NANY 2010 Release: Anuran

[skwire]

NANY 2010 Entry Information

Application Name	Anuran
Short Description	A rotating, automatic-prompting personal text log.
Supported OSes	Windows 7.  Might work, but not tested, on Windows XP/Vista/8/10.
Web Page	Anuran
Download Link	Zip file (portable)
System Requirements	Windows OS
Version History	Changelog
Author	Jody Holmes (Skwire)
Screencast (courtesy of mouser, thanks!)	http://donationcoder.com/nany2010/sc/anuran/anuran.html YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bf8ps1wgWg

Description
Anuran is rotating, automatic-prompting personal text log.  The original idea came from a request from doctorfrog on this thread.

Features

• Completely configurable.
• AnuVu log viewer included.
• Log files are standard text files.  No proprietary formats.

Planned Features
I cater to the people so suggest something. 

Screencast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bf8ps1wgWg

Screenshots





Usage
Installation
Unpack the archive to its own folder and run Anuran.exe.

Uninstallation
Delete the folder you unpacked the archive to.  Nothing is written to the registry.

Known Issues
It wouldn't be software if it didn't have issues.  Let me know if you find any.

[mouser]

what an icon! 

[skwire]

Agreed...they're fantastic.  You can find that icon and others at: http://turbomilk.com/downloads/zoom_eyed/

[Shades]

It appears to me that the center two screenshots are the same...and I have the impression that you wanted us to show the content of each tab from your application. (tab 'Popup' is missing, btw.)

But as always...you created a nice solid application 

[skwire]

It appears to me that the center two screenshots are the same...and I have the impression that you wanted us to show the content of each tab from your application. (tab 'Popup' is missing, btw.)

Doh!  Fixed!  Thank you very much. 

But as always...you created a nice solid application 

Thanks for the kind words.  I appreciate them.

[mouser]

Anuran is great!

One thing i would suggest for next version:
When user hits Close button on the popup, it should:
1) check if any text has been input in the box -- if not, just discard entry.
2) if text HAS been put in box, save it;
3) OR prompt user and say: hitting close box will abandon the note -- in order to save notes just hit enter.

[skwire]

Website | Download
v1.0.13 - 2010-01-01
    * If you close the popup via the X button, any note text will be saved.  If
      the entry is blank, it will be discarded.  (Thanks, mouser)

[mediaguycouk]

I don't many credits left but you can have them because this is awesome.

[skwire]

Thanks for the compliment and the credits.  I appreciate both.

[boo_radley]

This is a super app! When you're adding entries, the textbox should recognize ctrl+backspace as "delete previous word" though.

keep up the great work!

[doctorfrog]

Cool, I just watched mouser's screencast of the proggie. Also, first mention in the Wrap Up!  High five

[mediaguycouk]

Could I suggest that the time in the pop-up box update?

It correctly logs then time when submitting but it seems strange to come back to my desk at 15:00 to see a message saying log entry 12:29

Just a minor feature request, so if you don't think it's worth it I'll just try and edit it so the time doesn't show.

[skwire]

the textbox should recognize ctrl+backspace as "delete previous word" though.

Website | Download
v1.0.14 - 2010-01-05
    + Ctrl-Backspace should now delete the previous word in the popup entry box.  (Thanks, boo_radley)

[skwire]

Could I suggest that the time in the pop-up box update?
It correctly logs then time when submitting but it seems strange to come back to my desk at 15:00 to see a message saying log entry 12:29

I was aware of this issue and, sure, I can make it so the titlebar updates.  This entails updating the titlebar every second and, while it's not nearly as CPU intensive as it may sound, there will be a bit more CPU used while the popup is active.  Honestly, I don't think it'll even be an issue but I'd like to hear what others think before I implement this.

Just a minor feature request, so if you don't think it's worth it I'll just try and edit it so the time doesn't show.

You can modify the timestamp format of the popup box to not show the time in the meanwhile.

[mediaguycouk]

As the seconds are not displayed on the title screen is it worth updating it every second? You could delay it for 60 - date(seconds) then every 60 seconds.

Also seeing as you have asked for new comments to be made in this thread you may want to change the forum link in the about section to this page rather than the coding snacks section.

As always 

[skwire]

As the seconds are not displayed on the title screen is it worth updating it every second?

Actually, I do, since the user can configure a timestamp that includes seconds.

Also seeing as you have asked for new comments to be made in this thread you may want to change the forum link in the about section to this page rather than the coding snacks section.

Doh!  Fixed in v1.0.15!  Thanks!

[jdmarch]

Lovely program, thanks, skwire, small but appreciative credits donated.

Bug report. If I open the options dialog while the popup is visible, then it becomes permanently impossible to use Enter to submit the log entry, though with v 15 it can still be logged by closing the popup with X. Also the popup hotkey stops working (though the Anuvu hotkey keeps working.) These problems disappear if I exit the program altogether and restart.
(Anuran 1.0.15 build 1, Win XP SP3)

[jdmarch]

My $.02 on updating the title bar time:

1. I think it's important that the title bar be the same as the logged time. Now, it's misleading/confusing; I was actually entering my notes to match the time on the title bar! This was useful because sometimes I was away from the computer for several hours and it was good to have to think back what happened then. After entering that, I have next been doing a manual note for right now (the time of return to the computer).

