Recent Posts

7201

General Software Discussion / Re: personal favourites start page

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 15, 2009, 07:58 AM »

Hmmm, I don't think I can help with this one.  I always use about:blank 

7202

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 15, 2009, 07:53 AM »

Updated Folder Cache to 3.3 setting Control Esc as the default search hotkey(Windows Search.)  Thanks Lefax32 for the idea.  I should have thought of it but you know how programmers are sometimes.

7203

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: ReOpen - Folder Cache, only betterer

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 15, 2009, 07:51 AM »

I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but I updated ReOpen to 2.8 and set Windows Search (control esc) as the default search hotkey.  You can still change it to another app but now it at least opens something out of the box other than the hotkey setting dialog.  Thanks to Lefax32 for waking me up.

7204

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Enable 'drag+drop' of text into Win7's Start-Menu Search Box

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 15, 2009, 07:48 AM »

Sure.  Hope it works for you.

I already had other utilities that used a hotkey to paste into another search app.  But I didn't think of setting Windows Search as the default.  Good idea. So I just whipped this one together from bits and pieces. 

7205

General Software Discussion / Pasty 1.5

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 14, 2009, 10:32 PM »

Simply sits in the Tray.  Highlight some text and hit the hotkey to paste the selected text instantly into a search engine that opens with a hotkey.  Out of the box the search hotkey is set to Control Esc for Windows search.  But you can change the hotkeys to use other utilities such as FARR, ReOpen, Everything etc..

2 key hotkey combinations are supported and may be set via dialogs with combo boxes. If your search engine has to have a 3 key combo hotkey then you may be able to find a hotkey "adapter" or make one yourself with AutoHotKey.  I guess I hate holding down 3 keys so I'm not that psyched to have 3 combo boxes in the dialogs.    Makes for simpler less buggy programming with 2 key hotkeys too.

http://www.favessoft.com/hotkeys.html

Note: Paste into Windows Search requires Vista or later due to changes in the start menu. If running on XP on first use it will prompt for search hotkey for external search engine, so use FARR or Everything or another that pops up with the caret in the input control.


Just scroll down a bit for Pasty

If you find any bugs you can contact me via the Contact button on my site or do a followup here if you prefer.

7206

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Enable 'drag+drop' of text into Win7's Start-Menu Search Box

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 14, 2009, 10:25 PM »

I didn't try the drag & drop, but since I had recently done a copy/paste into an external search engine that opened with a hotkey, I thought I'd try a TraySitter hotkey that just copies selected text, opens the search engine, then pastes it, when you hit the utility hotkey.  You control which search engine gets the paste by the search hotkey.

I call the utility Pasty.  The Tray Icon Menu has commands to change both the Pasty hotkey and the hotkey for the external search app.  The default settings are Shift Esc for Pasty and Control Esc for the search engine.  So out of the box, if you highlight text in an editor or your browser, and hit Shift Esc, it should open Windows Search and paste the text.  I don't hit Enter because I wouldn't want to launch some executable without giving the user a chance to see what it is before firing it off.

I hope it's close you what you are looking for.  Here's the page:
http://www.favessoft.com/hotkeys.html


just scroll down a bit to the heading for Pasty.

7207

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Enable 'drag+drop' of text into Win7's Start-Menu Search Box

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 14, 2009, 01:13 PM »

Where'd you go?  I was only joking about mouser banishing us.

7208

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 13, 2009, 11:44 PM »

Everyone has influences.  Miles was influenced by Harry "Sweets" Edison, but I'd hardly say that made him not original.  Like the man said, "sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself."

Anyway, bet a lot more people saw Prisoner than Nowhere Man.  Not likely to be shown in reruns in the U.S.

7209

Developer's Corner / Re: Accessor methods vs public variables

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 13, 2009, 05:33 PM »

Other than the "rules" arguments, there's the benefit that you can change the implementation without breaking code that's the client of the class.  IOW, if you use a Property to get a bitmap, the client won't break if you later decide to load the bitmap from a file instead of a resource that's compiled in.  Gives you some flexibility.

Plus the benefit of being able to "screen" the values that would modify the variable. A simple example might be a number used as a divisor.  If the value used in the attempted modification is zero, some other action rather than CPU trap is advisable.

7210

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your prefered source of registry tweaks?

