Selector 3.4.3.0

[MilesAhead]

MD5 sum has been posted next to download link on my web page.

[MilesAhead]

Selector 2.9.0.0 Added TransBackColor ini file option for Windows 7 Transparency.  How to use is get the pixel color from the PopUp Window background using a pixel color get utility.  This one worked fine for me:

http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.php

Use the 6 character hex for the color.  This is what I use for the default:
TransBackColor=A9D5F0

What the color will actually be will vary according to your desktop "personalize" color transparency settings.  This way you should be able to get it to match up instead of having blocky patches where I overlay approximated color esp. in the radio button control area.

Here's a new screen shot:



If you can't get it to look good then disable the Windows 7 Transparency option by removing the check mark in the Tray Menu.  Then you can still choose a "Vista Color" to set a good looking background.

[MilesAhead]

Selector 2.9.1.0 Removed ini file option to set the matching Translucent background color.  Now when the PopUp Window opens, a pixel is sampled.  The label text isn't as perfect as setting it manually but at least you can read it over most any background.

[MilesAhead]

Selector 3.0.0.0 Added a Paste Button.  Depending on the setting of the Radio Button it will write selected, clipboard or text from the input line, to a temp file.  The selected application will be opened with the temp file as param.

This should come in handy for snapping up source code snippets from the web. Previously I used a dedicated hotkey app to take a snapshot of the source code.  But usually it wasn't running so I had to launch it.  Now I can just use Selector with any text editor.

It can also be used with Notepad since it doesn't use a paste macro but writes a temp file. You don't get the "xxx file does not exist do you wanna' make a new file?" dialog.

[MilesAhead]

Selector 3.0.1.0 Removed Topmost attribute of popup window.  Instead I set it to show in Taskbar.  This allows it to show in Alt-Tab list and also avoids dialogs popping up underneath it.  Drag & drop onto the window is easier also.

[MilesAhead]

I added an error dialog if the Paste Button is used without any Item being selected in the ListBox.  I didn't bother to update the version number as that's the only change.

[MilesAhead]

Selector 3.1.0.0 Added a couple of helper hotkeys when default hotkey is in effect on startup.

When using default Shift-NumPadDiv hotkey, if the hotkeys
Control-NumPadDiv and Winkey-NumPadDiv are open, they
are used as helper hotkeys.  The PopUp Window will open with
Clipboard Text or Text Radio Button selected respectively.

This makes it less cumbersome to use the Input Line as a mini
command prompt.  As example you could type in:
www.favessoft.com or another URL to open the default browser
to that page. Note that if you change the main hotkey, these
helper hotkeys will be disabled until the program is loaded
with the .ini file hotkey option set to the default of
Shift-NumPadDiv.

Note that in the .ini file the option is broken down to modifier
and main hotkey.  it looks like this:

AppModKey=Shift
AppMainKey={NumPadDiv}

It's just a convenience to avoid having to manually change the Radio Button setting after the window pops up.  Selected Text is the most common case anyway.  But sometimes it's handy to type a command that ShellExecute can handle into the Input Line.  For instance a file name should be opened by file association if the complete path is typed in the Input Line. Or you could just type in notepad.exe etc..


edit: here's a tip. To get an actual command prompt, hit Winkey-NumPadDiv then type cmd in the input line and hit Enter.

[MilesAhead]

Selector 3.2.0.0 Added a new Button.  Control-V. Similar to Paste Button but uses Clipboard to send to apps directly. This allows you to use it for things like opening a search engine and filling in the search terms.  Looking up a word in an online dictionary.  Open an editor and paste the text in directly instead of passing a tmp file on the command line.

Using this method you can do a dictionary lookup or search out of any application. Not just browsers.  For it to work it's important that the Short Name in the ListBox is contained in the Window Title when the app opens. Otherwise it won't know what window to paste into.

Here's the help text for the button:

Control-V Button launches selected program and waits for it to open.
It then copies the text to clipboard and sends to the app via Control-v.
For it to work, the Window Title of the app should contain the Short Name
from the ListBox.  Example would be Notepad. If the Short Name in the ListBox
is MyFavoriteEditor it will not work. The Short Name should be Notepad.

Note that there is a time-out waiting for the launched window to become
active. If the launched app is a browser or url that goes to Google
and the browser hangs waiting for DNS respone, the function will just
return. The time-out I use is 8 seconds.

edit: I updated the Control-V Button help entry with an example for adding Google searches using selected text.  To look up a selected word in an online dictionary just create a shortcut to the online dictionary.  The main thing is that when the browser or application opens, the Short Name as it is in the ListBox is contained in the window title.  As example a Short Name of Dictionary should work with TheFreeDictionary.com. Easiest way to fix one that doesn't work is to delete it, go to the original shortcut and rename it, then drag it onto the ListBox.

edit2: also I updated the About Dialog. I didn't bump up the version number.  It adds a line that F1 Help is available while the PopUp Window is open. If you have something capable of displaying TreePad .hjt files the TreePad help file is shown.  Otherwise the Readme file is displayed using the default text editor. It has all the info just not as easy to navigate.

