Adding a URL to Search History Results?

[jreedar]

I've searched on how to do this but can't seem to find how to add a URL to the Search History that's brought up when the hot key is hit.

I can add applications by going to 'Option' -> 'Launch History' section, but when I try to add a frequently used URL it's not saved in the Search History list?

Thanks,
Neal

[mouser]

Welcome Neal.

Excellent post -- i can see what's happening -- FARR is removing the url since it is checking if it's a file on disk and not finding it.
I will modify this so that FARR doesn't remove urls from the launch history.

Stay tuned for an update this week.

[jreedar]

Wow, thank you for the fast reply and explanation.  Love the product and incredible support!

Thanks again,
Neal

[mouser]

if you want to try it out early, grab from:
https://www.donation...AndRunRobotSetup.exe

in addition to urls you can also add entries like "restartsearch stuff for search edit box here"

[jreedar]

if you want to try it out early, grab from:
https://www.donation...AndRunRobotSetup.exe

-mouser (August 28, 2010, 08:09 PM)

Just installed and the saving URLs in the launch history now works perfectly!

in addition to urls you can also add entries like "restartsearch stuff for search edit box here"

-mouser (August 28, 2010, 08:09 PM)

Can you give me an example how this feature would be used?  I checked in the help file and it sounds interesting but I'm not understanding its full uses.

restartsearch STRING_TO_SEARCH_FOR - restarts a new search by replacing editbox text (use \s at end of line to add a space after the new search string).  Use \n at the end to simulate the pressing of Enter after the search is conducted (useful especially for plugins triggers).

Thanks again for the help and great support!

Neal

[lanux128]

if you want to try it out early, grab from:
https://www.donation...AndRunRobotSetup.exe

-mouser (August 28, 2010, 08:09 PM)

nice one, this feature..

[jreedar]

if you want to try it out early, grab from:
https://www.donation...AndRunRobotSetup.exe

-mouser (August 28, 2010, 08:09 PM)

Mouser, since installing the new version above I can't open an existing Word 2007 document, Excel 2007 document or Adobe PDF file when selecting them from the search box. I can open Word, Excel and Adobe reader applications from FARR but not an existing document of those types. 

Does this happen for you?

[mouser]

i don't think i changed anything that should effect this.. it's really important for me to understand if the previous version you had installed did open these files -- if so let me know.  it could be something i did or it could be some security program you have installed or something else.. did you install the new version over old or did you start out a new installation with a new configuration?

[jreedar]

I installed the new version date/time stamped 8/28/2010 6:56PM of FindAndRunRobot.exe over my current version.

So I just went back downloaded and installed the version dated 8/20/2010 5:33 PM FindAndRunRobot.exe into another directory.  When running the 8/20 version launching of existing Excel, Word and PDF files all open immediately.  Then closing the 8/20 version and running the 8/28 version I'm unable to open the existing Excel, Word or PDF documents any longer.

Let me know if I can give you anymore information.  Are there any logs created I can attach?

[mouser]

ok that's a big help -- so either i broke something that i had no idea how, OR you have some security software that has blacklisted the new version but not the old.  if you can try to rule out the latter possibility i will start looking into the former.  ms office documents open fine for me with the new version.

could you try maybe unzipping the new version download into a different directory and run it from there and see if results are the same, that might yield a clue.

what OS do you have?

[jreedar]

Good call on the installing the new version to a different directory!

I downloaded and did that and everything is working perfect.  Sorry for the scare. 

Thanks again for helping me get back to working.

[mouser]

that still doesn't tell us what is making it fail to launch documents when in the other directory.

two possibilities:

• 1. you have a non-standard "Launch Method" set in your general options in your original directory, and it works in old farr and not in new. and you aren't seeing it in the new test because you are using a brand new config file. i still think this is unlikely but would be important to know if it is the case.
• 2. you have some kind of security program which is silently blocking the new farr from opening these documents, probably because it is seeing the farr executable has changed.  this is an absolutely abysmal security program if it is doing this without warning you.  identify it and permanently replace it with a better security program and let us all know so we can avoid it.

[jreedar]

I'm running XP Professional, and Symantec Endpoint Protection.  I really doubt it's Symantec causing the problem, I'd lean more to a configuration file that was fixed when created new during the install to a new folder.  

Which configuration file would contain the possible non-standard "Launch Method" set in my general options?  I could email you my prior 'bad' version and now working version to review if that would help?

[mouser]

mailing them to me could be useful.
assuming you haven't changed the configdir.ini file, the settings file is "FindAndRunRobot.ini" and will be in the same directory as the program exe.

so to test the theory that its the settings file, exit farr, then in your new directory where it is working, rename FindAndRunRobot.ini to FindAndRunRobot_good.ini
and copy in the one from the non-working directory, and restart farr in the new directory.

if it doesnt work, then its the ini settings file.
if it does still work, then it's your security program.


ps. the values we care about in the ini file are probably: ComboBoxLaunchMode, CheckBoxUseDocLaunchHelper, CheckBoxAlwaysLaunchViaShortcuts.
so if it is the ini file that causes the problem, compare the values for those variables.

[jreedar]

Backing up and replacing the working RindAndRunRobot.ini with the non-working RindAndRunRobot.ini produced the error of not launching.

Comparing the two files the differences are:

Good FindAndRunRobot.ini	Bad FindAndRunRobot.ini
ComboBoxLaunchMode=0	ComboBoxLaunchMode=1
CheckBoxUseDocLaunchHelper=1	CheckBoxUseDocLaunchHelper=1
CheckBoxAlwaysLaunchViaShortcuts=1	CheckBoxAlwaysLaunchViaShortcuts=1
ComboBox_ControlNum=2	ComboBox_ControlNum=1

All the other differences were just height and width differences.

[mouser]

ok that's super useful; i think what we've learned is that the default ComboBoxLaunchMode=0 works.
and that the non-standard comboboxlaunchmode=1 which you must have set at some point in your older version, is failing to launch files.. why it used to work and now doesn't im not sure, but i can look into that.

for you, the answer seems clear, which is to go to general options tab and switch to the default first comboboxlaunchmode, and then you can install and use the new version of farr.

[jreedar]

Excellent, I'm working great now.

Thanks.