenshots, to show you what activities you were doing, what apps you launched, documents opened, etc.
-mouser (March 17, 2021, 05:44 AM)

Very interesting. I have long standing interested in a single application that gives me a great deal of control in building a history like that. Automatically logging file activity, in conjunction with screen screenshots would would provide a lot of contextual information to help navigate the files.

I am not sure what is possible to log/capture from the system automatically- but having the ability to layer different types of activity to create a fairly accurate account of what was done would be attracted to person’s interested in auditing their time, recreating or remember something they had done, and even those who are involved in the life logging/quantified self community.

In my opinion, capturing whatever can be captured automatically, would mean the user would not be required to input information. However, I think it would be important for the user to be able to annotate or otherwise add context to what is being logged and captured with as little friction as possible.

Viewing the log of activity and being able to navigate it quickly would be great, but also being able to filter, search, and even analyze it would be great. Maybe even generate a report or save a query based on the project tags (mentioned above). I like a timeline viewer, where I can search or specify the date, but they are certainly more difficult to create. I could imagine others being interested in statistics surrounding their activity, like how long they are on certain sites etc.

Some additional ideas:

-Prompted input: A popup or sound indicating an event was just logged, with the option to add or annotate events with predefined tags or notes. So for instance, if a file was saved or modified, being able to quickly enter in some details about that.
-Events can trigger other actions.
-Utilizing metadata as much as possible
-Merge or somehow sync histories from different computers systems. (i.e work and personal or old pc and new pc and maybe the possibility of adding some sort of input from a smartphone. Adding a smartphone is another hurdle, but if there was a simple app that allowed you to make a note of say, a phone call or a meeting, that could then be exported and then imported into the log/history.
-Notes: Ability to create structured and unstructured notes to add context.
- Export a segment of the history based on filters
-If there are notes related to an activity, perhaps having those notes display when you engage in this activity again.
-Perhaps being able to import comma delineated or text files logs from elsewhere.

Those are some thoughts, but I guess what I am curious about is what information it is possible to capture from the system automatically?

Automatic Screenshotter / Re: Automatic ScreenShotter Thoughts

« Last post by sphere on March 16, 2021, 02:22 PM »

The only issue I ran into was when deleting the images from the internal screenshot browser. I needed to back out of the folder containing the images I had deleted and then navigate back in for the image thumbnails to disappear.
sounds like a bug, ill check it.
-mouser (March 11, 2021, 01:34 AM)

It made sense once I backed out. But it was not my expectation. So user error/ignorance.

Add window title to custom naming
added to todo list, that's an easy one.
-mouser (March 11, 2021, 01:34 AM)

This would be a great help.

having program specific profiles for capture would be useful.

that's a good idea.. but not so easy to do.
-mouser (March 11, 2021, 01:34 AM)

I understand completely. As I said, much of my aim was trying to create a searchable visual log. To that end, reducing the number of screen captures needing to be searched and ensuring the screen captures are as meaningful as possible was key. I do wonder if there are easier ways to achieve the same thing as program or window title profiles.

If someone were using this to audit their time, I could see it being helpful to add a "project" tag and be able to apply that tag to the captures being collected.
I like this idea.. i may add a right-click menu item to set the project tag (maybe hotkey too).
-mouser (March 11, 2021, 01:34 AM)

Very cool. I think the hotkey could be really nice to toggle between tags.

No problem. Take your time. This is not a time sensitive thing at all for me and I am not on donationcoder every day.

I also wish there was a way of choosing the frame of a specific window, to cut out the stuff I really dd not need for my uses. So for instance, the menu bar and tool bar on the word processor and in the email compose client. I do not think there is a way to auto select the inner most frame. I did see the user could define a specific area to be captured. Which is a way to make this work.
-sphere (March 09, 2021, 02:10 PM)

I had an additional thought on this. I wonder if it was possible to have the screenshot determined by the mouse or curser location. Like a box defined by a certain distance out from whatever point that is. Some screen recording software allow you to zoom in and follow the mouse. So Something similar to that.
-sphere (March 10, 2021, 02:08 PM)

I did want to follow up on this point. Is it possible to have the area being captured to be anchored some how by the location of the mouse or cursor? This is another way of addressing the focus of the user. So for instance, if typing, the cursor will be near the text I am interested in capturing. I could simply have a user defined box follow the cursor.

