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91

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Lattics - observations and comments from a user

« Last post by Dormouse on April 11, 2026, 06:48 AM »

Lattics continues to update regularly. Since I last reported there have been major updates in OCR, PDF functionality, interactions with other programs including AI progs and many tons of tiny iterative improvements. The big change is that the Windows version now operates through the Microsoft store rather than separately (had always in my experience worked through the Apple store). Still no whiteboard. There was a year or two when it seemed to pivot, or widen appeal, to fiction writers rather than researchers and students but most of the improvements in the last year have been researcher/student specific. I continue to use it.

But my view of it has shifted a little. It's great for notes or documents that have boundaries and definition - so that is individual notes, longer documents and combined networks of notes and documents. But not so good for wispy figments.

I still have Milanote (free) but with no commitment. Partly cost, partly because it's web and my internet access glitches from time to time.
I now increasingly use Noteey which is local and still developing rapidly. Great for whiteboards. I'm dumping most of my new ideas in it . Now looking more like Heptabase again with increase in PDF, YT and video functionality and some use of AI (for YT transcriptions). Pricewise, I notice that it now has a subscription model which includes web publishing, AI transcripts and summaries and a web version coming soon. Competitive with Heptabase but still has the cheaper option to be local only.

92

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

« Last post by Dormouse on April 11, 2026, 04:57 AM »

Further Update on Proton/Standard Notes/Notesnook

I did subscribe to both SN and Proton on BF. Use them both a little but gradually increasing, Proton especially. Reason for both is that it's then simpler to drop one I don't want rather than disentangling them even if that didn't maximise discount. I remain wary about Proton moving from Switzerland.

I did not renew Notesnook , which I at one stage used most, even though I had an old cheap maximum discount account. Over most of the time I had it there were bugs that sometimes lost data but always made it unusable for some people. It was always adding new features in pursuit of Obsidian, Capacities, Tana, whatever the latest fad is. but none of them related to security or privacy. Been there done that, presumably. The changes made it hard to develop a stable workflow. I 'used' it more than the others for a while but then stopped completely.

SN's pace of dealing with 'bugs' that concern some on the Discord server remains glacial. New features none at all. But I noticed that none of these 'bugs' stopped the program being usable. It just wasn't shiny. And the server was nearly always up,, whereas Notesnook was down surprisingly often. I do potentially use these programs as notes on the web. My main notes programs are local, which is one way of dealing with privacy and security threats. But I like to have a clear idea of the security around some of the notes I want to be web accessible.

93

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Trayslate 1.0.1 - Free tray translator with hotkeys and configurable services

« Last post by astverskoy on April 11, 2026, 02:58 AM »

This is really impressive, astverskoy!  Responsive app.  Easy on system resources.  Thanks for sharing!

-kunkel321 (April 10, 2026, 09:23 AM)

Thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate it!
This version is still a bit raw, but I’m actively working on improvements and updates — more coming soon!

94

Living Room / enshittification...

« Last post by Target on April 11, 2026, 01:19 AM »

https://kottke.org/26/04/day-in-the-life-of-an-enshittificator

Couldn't decide whether this belonged in the humour file or here, you be the judge...

95

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Trayslate 1.0.1 - Free tray translator with hotkeys and configurable services

« Last post by kunkel321 on April 10, 2026, 09:23 AM »

This is really impressive, astverskoy!  Responsive app.  Easy on system resources.  Thanks for sharing!

96

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Trayslate 1.6.0 - Free tray translator with hotkeys and configurable services

« Last post by astverskoy on April 09, 2026, 01:01 PM »

Hi everyone,

I’d like to share my project called Trayslate.
Trayslate (a combination of “tray” and “translate”).

Trayslate is a lightweight tray-based translator that works with external translation services. It doesn’t include any built-in engines — instead, you can choose and fully configure the service you prefer.

The app is always available in the system tray and lets you translate text anywhere on your system — not just in the browser.

Key features:
• Translate selected text in any application using a global hotkey
• Replace text directly in input fields with its translation
• Instant clipboard translation (double-click tray icon)
• Real-time translation while typing
• Fully configurable translation services
• Lightweight and fast (no built-in engines)
• Supports 25 interface languages
• Dark mode support
• Portable version included

Trayslate acts as a web client for translation services, keeping it minimal, flexible, and independent.

The project is open-source and written in Lazarus (Free Pascal).

GitHub:
https://github.com/plaintool/trayslate

Download (latest release):
https://github.com/plaintool/trayslate/releases/latest

New Version Released!

