Author Topic: Browser Bunch 1.4.2.1 beta (Read 33512 times)

MilesAhead · « **on:** May 06, 2012, 09:31 PM »

Browser Bunch 1.0.0.0 is a launcher used with a file full of Urls. The file is specified on the command line. This can be done conveniently using SendTo Menu. Windows Seven Jump List is even better. Pin the program to Taskbar. Drag plain text files full of Urls onto the Taskbar Icon.

If the program is run with no params, it displays usage info.

Here's a screen shot of the Gui Window that pops up allowing you to select your preferred browser for this group of Urls:

As you can see some of the buttons are blank(they are all blank on first run.) If you press a blank button a File Open Dialog will allow you to associate a browser exe with that button. Or you can cheat and just add the paths to your browsers to the .ini file.

The program also has an option to use a filter. Say as example I saved 500 IMDB search Urls to my Urlfile. But I only want to show those that have "wind" in the name like Windstruck or Gone With The Wind. I type wind in the InputBox and only those Urls will be added to the command tail.

As you can see in the screen shot, the label gives the stats on the length of the command tail, and the number of tabs that would open if you launch a browser. Just press Esc Key or click on the 'x' in the corner of the window to abort the launch.

It doesn't have any fancy mechanism to collect urls. But as I noted in the Readme.txt EditPadLite7 will handle the drop of the address bar text from most browsers. Worked with chrome, MaxThon and Firefox. Didn't like Opera. But select then copy and paste works with everything.

Download page:

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

rgdot · « **Reply #1 on:** May 07, 2012, 12:31 AM »

Using XP, I get the dialogue window (describing the program) but nothing happens after.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #2 on:** May 07, 2012, 12:10 PM »

If run with no params, it shows usage and quits. You have to supply a UrlFile on the command line. Please read the Readme.txt.

It's not designed to stay running. It launches the browser with Urls and exits.
See the included example url file.

As noted in the Readme, it's designed to be run from SendTo or Jump List. From command line try
BrowserBunch ExampleURLfile.txt

then just hit Enter when the InputBox opens. I'm adding a means to pick up the default browser if it's not already set for the default button. I should post it in about an hour or so.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #3 on:** May 07, 2012, 12:45 PM »

Browser Bunch 1.1.0.0 Now if Default Button on Gui is blank, when you press it you are prompted to assign the default browser, if the program can determine it. If you click No on the MsgBox, then a File Open Dialog is presented, same as for all the other buttons.

This is kind of a quick start. If you only use one browser no sense making you load it manually. I could detect default browser on start up, but that would complicate setting the default button to some other browser. This method is simpler and less likely to go wrong.

At this point there is no automatic ini file backup. Once you have your browsers set up I recommend making a copy of your BrowserBunch.ini file. Since the program launches and quits, there's no tray icon menu for other commands. The design is simpler.

I guess I could add an .ini file option IniBackupName or something. If not blank I can copy the existing ini file to that name before overwriting it. I'll try it out and see if it makes sense to do it like that.

rgdot · « **Reply #4 on:** May 07, 2012, 01:39 PM »

Thanks for the clarification

MilesAhead · « **Reply #5 on:** May 07, 2012, 01:39 PM »

Browser Bunch 1.1.1.0 Now it chains 2 backups when writing the BrowserBunch.ini file. The most recent will be named BrowserBunch.ini.bak and the oldest BrowserBunch.ini.bak2.

This gives you a chance to easily undo option changes. But it's still a good idea to make a manual backup of your .ini to some other name when you change browser button assignments.

By having 2 chained backups it should give you a chance to notice something is funky. More than that and it becomes a VMS file system emulation.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #6 on:** May 07, 2012, 01:42 PM »

Thanks for the clarification
-rgdot (May 07, 2012, 01:39 PM)

Sure. When showing usage I always use the convention that mandatory params are not in brackets. If it's in square brackets such as [ Filter ] then it's optional.