General Software Discussion / Re: flat file - with option to go to database - expense ledger

« Last post by sphere on March 10, 2021, 04:53 PM »

Note this incredible review page for online bases.

Online Filemaker alternatives: Coda, Zoho, AppSheet, AppGyver, and more
Maria Korolov
https://www.mariakor...emaker-alternatives/

« Last Edit: Today at 08:20 AM by Steven Avery »

-Steven Avery (March 10, 2021, 07:20 AM)

That is an impressive list. Verry impressive.

When I think of flat, I think of plain text or as close to it as possible. I avoid hosted SAAS solutions but I get I get the appeal of of these.

An airtable alternative that is open source is baserow. https://baserow.io/
https://gitlab.com/bramw/baserow
I believe I have seen some similar products that use a git as the backend as well.

I have had my eye on anytype which has a similar look to notion. After making a big splash there was some silence, but it seems to have picked up production.
https://www.youtube..../watch?v=hblHWfXA3XU

Good luck on your search.

Automatic Screenshotter / Re: Automatic ScreenShotter Thoughts

« Last post by sphere on March 10, 2021, 02:08 PM »

No problem. Take your time. This is not a time sensitive thing at all for me and I am not on donationcoder every day.

I also wish there was a way of choosing the frame of a specific window, to cut out the stuff I really dd not need for my uses. So for instance, the menu bar and tool bar on the word processor and in the email compose client. I do not think there is a way to auto select the inner most frame. I did see the user could define a specific area to be captured. Which is a way to make this work.
-sphere (March 09, 2021, 02:10 PM)

I had an additional thought on this. I wonder if it was possible to have the screenshot determined by the mouse or curser location. Like a box defined by a certain distance out from whatever point that is. Some screen recording software allow you to zoom in and follow the mouse. So Something similar to that.

Automatic Screenshotter / Automatic ScreenShotter Thoughts

« Last post by sphere on March 09, 2021, 02:10 PM »

What a great application. Tried this out for a number of hours and it worked really well. I was toggling between Email, a Word processing document and the browser. My use case was keeping a somewhat searchable visual log of what I had done/was doing.

The only issue I ran into was when deleting the images from the internal screenshot browser. I needed to back out of the folder containing the images I had deleted and then navigate back in for the image thumbnails to disappear.

I figured I would leave a few quick comments and thoughts. I put some thoughts in this thread already regarding more file/window context in the filename. Add window title to custom naming

I think that for my use case, having program specific profiles for capture would be useful. When I am in the word processing program, I do not need as frequent captures. In fact captures based on pixel difference seemed enough. When in my email client I could see it being helpful to capture only emails that had been opened in a new window or that I was replying/forwarding or composing. If it is possible to utilize the windows title like mentioned in the other thread, then I wonder if it would be possible to only screen capture windows with "re:" or "fwd:" or some other keyword in the window name, as that would limit the number of captures when working in the email client. I imagine that having application specific capture profiles could be difficult to implement. What might be easier is having different profiles and being able to switch between them with a hot key.

I really liked the capture when shifting the focus window, but with the task I was doing, it resulted in many unneeded captures. I wonder if it would be possible to set to not capture with a focus change, IF a focus change capture was made within a certain amount of time, or IF a focus change was made between two specific applications within a certain time?

Having captures during certain events might also be helpful. Like when saving a file. It would be important to capture after the input, so perhaps using the pixel compare to wait until a certain number of characters were input before doing the capture?

When browsing web pages, there just was not a way I see to make screen captures work better. Having a separate profile might help. Maybe turning off captures when if scrolling? I have a scroll button on my mouse

I also wish there was a way of choosing the frame of a specific window, to cut out the stuff I really dd not need for my uses. So for instance, the menu bar and tool bar on the word processor and in the email compose client. I do not think there is a way to auto select the inner most frame. I did see the user could define a specific area to be captured. Which is a way to make this work.

If someone were using this to audit their time, I could see it being helpful to add a "project" tag and be able to apply that tag to the captures being collected.

Again. Really cool application.

Automatic Screenshotter / Re: Add window title to custom naming

« Last post by sphere on March 09, 2021, 01:48 PM »

I was thinking the same thing. I think being able to incorporate more context into the filename as well. Much depends on the use case, but if I wanted to filter/find an image from a specific email, document, or webpage- having that in the filename would be great.

Living Room / Re: Is is possible to save media from multiple tabs?

« Last post by sphere on March 08, 2021, 01:38 PM »

Did you figure something out?

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