Author Topic: FARR V3 Discussion (Read 34172 times)

Josh · « **on:** November 05, 2013, 11:38 AM »

So,

I wanted to throw this out there and see what the thoughts were on FARR v3? Mouser, as we've spoken about, I think there are a few core features that should be thrown into the FARR v3 release.

1. Indexing for faster result display and searching.
2. Network Share Browsing (Not mapped drives, but UNC path such as \\SERVER\Share) while using file/folder browsing.
3. Incorporation of alias launches into the results window (So, if I launch a cpanel alias, I can see it in the recent history)
4. Integration into other DoCo tools (CH+S, SsC, LBC)?

For everyone out there, I am trying to help "persuade" mouser into starting on FARRv3. Indexing the biggest thing I see that could boost the speed with which FARR operates.

What does everyone else think?

Filipe Meira Castro · « **Reply #1 on:** November 05, 2013, 02:08 PM »

Hi,

FARR is more than really, really great and I agree it can be even better with upgrades like those in place.

For me I would prioritize as:
01. Launch file, Keep FARR opened and Continue searching! - "ctrl+dbl click" launches the file and keeps FARR opened but it should also keep populating results! (not all results are populated instantaneously)
02. Content Search - search for text inside .pdf, .docx, .xlsx, .pdf, .txt!
03. Ignore "accents" - add functionality to search accented and not accented files at once (search for "dinamico" and return both "dinâmico.doc" and "dinamico.txt") - it's quite unpredicted when filenames have accents or not and therefore easy to miss a search.
04. Fuzzy search - so that it may find results that are mistyped.
05. Multithread all searching - to eliminate the occasional delays people experience during searching [from Mouser]
06. Launch file and keep FARR opened but avoid safe-mode - "ctrl+dbl click" is opening apps like word and adobe pdf in safe mode - the shortcut could be changed for "shift+dbl click" or middle mouse button
07. Drag and Drop from desktop into FARR search folder - Drag and drop a file from the desktop into a FARR folder, that is shown on FARR search results, could copy/move the file into that folder (right mouse button drag and drop could open context menu - same as between normal windows folders!)
08. Drag and Drop from FARR into desktop with right click - Drag and drop a file from FARR into the desktop with right mouse button should have the same type of functionality as between windows folders (showing context menu).
09. Rename functionality - "Right click\Shell Context Menu\Rename" does not work! Add rename possibility to FARR!
10. Improved Right Click Context menu - add option to combine "ShellContext Menu" with "FARRContext Menu" - or "ShellContext" submenu could open with mouse-over (same as the "Add to Group Alias" submenu)
11. Indexing - always handy to have a faster system and be able to avoid being so picky with the amount of configured search folders!
12. Costume filetype launcher - option to override Windows settings and to use a costume application to launch files (by use of relative path)
13. Cross-platform - add macOS and Linux support!
14. Allow FARR searching while options window is open - This makes testing easier [from Nod5]
15. Ability to search settings page - "unreal commander" has this in a nice way, maybe something similar in FARR!
16. Ability to identify from which rules / points does an item has - Eg: 50 points for being in folder_x, + 30 points for being in the history, etc...
17. Bring FARR to front when relaunching FARR - Bring FARR to front and avoid message "Only one copy of FARR at the same time" - same as with your SSC app.
18. Toolbar shortcut items with costume icon - add option to select a specific icon instead of using the builtin .exe icon - could be handy to assign an icon to batch file as well!.
19. Double hotkey to start FARR - start FARR hitting twice a hotkey like ctrl, shift or space

Fixes:
01. Toolbar shortcut items with relative path are not showing the icon - "..\Winamp Lite\winamp.exe" launches winamp but it does not show the winamp.exe icon while "c:\sw\Winamp Lite\winamp.exe" does! (it does show relative path icons if FARR is restarted but it will remove them again when clicking "Configure Toolbar" and "OK")
02. Include shortcut text on context menu items - the text "Launch and stay open" should be renamed to "Launch and stay open [CTRL dbl Clk]"

Have a great day

ewemoa · « **Reply #2 on:** November 05, 2013, 09:01 PM »

If dreaming is allowed, off the top of my head in no particular order:

Possibly source code to encourage 3rd party participation, ease burden of single individual, encourage certain kinds of design decisions, etc.
Developed with tools freely available
Cross-platform - at least also *NIX, but nice to also target WINE
Improved multilingual support (e.g. sufficiently Unicode-aware)
Near-full operation as a library and/or via command line (e.g. for use via 3rd party programs) - might encourage alternate GUIs to be developed

Nod5 · « **Reply #3 on:** November 16, 2013, 11:37 AM »

FARR is really great as it is. I can mostly think of some small tweaks here and there. But if forced to think of bigger ideas here are thoughts:
1. If FARR does add indexing then it would be useful to also make search results possible to detach into a separate window with column sorting (time created, filetype, filename, ...) where files can be bulk selected and operated on. Similar to how Everything works. Being able to add shortcuts to such "search views" could also be useful. The short cut would pop up a windows that show all files that match some (perhaps complex) FARR search formula.