Here's a new screen shot:

[MilesAhead]

Selector 3.2.2.1 Modified "Vista Color" About Dialog so it displays near Task Tray.  Renamed Paste Button to Temp File Button, and Control-V Button to Paste Button.  Updated docs and tooltips accordingly.

Here's a screen shot:

[MilesAhead]

Selector 3.2.2.4 PopUp Windows uses effects.  Since fade does not work in Windows Seven translucent window, it uses a simple vertical roll when the window is translucent.  Eventually I may add ini file options to change the effect times and enable/disable.

[MilesAhead]

Selector 3.2.2.5 Faster path validation. Note that mapped network drives are prefereable to unc paths for speed.  The API call I now use can detect disconnected mapped drives without waiting for the network time-out.

[MilesAhead]

Selector 3.3.3.0 Added Multiple Launch checkbox. An example of usage would be to quickly select several files in Explorer, then loop through the launch of an editor with each filename as param.

There's a new .ini file setting MultiDelay.  Valid range is 0 to 5. 0 disables, otherwise if the program to be launched is not already running, MultiDelay seconds delay will be inserted between the 1st and 2nd launch. This gives "single instance" programs such as multi-tabbed editors, a chance to establish the first instance, then open each new file in a new tab.

Here's a new screen shot.

[MilesAhead]

Selector 3.3.5.0 Updated OS version detection.  Windows Seven transparency should now work on W8 as well as W7.  Added a checkbox for cases when selected or clipboard text has more than one item. An example would be selecting multiple files in Explorer.  In 3.3.4.0 I called it Multiple Launch but I changed it in this update to Loop Launch as that's more accurate. You may still only select one program from the list, but it may be launched in a loop using the Loop Launch checkbox.

In the example of multiple files selected in Explorer, a multi-tab editor may be used to display each file in a tab.  There's a delay option in the .ini file to set the length of the delay after the initial instance of the app is launched.  Setting to 0 disables the delay.  See the Readme.txt file for details.

Another update.  When the program writes the options to the .ini file, if the ini already exists it is first erased.  This should clean up old options that have been changes, blank lines etc..

[MilesAhead]

Selector 3.3.5.0 Updated OS version detection.  Windows Seven transparency should now work on W8 as well as W7.  Added a checkbox for cases when selected or clipboard text has more than one item. An example would be selecting multiple files in Explorer.  In 3.3.4.0 I called it Multiple Launch but I changed it in this update to Loop Launch as that's more accurate. You may still only select one program from the list, but it may be launched in a loop using the Loop Launch checkbox.

In the example of multiple files selected in Explorer, a multi-tab editor may be used to display each file in a tab.  There's a delay option in the .ini file to set the length of the delay after the initial instance of the app is launched.  Setting to 0 disables the delay.  See the Readme.txt file for details.

Another update.  When the program writes the options to the .ini file, if the ini already exists it is first erased.  This should clean up old options that have been changes, blank lines etc..

Got rid of fade on Selector Gui close. With the Loop delay it could have negative side effects.

[MilesAhead]

Selector 3.4.0.0 Enhanced the Go Button to handle multiple selections. For example, you could select 4 lines of text with a web address on each line, hit Selector hotkey, then select a browser from your program list.  All 4 addresses would be passed to the browser on the command line with a space between each.

Any param that has a space embedded, will be wrapped in double quotes.
XP and later I think the command line is limited to 8191 total characters.
But that should still be good enough to open 4 or 5 files or web sites in one shot.

edit: I tried the multiple url thing with chromium, firefox and opera. Worked with all three.
Also EditPadLite7 will let you specify several files on the command line and open them in tabs.

How each app handles multiple command line args is dependent on the particular app. The app may have a "single instance" setting that would tell it to open files in tabs instead of separate windows... same for browsers.

[MilesAhead]

Selector 3.4.1.0 Increased the delay when copying text to clipboard. The old setting could miss capturing large blocks of text.

[MilesAhead]

Selector 3.4.3.0 Adjusted popup animation speed.  Added Tooltip Help to Loop Launch check box.
Basically the idea of Loop Launch is you can select text that has a parameter per line. An example would be a bunch of web addresses.

fakeUrl1
fakeUrl2
fakeUrl3

If you have Loop Launch checked, the text is split at end of line and the program you select from the list is launched for each param.

Another example might be an editor that doesn't accept multiple filenames on the command line, but will open a new tab if another instance of the editor is launched.  Or a file manager like Free Commander etc..

There's an ini file setting LoopDelay=n for seconds delay to give the first instance time to load.