DonationCoder.com Software > Find And Run Robot

Looking for a little help with arguments.

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JLeiderman:
Mouser - Thanks very much for your instantaneous response!

I understand that FARR must by default look for more search terms as the entry is expanded.  But I thoroughly endorse your last thought of using some marker of arguments.  My personal preference is for one or two "escape" characters at most:

k-meleon ::argument_terms or  k-meleon \+argument_terms

preferable (from the point of view of typing) to k-meleon +args argument_terms

In the same vein, I appreciated discovering the +sall modifier to expand search results, but found it a bit more than ideal to type.  The longer +term syntax has the virtue of clarity for macros and aliases, but strikes me as longish for routine keyboard use.

Thanks again for your extraordinary work.

Josh

herojoker:
I vote for a key (not a character) to create separators for passing arguments. For example such a key could be the Tab key, the Caps Lock key, a Win key or whatever a user wants. I'm not sure about the internals of FARR but I think the command line of FARR shouldn't be limited to text but objects in general. This means: A command could be made up of a chain (or even a net!?) of objects. Some of them are plain text, others are separator objects etc.. How these objects are created is an other topic (ok, for text it's clear; other possibilities are the special keys or key combinations; system events etc. etc.). Such objects may change the behaviour of the input line completely. For example some parts of the input line may become uneditable (as a little separator arrow) or only changeable within certain limits (as a mini-dropdown menu). They could even change the whole input line while being created... (i would call them transformers) (stay calm... I'm only flushing ideas ;) ) Some of them might become invisible just as they have been typed.
There may be even access rights for these objects such that a certain object may only read the next N entries in the command line.
An object to denote a single string would be nice too (compare the whole string "foo bar" with the single words "foo" and "bar").

To sum up: Just because a launcher is keyboard based it hasn't to be text based!

Perhaps you could use some of the ideas Mouser :P (especially the "key creates separator" would be nice...)

P.S.: "Enter" would just instantiate another object which immediately opens the selected result. There might be other keys for that!  E.g. Shift+Enter for "open result" and "Enter" for "line break".

kartal:
Tab is my favorite.

s.newave:
This is something that has come up quite a lot as well as something i have mentioned several times. There are so many times while using farr that i think how cool it would be if you could build a sentence by stringing multiple arguments together. Not only would it make farr a lot more powerful but a lot more intuitive at the same time. For example as others  already mentioned using the tab key as well as the enter key to denote multiple arguments as well as the end of the "sentence"  respectively would be awesome!! My vote would be for the following system:

1.start typing name of alias/plugin/etc
2.once identfied hit tab to select
3.now continue typing the search phrase or first argument. incidentally this would also be a great place to use a specific or shared history for that alias as i have mentioned in other threads  :D
4.hitting tab again would simply take you to the next argument if there are any or hitting enter would signify that you are finished and trigger the action with all the arguments etc.

I would also add that the use of any special characters in any of the steps above should bring up a list that can be filtered by continued typing for all the relevant functions for that special character. For example lets say you find the file you are looking for and you than type + , the results window should now display all the modifiers avail such as +zip,+email,+encrypt, etc.. What this also does is allow you to simply start typing the name of the action you would like to use and than pick the corresponding action below instead of having to memorize the exact modifier phrase with no assistance from farr which can be difficult depending on the number of modifiers,alias, etc.. This kind of intelligence is something that other launchers do well that i feel farr i sorely missing.

Just as powerful would be to have the last "step" of any sentence emulate the right click system context menu that you can currently get by right clicking on a result. This list could than be filtered by continued typing and ultimately hitting enter to perform the action. By doing this you could have all the actions available to that specific file type.

Just my .02

nitrix-ud:
1.start typing name of alias/plugin/etc
2.once identfied hit tab to select
3.now continue typing the search phrase or first argument. incidentally this would also be a great place to use a specific or shared history for that alias as i have mentioned in other threads   
4.hitting tab again would simply take you to the next argument if there are any or hitting enter would signify that you are finished and trigger the action with all the arguments etc.
--- End quote ---

this seems like a nice workflow...
i am too convinced that tab is the best "key" for that

but however i'm wondering if FARR should not have other boxes in addition to the search box maybe two more, an argument box and one for FARR specific modifiers
it would nicely separate the strings, would make it intuitive to shift+tab to go back, etc... i would imagine them one on top of the other... (so that resizing would not be an issue, and it gives more room...)
they could also be hidden (optionally) for rookie use...

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