NANY 2009 Release: JustCloseSomeTasks 1.21

[gexecuter]

nice app!

[brotherS]

Nice app, thanks! Just saw it in your signature. 

Some requests and ideas:
- make auto-marking tasks for closure an option; I prefer to mark them myself (very long PC uptimes here)
- enable the 'menu key' on the keyboard (so that it brings up the right-click menu) so that it works like in almost all other apps
- make double-clicking an entry "switch to" the task (like in other programs)
- add an option whether using "switch to" closes the JustCloseSomeTasks UI or not
- if possible, add "- Windows Explorer" to the explorer tasks (they now only have the folder name as task name)
- allow the user to set a global hotkey for bringing up the UI
- close the UI when ESC is pressed once
- in the UI, display the time not in seconds but in minutes when it's more than xxx seconds and in hours when it's more than yyy minutes

[brotherS]

Err... and a strange bug: sometimes the preferences window only shows up like this:

NANY 2009 Release: JustCloseSomeTasks 1.21

I then have to kill JustCloseSomeTasks and restart it to fix this. Never had this issue with any app before.

[justice]

Thanks for your suggestion and sorry for the bug.. its due to the 'special' coding abilities from yours truly hehe.

 I've noticed it a few times... the problem has something to do with the preference window being independent from the main window and a bug which is trying to draw to the window that's not open, i think. If anyone knows a way to replicate it 100% of the time please let me know.

[brotherS]

How likely is it to see the requests and ideas become reality? 

If you don't find help regarding the bug here I suggest the AHK forums.

[justice]

Ok let me go past them 1 by 1, thanks for the feedback by the way that drives this program!

- make auto-marking tasks for closure an option; I prefer to mark them myself (very long PC uptimes here)
You use JCST in a new way that I haven't thought of! Excellent - I thought the auto marking was the reason for using JCST. So please help me understand why you use JCST. Then I can support that kind of use better. So if you can confince me then I'll build in the option haha.

- enable the 'menu key' on the keyboard (so that it brings up the right-click menu) so that it works like in almost all other apps
Ah didn't realise that wasn't working. Will add that in.

- make double-clicking an entry "switch to" the task (like in other programs)
Good shortcut. Will add that in. edit: now you suggested it I keep clicking on the titles expecting it to switch!

- add an option whether using "switch to" closes the JustCloseSomeTasks UI or not
Do you wish to keep JCST open to manage multiple tasks sequentially? How would you use this?

- if possible, add "- Windows Explorer" to the explorer tasks (they now only have the folder name as task name)
Useful, will try to add that in.

- allow the user to set a global hotkey for bringing up the UI
That's already there, right click on the systray icon for JCST and choose preferences to change it. Control-[ by default.

- close the UI when ESC is pressed once
Excellent improvement once again, this will go in.

- in the UI, display the time not in seconds but in minutes when it's more than xxx seconds and in hours when it's more than yyy minutes
Good refinement, will add this in too.

[brotherS]

Ok let me go past them 1 by 1, thanks for the feedback by the way that drives this program!

-justice (March 19, 2009, 05:59 AM)

You're welcome.

- make auto-marking tasks for closure an option; I prefer to mark them myself (very long PC uptimes here)
You use JCST in a new way that I haven't thought of! Excellent - I thought the auto marking was the reason for using JCST. So please help me understand why you use JCST. Then I can support that kind of use better. So if you can confince me then I'll build in the option haha.

-justice (March 19, 2009, 05:59 AM)

Well, I most often have between 30 to 50 windows opened at any given moment. I sometimes forget to close some, and I like the way JCST displays them, but don't want to close *all* those old windows (for example because I want to continue to work with them the next day).

- add an option whether using "switch to" closes the JustCloseSomeTasks UI or not
Do you wish to keep JCST open to manage multiple tasks sequentially? How would you use this?

-justice (March 19, 2009, 05:59 AM)

Yes, I want to jump to a task to check out if I can close it or not, then check out another task in JCST.

- allow the user to set a global hotkey for bringing up the UI
That's already there, right click on the systray icon for JCST and choose preferences to change it. Control-[ by default.

-justice (March 19, 2009, 05:59 AM)

Hmm... then maybe the option is named in a way that I didn't get it. I don't want to check now because of the preferences window bug. 

[justice]

If you press cancel on the preferences window then next time it comes up garbled. Should be fixable for TODAY now I know what the problem is.

[justice]

Date: 16:18:32, 19 March 2009

Changes:
* Up to 3 times as fast due to improvements in Autohotkey.
* Pressing cancel on the preferences now works as expected. Thanks brotherS
* Added feedback link

Download Page (or Help > Check for Updates)

[dexterous]

Is there an easy way for me to set it up to just auto close the auto marked tasks without hotkey intervention?

Reason why I want this is because I have my home desktop, netbook, and work PC setup to synchronize my Firefox profile with dropbox (using NTFS junction links), and a lot of the time I'll leave whatever computer I'm on and forget to close Firefox so it can't sync properly.  It'd be great if this utility could be setup to auto close firefox after it's been inactive for some period of time without me being there.

Also, a whitelist would be kinda cool for this.

[justice]

Hi dexterous, it's a good idea in theory for your situation but it will have too many unintended consequences - forcibly closing applications will cause data loss for some people to just name one side effect so i'm currently of the view that I should not implement it.

However it should be fairly easy to do this in other ways:
* use Skrommels RunSaver (run a command as a screensaver) to close firefox when the screensaver starts
* create a new task in the task scheduler that runs when the computer is idle (windows vista and up I think or third party task scheduler)

The program itself is a small Autohotkey script:

[Select]

#NoEnv  ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
SetTitleMatchMode, 2
GroupAdd, foxes, Firefox
WinClose, ahk_group foxes
Sleep, 10*1000
WinKill, ahk_group foxes

By the way is anyone still using this program? I know I haven't been very active lately - if there's still demand for updates though I might have another look at this.

[justice]

Version 1.21 is ready! Some usability & sustainability improvements.

Date: 08 July 2009

Changes:
* Press ESC to close the main window (thanks brotherS)
* Doubleclick to switch to the app (thanks brotherS)
* Added a one-off message after the first 25 uses to consider pledging $0.59, then never again.
* Added a new preference option 'Enable one-off Donation reminder' that you can untick so you are never bothered (Alternatively you can manually add ShowDonation=0 to the [main] section of settings.ini)
* checkboxes in preferences window will now show true values (oops)

Download Page (or Help > Check for Updates)

[Contro]

I download your program

Thank very much

[tmpusr]

I need to automatically close only certain kinds of windows like Explorer and Everything (search) after they've been inactive for n seconds. I don't need help with closing any other tasks.
Option: Learn to exclude windows with a title that has stayed open for n seconds more than n times, i.e., stop auto-closing popular windows.

[Perry Mowbray]

This has just been listed on Primewares: JustCloseSomeTasks

[justice]

I've received a suggestion by email: could you add the feature that Ctrl-A checks all the windows and then Ctrl-A again unchecks them all?

[skwire]

Justice, are you asking how to accomplish this in AHK or something?

[justice]

Thanks skwire No am just listing feedback in a central place so I can revisit this topic if developing a next version.