2. Many new Windows 8 devices come with touchscreens. I'd like to continue to use FARR once I move to such devices, but I'm not sure what the fastest way to interact with FARR using touch input would be.

ewemoa · « **Reply #4 on:** November 16, 2013, 07:21 PM »

1. If FARR does add indexing then it would be useful to also make search results possible to detach into a separate window with column sorting (time created, filetype, filename, ...) where files can be bulk selected and operated on. Similar to how Everything works. Being able to add shortcuts to such "search views" could also be useful. The short cut would pop up a windows that show all files that match some (perhaps complex) FARR search formula.
-Nod5 (November 16, 2013, 11:37 AM)

Mmm! Sounds nice

Nod5 · « **Reply #5 on:** November 17, 2013, 03:15 AM »

5. Read/launch Chrome Bookmarks (Chrome Portable version)
-Filipe Meira Castro (November 05, 2013, 02:08 PM)

A script could give you that with the current FARR I think. Like my ffbookmarkunpacker but for Chrome.
The script would run on each computer boot and make all Chrome bookmarks made before that day searchable in FARR.
Steps needed in such a script: Loop parse the JSON file ...\GoogleChromePortable\Data\profile\Default\Bookmarks to extract each URL and page title into a .url file and save it to a named subfolder. There are libraries for parsing JSON in ahk and some of my ffbookmarkunpacker code could be reused. But I don't have time to do make it right now. You could post it in the N.A.N.Y. ideas thread and see if there are any takers.

Filipe Meira Castro · « **Reply #6 on:** November 17, 2013, 08:43 AM »

5. Read/launch Chrome Bookmarks (Chrome Portable version)
-Filipe Meira Castro (November 05, 2013, 02:08 PM)
-Nod5 (November 17, 2013, 03:15 AM)

Good idea Nod5

As a workaround I am creating each bookmark as a file and not using Chrome builtin bookmarks system!!

skajfes · « **Reply #7 on:** November 17, 2013, 03:05 PM »

It shouldn't be hard to make a plugin that will open the bookmarks file on demand (plain old json file) and display the bookmarks in FARR

mouser · « **Reply #8 on:** November 17, 2013, 03:20 PM »

My first focus for FARR v3, which I am strongly considering doing for NANY (major new versions of apps are allowed!), is:

1. properly multithread all searching, to eliminate the occasional delays people experience during searching
2. support some optional indexing system

Nod5 · « **Reply #9 on:** November 17, 2013, 06:01 PM »

It shouldn't be hard to make a plugin that will open the bookmarks file on demand (plain old json file) and display the bookmarks in FARR
-skajfes (November 17, 2013, 03:05 PM)

Right, that would be cleaner. But an "unpacker" could have the advantage of easy searching of both bookmarks and regular files simultaneously. E.g. a regular FARR search for "football" displays football.url as well as football.txt, while a plugin that searches only bookmarks would only display the football bookmark and not the .txt.

... FARR v3, which I am strongly considering doing for NANY ...
-mouser (November 17, 2013, 03:20 PM)

Awesome!

Filipe Meira Castro · « **Reply #10 on:** November 17, 2013, 06:23 PM »

FARR v3, which I am strongly considering doing for NANY
-mouser (November 17, 2013, 03:20 PM)

Allriiighhttt

As for Chrome Bookmarks I find it really interesting to have those results merged with the file search, I did not know plugin's could't be directly merged with file search... anyways, the plug in option is still interesting!

mouser · « **Reply #11 on:** November 17, 2013, 06:48 PM »

The other major thing I am considering for FARR 3 is a revamp of the plugin engine.

I was thinking of adding native python plugin support, and making that the new recommended plugin language going forward.

The consequences would be:
1. Easier to write plugins -- no more need to build a dll, just a single-file standard python script file (.py) will work fine. And I will simplify the API to use fewer and less finicky functions.
2. Old plugins would still be supported, but the new python plugin engine will be the recommended approach for anything but plugins that really need native dll speed.
3. The largest drawback would be that it would probably add a megabyte or so to the executable size of FARR, and I have to check what it would do to memory use. This is my only real concern. I'll post more info about this after some experimentation.

skajfes · « **Reply #12 on:** November 18, 2013, 02:51 AM »

The other major thing I am considering for FARR 3 is a revamp of the plugin engine.
-mouser (November 17, 2013, 06:48 PM)

While you're at it, can the new plugin system support adding results to existing FARR results. Like people are suggesting for the chrome bookmarks plugin - you search for football, and get football.txt and football.url, etc. FARR should then be responsible for scoring the items. Offcourse, this should be entirely optional, because for some plugins it doesn't make sense to mix results with regular FARR results (ie. KlipKeeper or Network connections plugin).

