SOLVED: Enable 'drag+drop' of text into Win7's Start-Menu Search Box

[Lefax32]

1. DRAG DROP TO WINDOWS START MENU SEARCH BOX: On Windows 7, I’d like to be able to drag selected text from any application (word, browsers etc) and drop it into the Windows Search Box (in Start Menu). When I try this, I select and drag the text, hover over the start button to open it and drag the text to the Search Box, but a ‘circle with slash’ icon appears, blocking me from dropping the text.

2. DRAG DROP TO TASKBAR SEARCH ICON: Also, to expand on this idea, I think this would be even handier -  to be able to drag the selected text and drop it on a 'search' icon on the taskbar. That would automatically do the search in a) Windows Start Menu Search Box (and automatically pop open the start menu to show the results!) or b) Windows Search Window (and automatically open the results).

3. CONTEXT MENU ITEM TO SEARCH FOR WORD: [ETA] I've just thought another way to conduct the search would be by highlighting the word and right-click context menu will show a menu item for "Search with Windows Search". Then automatically do the search on that word and display the results.
[Bonus, would be if I could search with a "Saved Search" in Windows Search Window (you can save the folders  you want to search. Just discovered it!) ]

Does anyone think this could be achieved at all? Or is there a script that already exists for it?
I’d really appreciate any help,  even if you have some tips on how to go about it (if it’s indeed possible).

Thanks

[Lefax32]

Oh I'm trying this myself. It's a bit tricky.

Idea: Shortcut key -> copies contents to clipboad -> Opens Windows Search -> Pastes clipboard contents -> selects enter.

But it's not working in Win7... worked OK in XP... Can I ask for help here, of why it would not work on Win7? Or is this the wrong place?

[MilesAhead]

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.

[MilesAhead]

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

[MilesAhead]

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.

[Lefax32]

  sorry, I was going to come back and reply, I was just a bit too tired when I looked in to get the keyboard - (HDTV). lol

Okay, I used AutoHotKey. I have no idea how I even managed to get as far as I did, because I have never used it before and am not familiar with programming!

This is what I put in it,


#O::
{
  send ^c
  send #F
   send ^v
}   
Return



Hey, PASTY works, really well that is so awesome.  Did you just add the Start Search thing? Thank You!

It' not drag and drop, but that's probably better because drag takes a little while to open the start button. I should be able to put the shortcut key in a mouse button as I don't always have the keyboard handy. Going to test it out some more now.

Thanks again! 

[MilesAhead]

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. 

[MilesAhead]

Lefax32 if you are still reading.. you may want to download v. 1.2 of Pasty just in case you want to use it on XP.  I had forgotten that the Start Menu setup was changed in Vista. In 1.2 if it finds OS < Vista and the search hotkey is Control Esc then it tries to paste into the Run line in the XP start menu.  I think this version of AutoIt3 I'm using doesn't support earlier than XP anyway, so if OS is earlier than Vista I just assume it's XP and send an 'r' to open the Run line before pasting.

All other cases it should act the same in XP, Vista, Windows7.  It assumes the window opened by the search hotkey will have the caret in the input line waiting for text to be typed.

[Lefax32]

Yes, I am still here, haven't run off! Thanks so so much for this wonderful little program and all your help and updates. 

I've been having issues with Logitechs' Setpoint Software. If I create a shortcut (I do it before I set it in Pasty) in Logitech Setpoint for a mouse button, it adds it, I save and quit. Then I reopen to check its still there and it is. But it keeps remembering and acting on the old shortcut I had in there, which was CTRL-W (I used it to close the tabs in Firefox). 

But this is to do with Setpoint and not Pasty. Pasty works great. I'll keep trying to get Setpoint to co-operate.

Oh I'm curious, does Pasty run on startup?

[MilesAhead]

...
Oh I'm curious, does Pasty run on startup?

-Lefax32 (June 18, 2009, 05:15 AM)

No, it has no settings other than remembering its hotkey, the search hotkey, and the "Vista color" if you have Glass enabled on your system(Vista/Windows7).

To get it to start with windows just drag a shortcut to the Startup folder in the Start menu. A short while ago I was doing installers with all my apps with options for run on startup, put in Quick Launch etc.. but most people seem nowadays to prefer "portable" or "no install" stuff.  Smaller downloads and just delete the folder to take it off the system.  I have to go through all the apps on my hotkeys page and get rid of unnecessary installers and whatnot.. but for the most part, the apps on the hotkeys page save settings to an .ini file in the same folder as the .exe. I don't think any of those use the Registry.

Usually I note it in the readme if it doesn't use registry but that may not be 100%.  One of the chores I have to get back to is making all that consistent. Sometimes getting the readme info exactly right is tougher than making the program work.  Guess that's why a lot of freeware comes with zero documentation.

btw - glad you like the program. It's nice to know someone uses some of my gizmos. If you find a bug or have some other feedback feel free to send email to my site address.  There's a contact button on my page that displays contact emails. 

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

[MilesAhead]

@Lefax32, let me ask what you think of this idea.. currently I have code to prevent more than one instance of Pasty from being run.. to prevent accidental start when it's already running in the tray as most tray apps do.  But I'm thinking since the program hotkey and search hotkey are adjustable, several instances could be run to connect to several different hotkey apps.  For it to work, each instance would need to start from its own folder so that the .ini file wouldn't get confused.  Also the program hotkey(and presumably) the search hotkey, would need to be set differently in each instance.  Do you think that's worth doing, or should I just leave it as it is now?

I try to keep my apps simple because I know there are already complex utilities out there with years invested in debugging all that action.  So I try to limit things to one or a few functions at most.  Just curious if you think it has that many applications or is linking selected text to another app pretty limited anyway, where one copy of Pasty running is enough?

[Lefax32]

I like it as it is, but I'm not too sure what you mean exactly. I only run one search at a time, and haven't had any need to run another instance I don't think. BTW, I think I prefer just one icon in my tray, I don't like it cluttering.

PS Sorry for the late reply.
 

[MilesAhead]

Thanks for the reply. Instead of trying to do a lot of things with Pasty I left it as it is.  I did another utility called Selector that holds a bunch of programs in a ListBox and you can select one to launch with selected text or clipboard text. Useful to open a url in another browser without using a plugin, or you can type a filename in an editor and select it, then hit the hotkey.. that type of thing.

Here's a link to the announcement:

https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=19717.0

[Lefax32]

Yeah sorry about being so slow. I kinda forgot about the program for a little while until I found another program that let me make hotkeys into mouse shortcuts (hotkeyp).

Thanks for the new program. Looks interesting, going to try it out.