DonationCoder.com Software > N.A.N.Y. 2015

Program Idea: Configurable application launcher

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Writer:
This is my first idea suggestion for NANY. I have probably searched and tried out most of the available ones: including BrowserChooser and BrowserChooser2 (the latter started as a fork of the former, but now appears abandoned).

I've also tried using Selector a while back when the Favessoft was available. But I find it takes too many actions.

Browser selectors were a fairly frequent request here on DC:
IDEA: Choose which browser will open a url from external app (here)
IDEA: Shell extension which would let you choose which browser opens a hyperlink (here)

Coming back to the idea. I've no programming experience, but can help with UI reviews. Also after reading through many threads, I assume creating a configurable launcher is probably not an easy task.

Nevertheless, here's what could be a useful tool:
1. When a user performs a specific click (say Ctrl+Middle-click) on a URL, a quick selector is displayed. Instead of a mouse click, a similar action could be performed using the keyboard (say a Ctrl+Shift+Return on the keyboard).
2. A user should have the ability to specify that some domains directly open up in a specific browser. This particular feature might be a quite a bit of coding, I reckon.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

MilesAhead:
I have modified BrowserBunch.exe so that if it is run with the first argument on the command line not ending in ".txt" it will assume it is a url, rather than a text file list of urls,  and will open the BrowserBunch Gui.

The Gui can handle up to 6 Browsers using Buttons.  Clicking on a blank button opens a file open dialog to browse to the executable.  The Browser Button will load the icon from the exe and save the info to an .ini file.

The bridge that would be required would be something that detects a url in an editor or whatever and calls BrowserBunch with the url as argument.

Here's a screen shot of the BrowserBunch Gui with 4 Buttons initialized.

Edit:  I've added a zip with just BrowserBunch.exe that has been modified in case you wish to experiment with it.  It should be run from an empty folder since it will create a file BrowserBunch.ini there and needs to find that file or it may quit with an error.




After a Button is clicked the corresponding browser is run with the url as argument.


I know it seems a bit involuted but I have this mechanism for choosing from several browsers pretty well debugged.  If it seems an acceptable Gui then it may be worth considering using a hotkey for the url detection etc..


Edit2:  Note that the first time the BrowserBunch Gui comes up if it detects no initialized buttons it will offer to load the leftmost button with the default browser.  Just so you expect it.  :)

Edit3:  The BrowserBunch Gui only shows translucent as in the screen shot, on Windows 7 with Glass enabled.

app103:
The bridge that would be required would be something that detects a url in an editor or whatever and calls BrowserBunch with the url as argument.
-MilesAhead (December 11, 2014, 11:54 AM)
--- End quote ---

I think you are making it a little more complicated than it needs to be.

You just need an executable that can be set as the default browser, whose sole purpose is to pop up a panel of options and then pass the URL to the browser chosen by the user.

Set as the default browser, it would pick up anything that isn't a link clicked within an actual browser. It wouldn't even need to be running in the background at all times, as the system would launch it as it passes it the URL as a command line parameter, as needed.

MilesAhead:
The bridge that would be required would be something that detects a url in an editor or whatever and calls BrowserBunch with the url as argument.
-MilesAhead (December 11, 2014, 11:54 AM)
--- End quote ---

I think you are making it a little more complicated than it needs to be.

You just need an executable that can be set as the default browser, whose sole purpose is to pop up a panel of options and then pass the URL to the browser chosen by the user.

Set as the default browser, it would pick up anything that isn't a link clicked within an actual browser. It wouldn't even need to be running in the background at all times, as the system would launch it as it passes it the URL as a command line parameter, as needed.
-app103 (December 11, 2014, 01:58 PM)
--- End quote ---

I know.  That's how Browser Chooser worked.  I looked into it and setting the defaults for all the various html related stuff is more complicated than all the rest of it.  I only say use a bridge to call my program because it is already debugged.  I suppose I could add using selected text but then you would either have to select the entire url or I would have to add the logic to my program.  It would be simpler to do a hotkey to get the url and call my program.  Also there's no risk of breaking my code that way.

For some reason Windows users hate it if everything is not in one exe whereas in Linux type OS tools are strung togethr all the time.  I can understand some paranoia like not wanting to install 4 different frameworks or something.  But I would venture a guess there's already a tray program out there somewhere that gets the entire url if you click on any part of it in the active window.

Edit: for example this snippet highlights the word to the left of the caret then sends it to the free dictionary when control-F9 is pressed.  It could be changed to launch BrowserBunch and the URL pretty easily.


--- ---^F9::
  Clipboard =
  Send,^{LEFT}^+{RIGHT}
  Sleep,10
  Send,^c
  ClipWait,0
  Selected := Clipboard
  Send,{Right}
  Run,http://www.thefreedictionary.com/%Selected%
return

Edit2:  The above would have to be enhanced to save and restore clipboard contents as well as load a pretty icon in the tray and perhaps an About function.  I'm a very slow coder.  That's a major reason I often suggest directions.  Most have a working prototype by the time I get the editor fired up.  :)

Edir3:  The code above was for looking up words in the dictionary from an edit form in a browser, such as I'm using right now, or some kind of text editor.  If you cannot count on the keys being there to select text via macro then you are back to selecting the entire url with the mouse etc..  Making something that can pull from every type of window gets sticky.

MilesAhead:
btw once you run BrowserBunch to generate the .ini file you can just paste in the paths to the browsers you wish to use if that's easier han going through the button click initialization.  Also it has a /setup switch to go through the button setup all at once etc..

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