I just updated to v. 1.1.1.0. Now I think it's usable "out of the box." Step-wise refinement and all that jazz.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #7 on:** May 07, 2012, 03:35 PM »

Browser Bunch 1.2.0.0 Fixed bug reading .ini file. Also offers to assign the default browser to the default button if the button is not already assigned. You can click No to choose any browser via the File Open Dialog.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #8 on:** May 07, 2012, 07:26 PM »

Browser Bunch 1.3.0.0 Added Setup Mode. If /setup is the first param on the command line, the Gui Window will open allowing you to assign multiple browsers to buttons. The Gui will stay open until you press Esc key or otherwise close the window. The browser button assignments are then written to the .ini file and the app terminates.

This obviates the need to specify a Urlfile to get the Gui Window to open. You may use the /setup switch at any time to change Button assignments. But I recommend you back up your current .ini file if it has been customized. The ini write routine chains a couple of backups automatically. But it's still a good idea to make a manual backup.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #9 on:** May 07, 2012, 11:05 PM »

Re: Browser Bunch 1.4.0.0 Added blur behind effect for Glass enabled systems(Vista or later.)

The default setting is to use glass. It may be disabled via .ini file option.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #10 on:** August 29, 2012, 06:39 PM »

Browser Bunch 1.4.0.0 - with FFSS Zip file now includes FFSS.exe which is a way to automate collecting a URL set using Firefox. See the Readme.txt section "Automatically using Firefox" for usage.

It's just a Tray Hotkey macro utility that cycles through the open tabs and captures the url text. These urls are then written to a text file that may be opened using Browser Bunch.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #11 on:** August 30, 2012, 08:05 PM »

Browser Bunch 1.4.0.0 - with BBSS Changed the included macro program to BBSS.exe since it works in chromium as well as Firefox. Added option to save titles of the tabs. Run BBSS.exe once and quit it, to write new options to the .ini file. The UseFileSaveDlg applies to both urls and titles. In each case the urls or titles are written to the text file(s) one per line. If the file(s) already exist, they are deleted to avoid appending duplicate data.

I haven't tried it with Opera yet. The macros, such as Control-tab to move to the next tab, may be standard for browsers. One thing at a time.

edit: first attempt with Opera was really ragged. It just didn't seem smooth. Choice of 2 browsers should cover a lot of bases though.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #12 on:** September 01, 2012, 11:31 AM »

Browser Bunch 1.4.2.0 - with BBSS Added options to ini file so that command line switches may be passed to each browser. Use BrowserBunch.exe to open a browser with a set ot tabs. This will cause it to write the .ini file with the new options. Under each browser there will be an option Brows_n_Switches where n is a number 1 to 6. For example to pass --renderer-process-max=8 to chrome, to limit the number of chrome.exe instances, paste it in without quotes directly after the equals sign. If chrome is the browser for button1 it would look like this:

[Settings]
Left=78
Top=825
Brows_1=C:\Utils\Chromium\chrome.exe
Brows_1_Switches=--renderer-process-limit=8

You may even use the same browser for more than one button to launch with various switches.

(My web hosting outfit is doing some maintenance. My files are read-only access until then. I can't upload the latest to my page yet. So I attached it to this post.)

edit: they are making progress on my web hosting account. I was able to upload the latest zip for Browser Bunch.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #13 on:** September 07, 2012, 07:51 PM »

BBSS.exe has been updated to fix "off by one" error when collecting Titles from Tabs.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #14 on:** November 03, 2012, 05:20 AM »

Misc Note:
Strange things can happen when you toggle on/off "hide extensions for known file types" in MS Windows. I do that a lot when I want to save twin copies of stuff like a .txt and a .html copy of web pages for example. But when running BBSS if it's toggled off and when you are saving the files if you forget to manually type .txt at the end of the file names then you get "unknown files".

