NANY 2010 Final Release: FARR Plugin ProcessInfo

[jpprater]

NANY 2010 Entry Information

Application Name	FARR Plugin ProcessInfo
Version	1.1.0
Short Description	A FindAndRunRobot plugin to display information about running processes
Supported OSes	Windows
System Requirements	FARR 2.80.02 recommended (for use with latest FScript)
Version History	1.1.0:  Bug fixes by mouser, including showing all processes and adding icons for many processes that didn't show them 1.0.1:  Bug fix 1.0.0:  Release! 0.9.0:  pre-release 0.0.5:  alpha testing
Website:	Main Bug/Feature Tracker Wiki Download
Author	Jonathan Prater
Screencast	http://donationcoder.com/nany2010/sc/processinfo/processinfo.html YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbPQwND-gcY

Description
I'm a sysadmin by trade, and I frequently need to get quick information about processes running on a machine (either my own or a remote PC).  I also frequently need to know what files the process is actually using at any given moment.  And I don't necessarily want to have to access the machine directly to get that information.
While there are tools already available that give me that information, none of them are particularly fast about giving it to me, and none of the are as intutive as a FARR alias/plugin could be. So I wrote this to be the fast, simple tool that I as an admin need to get information quickly.

Current Features
- It queries processes matching a specified partial name, then lists them out by name and ID.
- Upon selection of a specific process, it returns more detailed information, including memory used, count of handles open, and paths to actual files.

Planned Features
- Access to processes on remote computers.

Screencast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbPQwND-gcY

Screenshots
Initially, the user types in pinfo...

As the user enters more characters, ProcessInfo tightens down on the processes that match what was entered.  The results list looks like this:

Upon selecting the desired target process, the user gets something like this:


Installing this application:
Make sure you've got FARR installed , then download the plugin file (attached below) and unpack it to a subdirectory of $FARR_Install\Plugins.
Toggle FARR and type rplugins, then click OK.  One of the plugins in your list should be ProcessInfo, with an alias of pinfo.

Usage:
pinfo processname.  Hit enter on a process you want to see details for.  To see all processes, just type pinfo followed by a space.
To query remote computers: pinfo c=computername processname.

Uninstalling:
Toggle FARR and type rplugins.  Before clicking OK, delete the directory $FARR_Install\Plugins\$ProcessInfo, where $ProcessInfo is the directory you originally unpacked the plugin to.[/list]

[mouser]

Great to see a FARR plugin entry 

[jpprater]

Thank you for your help getting it working in the first place!

[mouser]

you might consider trying to show and filter results live.. that is, always return to farr the complete list of processes running and let FARR filter them to match what user types.

i'm just impressed that you are grabbing this info using javascript!  that's pretty damn cool.

[skwire]

Wow...very cool.  Nice job.

[lanux128]

very nice, will complement another Farr plugin - Pkill.

[jpprater]

you might consider trying to show and filter results live.. that is, always return to farr the complete list of processes running and let FARR filter them to match what user types.
i'm just impressed that you are grabbing this info using javascript!  that's pretty damn cool.

Thanks.  I'm using WMI to retrieve it (using the SWbemServices interface, which plays well with anything that works with COM; I could've written this plugin using python, too ).
And I already do filter results live, following a previous suggestion from you.  Taking out the alias makes sense, though.  For the detail display, though, I need the memo mode to display everything coherently.

[jpprater]

Updated to pre-release status! 

[jpprater]

Released! 

[cranioscopical]

Very nice piece of work!

[TucknDar]

Nice, this will come in handy!

A couple of initial remarks: Am I supposed to press Space after 'pinfo'? I would've thought that just typing 'pinfo' would be enough... (I suppose this might be possible if I change an alias setting in FARR, though)
And +sall modifier doesn't work, so I only get a short list and need to know what I'm looking for. support for +sall or an option to display full list of processes would be very nice.

Great stuff!

[jpprater]

Nice, this will come in handy!

A couple of initial remarks: Am I supposed to press Space after 'pinfo'? I would've thought that just typing 'pinfo' would be enough... (I suppose this might be possible if I change an alias setting in FARR, though)
And +sall modifier doesn't work, so I only get a short list and need to know what I'm looking for. support for +sall or an option to display full list of processes would be very nice.

Great stuff!

Thanks, glad you like it.
Yes, you need a space after pinfo to make it start searching.
I'll add support for +sall to my issue list.

[mouser]

a note, you can return the full path of the exe as the icon file and farr should load the appropriate icon from the file.. i think.

[jpprater]

a note, you can return the full path of the exe as the icon file and farr should load the appropriate icon from the file.. i think.

That's if the full path can be captured in the first place. 
Not all processes appear to store their paths in a readable form in the WMI repository.  (See here)  And of course, for remote machines, if the process' executable doesn't exist in the same place on the local machine, I can't very well detect its icon, unless I can pull some gyrations with grabbing it from the executable on the remote machine itself.

[mouser]

fair enough.. you could add a few generic icons inside your plugin directory and return those, just so the space wasn't blank.
that actually makes me think i should add some generic icons in with farr that can be used by plugins as placeholders.

[jpprater]

Yeah, that makes sense.
The issue I just mentioned above has been fixed (some processes failing to display details due to not all fields being populated).  I'll start a new feature issue for icons.  I can find a generic icon from the OS that will be suitable (I think ).

[jpprater]

OK, I have a suitable icon, but here's the problem:  Not every process that I can get a path to has its own icon.  I'm thinking maybe I should just go with the standard generic icon, unless someone knows how to check for the presence of icons built into executables programmatically...  Any opinions either way?

[mouser]

what happens when you give farr an executable path that doesnt have an icon? is it just blank space? maybe i can fix farr to show a better default in that case.

[jpprater]

Yup.  Although, if I type that executable's path directly into the search field, it shows the icon that Explorer displays for that executable w/out issue.  Perhaps its simply that explorer is intelligent about assigning icons automatically, whereas FARR isn't and usually doesn't have to be.

[mouser]

should be same effect -- send me the plugin where you give farr the exe paths as icon paths and ill investigate why farr might show a blank (mouser@donationcoder.com).

[jpprater]

should be same effect -- send me the plugin where you give farr the exe paths as icon paths and ill investigate why farr might show a blank (mouser@donationcoder.com).

Sent.  Good luck! 

[jpprater]

Final Release status!  
Edit:  Dude, mouser just slipped me a major bugfix!  Latest version is out on the Redmine project, and it includes showing all processes, as well as showing icons for some processes that wouldn't show them previously.    Props to the mouseman!!