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 13, 2009, 04:05 PM »

I have to agree on Windows Annoyances.  Sometimes you can get the tweak on the forum you just can't find anywhere else.  If something is driving you nuts it's good to search the forum for the Windows flavor in question.

Also for Vista, esp. 64 bit, I recommend this site:
http://www.vistax64.com/

There are excellent tutorials, most with downloadable .reg files, to fix explorer settings quirks, enable the Administrator account in Vista, and just myriads of other useful stuff.

7211

Developer's Corner / Re: Non MSDN online WinAPI reference?

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 13, 2009, 12:36 PM »

With this AutoIt version you can have it both ways. Pass a param of non-zero to return as string, 0 (or leave blank) to return as number

[Select]

;return the Windows version as a number or string
;according to $retAsString param.
;example 6.1 for Windows7, 6 for Vista,
;5.1 for XP etc.. as number, as string the
;minor version will be preserved even if .0
;(Vista returns "6.0" etc.)
;
; Author MilesAhead
;
Func _WinVersion($retAsString = 0)
    Local $dwVersion = DllCall("kernel32.dll", "dword", "GetVersion")
    Local $versionStr = String(BitAND($dwVersion[0], 0x00FF))
    $versionStr &= "." & String(BitShift(BitAND($dwVersion[0], 0xFF00), 8))
    If $retAsString Then Return $versionStr
    Return Number($versionStr)
EndFunc  ;==>_WinVersion

7212

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Enable 'drag+drop' of text into Win7's Start-Menu Search Box

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 13, 2009, 12:10 PM »

What programming language are you using? ahk, autoit, other?
Have you checked using the Window Info thingy that the stuff for W7 is the same?

If this is the wrong place mouser will probably banish us to the off topic dungeon.

7213

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 13, 2009, 12:06 PM »

Well, it's not exactly the prisoner.  In Prisoner, the guy is stuck in The Village(tm) while in Nowhere Man, there's no "escape."  Everywhere he goes is same crap different day.  They were both interesting.  Although Prisoner sort of dallied around before getting to the point of who is #1.

7214

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 12, 2009, 11:53 PM »

A very different show was Nowhere Man.  Unforunately or fortunately, depending on your point of view, it was only one season.  I got the entire show on a DVD set from Deep Discount DVD for $30.  I wish they used maybe one more DVD to get a little better bitrate.  But you could watch it.  The plot was unique. Not the usual boiler plate.

7215

Developer's Corner / Re: Non MSDN online WinAPI reference?

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 12, 2009, 11:46 PM »

Or if you prefer ahk

[Select]

_LoWord(arg)
{
Return arg & 0xFFFF
}

_HiWord(arg)
{
Return arg >> 16
}

_LoByte(arg)
{
Return arg & 0x00FF
}

_HiByte(arg)
{
Return (arg & 0xFF00) >> 8
}

_WinVersionMajor()
{
Return _LoByte(_LoWord(DllCall("kernel32.dll\GetVersion", "UInt", -1)))
}

_WinVersionMinor()
{
Return _HiByte(_LoWord(DllCall("kernel32.dll\GetVersion", "UInt", -1)))
}

_WinVersion()
{
        dwVersion := DllCall("kernel32.dll\GetVersion", "UInt", -1)
Return _LoByte(_LoWord(dwVersion)) . "."
. _HiByte(_LoWord(dwVersion))
}

I didn't say I can't do it.  I just said it's a pain in the ass!

7216

Developer's Corner / Re: Non MSDN online WinAPI reference?

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 12, 2009, 11:45 PM »

I think this is more useful, at least in AutoIt

[Select]

;return the Windows version as a number.
;example 6.1 for Windows7, 6 for Vista,
;5.1 for XP etc..
;
; Author MilesAhead
;
Func _WinVersion()
Local $dwVersion = DllCall("kernel32.dll", "dword", "GetVersion")
Local $versionStr = String(BitAND($dwVersion[0], 0x00FF))
$versionStr &= "." & String(BitShift(BitAND($dwVersion[0], 0xFF00), 8))
Return Number($versionStr)
EndFunc   ;==>_WinVersion

7217

Developer's Corner / Re: Non MSDN online WinAPI reference?

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 12, 2009, 01:03 PM »

Bitshifting is hardly rocket science

But use GetVersionEx with the OSVERSIONINFOEX structure, then?