🚀 What’s New

Since the previous release, Trayslate has received a number of significant improvements and new features:

• Improved language selection — added country flags and a dedicated language settings page for configuring active languages.
• Built-in spell checking — added Windows built-in spell checker support for the selected language.
• Rich text editing — switched to RichMemo with Ctrl+MouseWheel zooming and right-to-left text direction support.
• Better interface scaling — improved the application interface at different scaling levels and made settings behavior more consistent.
• Improved language detection — language detection can now be limited to the language codes configured in Trayslate.
• More flexible settings — added application language selection, improved recent language pair hints, and automatic disabling of settings for inactive groups.
• Improved usability — added copy/paste emulation options, automatic Popup Window hiding, and preserved RichMemo zoom factors.
• Better reliability — fixed proxy connectivity, DeepL line breaks, layout issues, mouse wheel behavior, script processing, and several other problems.
• Localization updates — updated Bulgarian, Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese translations.

Overall, v1.6.0 makes Trayslate more convenient, flexible, reliable, and accessible, while keeping its lightweight approach.

If you try it, I’d really appreciate your feedback!

97

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: NoteTask 1.1.1 – Free cross-platform task & notes in plain-text on your disk!

« Last post by astverskoy on April 09, 2026, 12:24 PM »

Thanks for sharing -- It looks impressive! 

I'm a bit embarrassed, but I don't see how to run or install it.  I downloaded the full repo from Github, but there are no exe files...  Do I need to compile something? 

EDIT:  My bad...  In the GitHub repo, on the right, is a 'Releases' link.  It takes you here
https://github.com/p...ol/notetask/releases

From that location you can download installers or a compiled (.exe) portable version.   

-kunkel321 (February 11, 2026, 01:40 PM)

Thanks for the kind words!

The repository contains only the source code, but there are ready-to-use builds available on the Releases page for different operating systems. You can choose the installer that fits your system.

For Windows, the simplest option is the universal .exe installer — it’s listed first on the page.

Glad you found it 🙂 Let me know if you run into any issues!

98

General Software Discussion / Re: Controlling Edge

« Last post by evansix on April 08, 2026, 03:52 AM »

Edge itself is pretty limited for that without extensions. One workaround is launching the URL with Edge’s command line options and setting the window size in a shortcut, but the zoom level usually still has to be set manually unless the web app itself supports it.

99

Community Giveaways / Re: Humble Bundle leftovers - Free applications and games

« Last post by Shades on April 02, 2026, 05:46 PM »

Necro alert!

Most of these games are still available if you're looking to complete your Games I'm Never Going To Play collection:
https://www.donation....msg448567#msg448567

-4wd (March 20, 2026, 05:13 AM)

If you are still in need of expanding someone else's "Games I Will Eventually Play"-collection, I would like to try: 'Popup Dungeon', 'Kerbal Space Program', 'Pathway' and 'Orbital Racer'. Any or all, at your discretion, of course. 

100

General Software Discussion / Re: Controlling Edge

« Last post by victorhaydens on March 31, 2026, 01:52 AM »

Hi chaps -- yes, I've been quiet for ages (here, anyway) while various other parts of Life have been escalating.

Quite why they should replace anything as important as DC is entirely mysterious. Sleep less, is the conclusion my rational brain comes up with, while the sleep-loving lizard poking me any time I get rational has entirely different views about dropping below 6h/night.

Er. Anyway.

I think the answer to this may be "you can't do it" or "you can't do it without an extension" or even "go away and stop bothering us" but I present you this conundrum anyway.

Work has started using Edge as its default web browser, and has deployed it in a form that doesn't allow for extensions because security and users, and we can't even switch off the favourites bar because... grumble grumble grumble.

So there are a roomful of people near me who all use a browser-based gadget that lets them see slope game realtime info from the voip system we have.

If I were designing it, it'd be in a small, always-on-top window with no address bar or other bits and pieces. It doesn't need to be interacted with at all, it's just info.

But obviously, Edge is used for all sorts of other things too.

So what I want is a way to open a specific url in a separate Edge window at a specific size and a specific (33%) zoom. And nothing I seem to be able to do with Edge itself seems to do anything more than open the thing in a new tab without some sort of user intervention.

So am I missing something?

-oblivion (October 14, 2021, 05:53 AM)

If extensions are locked down, you might still be able to launch Edge with command-line flags like --app= for a minimal window, then combine that with a shortcut and maybe a small script to resize and set zoom. Have you checked whether group policy allows custom shortcuts or external scripts like PowerShell?