Btw, I like the pyhton idea with making plugins, as it should be fast enough for majority of plugin needs, but easy enough for everyone to tackle a plugin or two.

Nod5 · « **Reply #13 on:** November 19, 2013, 10:41 AM »

The powerful alias system is one of FARR's greatest features. Here are a few requests to ease use/setup of aliases:
1. Allow FARR searching while options windows are open. This makes testing easier.
2. Make myaliases.alias (i.e. the user custom alias group) default in the alias section of options
3. Inside myaliases.alias: add right click option to export/import an individual alias (same format as for export/import all, but only the string for the selected alias)
4. Inside myaliases.alias: in the export/import popup window: let ctrl+a select all text
5. Alias edit window: add an onmouseover popup for the results/command box header. The popup would summarize some more tips on commands and syntax from the helpfile

mouser: making all plugins python seems like a good move. Then help instructions and examples can be more unified. Besides, it is still possible to do "plugin like" things anyway using the aliases plus external scripts. For example, I have some aliases that trigger two commands in series: (1) first an autohotkey script that takes the FARR input as parameter, operates on it in various ways and then outputs a .html file and (2) the second command then displays said .html in the FARR window.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #14 on:** November 19, 2013, 11:19 AM »

It's not sexy like new features but I'd like to see either a more complete help or the ability to search settings pages. Some of the settings pages aren't that busy. But a few have enough to fool the eye where I can look for certain settings and not see them... if you know what I mean.

With form display I don't know if there's a way to do Control-f search through.

Filipe Meira Castro · « **Reply #15 on:** November 19, 2013, 11:45 AM »

ability to search settings page
-MilesAhead (November 19, 2013, 11:19 AM)

Seems a nice one, will add on my wishlist as well!!

tomos · « **Reply #16 on:** November 19, 2013, 11:57 AM »

ith form display I don't know if there's a way to do Control-f search through.
-MilesAhead (November 19, 2013, 11:19 AM)

would be very nice if possible.
Dopus have a filter for their preferences:

FARR V3 Discussion

duarte.framos · « **Reply #17 on:** December 10, 2013, 05:37 AM »

From what's already been mentioned here, custom file associations with relative paths for portable apps seems the one I like the most.
Indexing seems to be a must from the shear number of requests, also python plugins seems a huge plus, totally worth the small file size increase. I don't think that is still a concern nowadays, when multi-gigabyte pendrive is cheaper then a meal.

I also definitely would like to see a simpler skinning or theme system, like allow using simple PNG images for the window appearance, similar to what launchy does, I think. I would like to see some simpler, more elegant, minimal themes and the ability to easily create beautiful new skins.

Filipe Meira Castro · « **Reply #18 on:** March 19, 2014, 09:46 PM »

Edited my selection of nice to have features

skajfes · « **Reply #19 on:** March 20, 2014, 03:41 AM »

I noticed that FARR currently doesn't handle plugins correctly.
For example, I have installed FARR using the installer, in the default location (Program files) and now FARR doesn't seem to be able to manage plugins, unless if I run it as admin. I am on Windows 8.1.
Can the new plugin system be made (or current one fixed) so that the plugins are located somewhere in <user>\AppData, or at least in <user>\Documents\DonationCoder\FindAndRunRobot directory together with aliases?

Filipe Meira Castro · « **Reply #20 on:** May 03, 2014, 06:54 PM »

Added new items to my selection of nice to have features!

"09 - Bring FARR to front when relaunching FARR"

FARR is greeaaaat, take it to even higher standard!!

mouser · « **Reply #21 on:** May 10, 2014, 01:21 PM »

"09 - Bring FARR to front when relaunching FARR"

I like easy ones like this.
I'm looking at your list.. since I have new betas of LBC and SC released, it's time for FARR and CHS to get their chance. Stay tuned.

Filipe Meira Castro · « **Reply #22 on:** May 10, 2014, 02:07 PM »

uhuhuhuhhhhuuuuhhh!!

taffit_ · « **Reply #23 on:** September 10, 2014, 05:50 AM »

The only thing that I miss currently is the already mentioned:
- Add launched alias group entries to the history.

Thank you for this great piece of software, mouser...

mouser · « **Reply #24 on:** September 10, 2014, 09:36 AM »

thanks taffit.
I am going to be adding launched aliases to launch history.

However here are two tricks while you wait:

You can just Ctrl+Up / Ctrl+Down to scroll through recent searches, which DOES include launched aliases.
You can type "historys" to show these past searches in a list and click the one to trigger (or filter further by typing more).