-f0dder (June 12, 2009, 12:35 PM)

Why not OSVersion that returns "6.1" ??  Just about any compiled or scripting language can convert the string representation of a number to a numeric data type for comparison.  Instead I have to do it, then convert it back.  Pretty much a time waster.

7218

Developer's Corner / Re: Non MSDN online WinAPI reference?

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 12, 2009, 12:08 PM »

edit: ok, I got it.  After masking off the hi byte I needed to shift right 8
Wish they'd just return a damn floating point number like 6.1!!  Jeez!

-MilesAhead (June 11, 2009, 08:21 PM)

Floating-point is evil and imprecise, fixed-point is precise and easy-peas

-f0dder (June 12, 2009, 07:06 AM)

I'd appreciate it if they put the dot in for me, whatever they use.  The way it is now is a pita.  The lo byte's connected to the hi byte, the hi byte's connected to the shin bone yadda yadda.  There should be OSVersion() spits out 6.1 for W7 period.

7219

Developer's Corner / Re: Non MSDN online WinAPI reference?

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 11, 2009, 09:24 PM »

C# has some nice things built in.  Collections and stuff.  AutoIt3 doesn't have associative arrays or maps or whatever you want to call them, but I found on the AutoIt forum that you can just make an object from Scripting.Dictionary and you're in business.

I'm still getting used to some stuff that's peculiar to script.  One thing that bums me is I don't have a way to do 64 bit shell extensions.  Seemed like 64 bit was never going to get here, then all of a sudden, BAM!! every machine at Best Buy is > 4 GB ram and running 64 bit OS.  It would be nice if I could just recompile my old VC++ 6 32 bit shell stuff.  No such luck. But the hotkey stuff is kind of fun.

7220

Developer's Corner / Re: Non MSDN online WinAPI reference?

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 11, 2009, 08:21 PM »

Thanks for the reply.  It seems once you get into an MSDN page, then search, it works.  Really bizarre! btw have you done any calls to get Windows7 version?  I keep getting a Major version of 6 and a Minor version of 256, which seems a bit weird.
If I go in Computer Properties it claims it's 6.1

edit: ok, I got it.  After masking off the hi byte I needed to shift right 8
Wish they'd just return a damn floating point number like 6.1!!  Jeez!

7221

Developer's Corner / Non MSDN online WinAPI reference?

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 11, 2009, 06:51 PM »

MSDN seems to be Binged.  Every search ends up on the same page.  Anyone know of a non MSDN online WinAPI reference?  Hopefully something like the dll call, not some subobject?  The simplest APIs seem to be impossible to look up now with Bing snapping up all the searches or whatever is going on at MSDN.

7222

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 11, 2009, 01:41 PM »

Folder Cache 3.32 Fast Last Four Folder launch with selectable hotkey Launches 4 most recent folders.

Change from 3.31 Folders that are invalid paths will be skipped. If there are enough valid folders in the list, then 4 will be launched.

7223

Developer's Corner / Re: The JOptionJazz Project (JAVA)

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 11, 2009, 01:14 PM »

Is it something you can quicky launch from any other programming language? Might be cool to have panels/checkboxes/spinbuttons/whatnot that can be done without a lot of measuring and trial and error.  Esp. if you could sort of manipulate the general style so it doesn't clash too much with the calling app.

7224

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: FARR featured on Free Download a Day

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 11, 2009, 01:11 PM »

Hmmm only reason I can figure that the people who stand upside down haven't gone to war with the people who stand right-side up, is that the people standing sideways just freaks them both out!!

http://www.clipartof...s/clipart/20429.html
 

7225

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: ReOpen - Folder Cache, only betterer

« Last post by MilesAhead on June 11, 2009, 11:57 AM »

ReOpen 2.71 added Selectable Hotkey to Fast Last 4 Folders. (If less than 4 folders open then it's usually because a folder in the list is no longer a valid path.. could be a mapped network drive that's not mapped or a folder deleted since being added to the list.  I don't check for valid path on program startup because it can slow down loading and also show false negatives due to network drives that aren't mapped yet if the program loads on Windows startup.)

I also added an extra line to the About dialog showing the Fast Hotkey and increased the time-out of the About dlg to 10 seconds.  To keep the about dlg open longer just hold down the left mouse button.

edit: made a slight adjustment in 2.72 so that invalid paths are skipped when launching 4 folders. If there are enough valid folders in the list, then 4 folders will be launched.