So it can get a a bit confusing, but I figured it out.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #15 on:** November 03, 2012, 09:38 AM »

There's no stipulation in either program for the files to have ".txt" extension. Only that they be plain text in content. First thing I do when I get a new PC or install Windows is turn off the "hide extensions" setting. Don't know what good it does, but the harm has to be at least an order of magnitude greater. On Windows forums I think about 10% of the posts for help disappear once the poster turns that off.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #16 on:** November 03, 2012, 11:29 AM »

There's no stipulation in either program for the files to have ".txt" extension. Only that they be plain text in content. First thing I do when I get a new PC or install Windows is turn off the "hide extensions" setting. Don't know what good it does, but the harm has to be at least an order of magnitude greater. On Windows forums I think about 10% of the posts for help disappear once the poster turns that off.
-MilesAhead (November 03, 2012, 09:38 AM)

Well, per my "resident pest" self awarded title, under certain settings when I was saving the resulting files, Windows couldn't figure out what type they were.

<--- Continues to find obscure bugs that apparently no one else gets.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #17 on:** November 03, 2012, 11:50 AM »

If you set it to hide the file extension and then don't specify an extension I don't see how you would expect it to do so. The tab gathering bit is just a macro after all. There must be hundreds of thousands of settings in Windows. I'd be dead before I tested the interaction of 1/1000th of the permutations. It's a bit unrealistic don't you think?

Sounds like the old "the computer should do what I'm thinking, not what I'm typing" routine.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #18 on:** November 03, 2012, 01:47 PM »

Not really, it's kinda easy to reproduce, it's when I SHOW the file type setting the first time, then when I save the files if I don't manually type ".txt" at the end of my file name it happens. Then when I later hide file extensions it was still producing "un-typed files".

I see those kinds of problems with the file extensions on a lot of apps, which is why I had a widget that toggled that setting on 1-doubleclick (though I lost it somewhere, it's probably in a "utilities 7" folder somewhere.)

MilesAhead · « **Reply #19 on:** November 03, 2012, 02:16 PM »

Right. You save the file with no extension so it has no type. I already explained the program does not require any particular file type. Only plain text content. If you can't type a file extension with the name then I guess you're going to have issues with lots of programs that don't register a file type.

If I add .txt and you double click the file, it's going to open an editor anyway. Not my program. There is no registered file type for it. Don't know how many ways to say it.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #20 on:** November 04, 2012, 08:51 AM »

All seriousness aside... it's your app. Let me know what you want to add.

You don't work the same way I do so I'll just add it. Anyway, it seemed more fun with a good argument first.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #21 on:** November 04, 2012, 09:11 AM »

Heh is that the graphic depiction of ROFL?

I'm not even sure what to add, without getting more tangled. It was more like a quirk I've seen a ton of programs do.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #22 on:** November 04, 2012, 10:27 AM »

Heh is that the graphic depiction of ROFL?

I'm not even sure what to add, without getting more tangled. It was more like a quirk I've seen a ton of programs do.
-TaoPhoenix (November 04, 2012, 09:11 AM)

Ok, later after football I'll mess around with it. See what's what.

Funny what google turns up. Didn't have a shortcut for the usual smiley so I just searched. That one looked a bit unusual.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #23 on:** November 19, 2012, 09:44 AM »

All seriousness aside... it's your app. Let me know what you want to add.
-MilesAhead (November 04, 2012, 08:51 AM)

Actually, I think I have found my first big request for an feature-add. I would like a Toggle-able option (maybe in the Right-Click from the tray?) that prints-to-PDF all of the pages. The big use case is applying for jobs, I need PDF copies of the offer pages. So rather than hand-saving them, since your pro is already cycling through them, let's just do print-to-PDF of them all as well, in whatever same folder the text lists are going to. The PDF titles would be the same as the page Titles.

But it needs to be toggleable, because for example once I am done with the list I don't need page copies.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #24 on:** November 19, 2012, 09:45 AM »

-MilesAhead (November 04, 2012, 08:51 AM)

That graphic is traumatizing oin a Stephen King's Clown kind of way. Or a Backstreet Boys song. : (