DonationCoder.com Software > Find And Run Robot

Feature Request: Super Context...

<< < (4/4)

kfitting:
Your ideas make sense mouser... I especially agree with the idea of less user involvement up front.  One of the problems with this app is that it has SO many customization options it will become rather overwhelming for newcomers.  Customization is great, dont get me wrong, but intuitiveness is key; whether this comes in the form of a well-written helpfile or user-friendly GUI, I dont know.  Besides, if a freak accident occurs and you dont get a chance to save your settings you will spend a long time getting everything back! 

For example, the regular expressions are going to be confusing to new users (if they arent familiar with them to begin with).  Now, I know they arent critical to using FindRun and a new user could get by without them, but they will make FindRun so useful it would be a shame to have people just give up on them (or FindRun) because they see a big confusing piece of software that will take a lot of time to learn and get running.  (I will reiterate: regular expressions are going to be helpful and I am NOT saying they shouldnt be included!!) 

<<rant>> That is one of my biggest disagreements/peeves with the whole Open Source movement: sure, the software is free, but often you get what you pay for in terms of gui and documentation!  I played around with Linux and came away unimpressed for the simple reason that the GUI for many of the programs I was using (some engineering apps) was downright pathetic.  This isnt to say that all OS programs are trash, I just get upset when I read places like Slashdot (the comments section... the news is still good!) and people will bash a program solely because it costs money, while advocating an OS alternative.  Usability usability documentation!!! <</rant>>

So, all that rambling to say, it's worth giving a few less options in certain places if it will make a program more user-friendly.  Obviously, the question is "where is that line?"  I dont know, and since mouser is the one writing the software, he gets to answer it as he goes! 

Kevin

mouser:
i agree with you kfitting, and i hope you will help me not go crazy with making it too complex.
regular expressions are going to be beyond most people,
which is why we will want to make a good chunk of default commands come pre-configured,
ie web searches, etc.

then users can more easily
1) see examples
2) just use the built in commands
3) just tweak and modify existing commands without having to understand them completely.

cracksloth:
ah...  i was trying to say that nontroppo's context menu could simply load those actions defined by a separate context menu tool (by parsing the registry or a config file).  it was just a way to remove some bloat from f&r and to maximize your coding time by creating a second tool that would also be helpful in other situations.

but i agree about not worrying about this yet - it's not pretty, but the explorer context menu is functional and complete.

kfitting:
Well, I'll try to help... though on features and things that I want I tend to go overboard myself!  Oh well, checks and balances I suppose.  I will continue commenting on the regex stuff in the appropriate topic!  Read on...

Kevin

nontroppo:
I don't know anything about the Win32 API so my suggestions may not always be easily implementable. I had hoped that somewhere there was a get-at-able representation of the context menu (an object which gives a list of things doable), without having to show it (I think this is how OSX does it as it seems there are many such apps around). Maybe the registry has most of what is needed? Navigating a serial menu with arrow keys is slower, less elegant and less simple than the adaptive search that FARR is based on. But if it requires a manual recreation of contextual actions because of the Win32 API, it see may be quite a bit of work.

Nevertheless with mousers custom commands and file type matching, some basic contextual configuration sets would be trivial to set up. I am quite happy to noodle around with regex's, and I think we can easily come up with a library of commands to perform for those who don't need/want to regex.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page