So either update the title bar, or use the old time as the log entry.

2. If you do update the title bar, then surely doing so every minute suffices? If you really want to support people who want to track their time to the second (), then you could update it every second only for those who enable logging of seconds.

3. BUT if you do make the title bar update regularly, I then lose that useful forced realization "my god, I've been away from the computer for 2 hours!". So what would be ideal would be an elapsed time counter too, which shows how long since it popped up.

4. If you don't want to add a display of elapsed time, then I would vote for leaving the title bar as is (showing the original time of popup), but having *that* (not *now*) be the logged time. Then the user could make a manual entry for *now* if desired (as I have been doing). Or perhaps have an option that if more than the normal popup interval has elapsed since the time of the popup that had been sitting there, then immediately follow it by a "now" popup.)

[jdmarch]

Smaller points:

1. Anuview. It seems awkward that the log files are arranged newest first, but the entries in each file are arranged oldest first. It would be great to have an option to show the entries newest first too. If you don't like that, then an option to show the files oldest first. In that case, Anuvu should open with the current entry checked (as now) but also with it scrolled to the end so that the most recent entries can be viewed without extra work.

2. It would be very nice to be able to specify the archive time (mod the archive interval) as an option. For example, I would like the archives to be organized by day, i.e. archive in the early morning. I figured out that this can be done by exiting the program, editing G_Last_Archive in the ini file, and restarting the program. But this is not user-friendly, and is fragile because if for some reason I decide to archive mid-day, then that will become my new archive time every day.

3. FYI... DCUpdater saw that an update was needed from 13 to 15 but "get updated failed" repeatedly. I updated manually. DCUpdater always works ok for me with FARR.

4. Suggest that About and maybe Update Check commands be available from tray menu.

Thanks again!!

[jdmarch]

3. BUT if you do make the title bar update regularly, I then lose that useful forced realization "my god, I've been away from the computer for 2 hours!". So what would be ideal would be an elapsed time counter too, which shows how long since it popped up.

4. If you don't want to add a display of elapsed time, then I would vote for leaving the title bar as is (showing the original time of popup), but having *that* (not *now*) be the logged time. Then the user could make a manual entry for *now* if desired (as I have been doing). Or perhaps have an option that if more than the normal popup interval has elapsed since the time of the popup that had been sitting there, then immediately follow it by a "now" popup.)

Another idea, maybe more useful, for reminding the user how long it has been since the last log entry: have the top half of the popup show the most recent entry (including timestamp), and the bottom half be the text entry field.

[skwire]

Website | Download
v1.0.16 - 2010-01-06
    * The popup now updates the timestamp in the titlebar.  (Thanks, mediaguycouk)
    + The intial popup time is now shown in the popup's statusbar.
    + Added "About" and "Check for updates" to the tray menu.  (Thanks, jdmarch)
    ! All hotkeys were not properly disabled when the Options dialog was open.  (Thanks, jdmarch)
    ! Enter/ctrl-enter for the popup was improperly disabled while the Options dialog was open.  (Thanks, jdmarch)

1. Anuview. It seems awkward that the log files are arranged newest first, but the entries in each file are arranged oldest first.

Do you mean the log filenames in the list?  If so, mine are listed oldest to newest (top to bottom).  The initial listing is going to be dependent on the filename/timestamp format you've chosen for the log files.

It would be great to have an option to show the entries newest first too.

This is actually somewhat harder than it sounds since the format is so plain-text.  I've added it to my ToDo, though.  I should be able to add it to the next version.

It would be very nice to be able to specify the archive time (mod the archive interval) as an option.

This is a really good idea and I've added it to the ToDo as well.

3. FYI... DCUpdater saw that an update was needed from 13 to 15 but "get updated failed" repeatedly. I updated manually. DCUpdater always works ok for me with FARR.

Hmmm...seemed to work for me on my production install.

4. Suggest that About and maybe Update Check commands be available from tray menu.

Added in v1.0.16 above.  I also fixed the bug you reported in your earlier post.  Thanks for the feedback.

[jdmarch]

Thanks, skwire, speedy as ever!

1. Hotkey handling is still an issue. Try this:
* show popup
* show options
* cancel popup.
* cancel options
Now the popup hotkey is dead until restart.

2. Update installation apparently caused/includes an Archive Now, which screwed up my attempt to divide up my logs consistently by day.

3.

Do you mean the log filenames in the list?  If so, mine are listed oldest to newest (top to bottom).
...[option to show the entries newest first too.]...I've added it to my ToDo

Yes, you are right about archived logfile order. I was just comparing the current log with one archive log, which are listed in the opposite order by default. To be clear, my fundamental goals with this issue are to have the ordering of the log files internally consistent, and consistent with the ordering of the entries. This is for general clarity, and also so that when multiple log files are viewed at once, the overall entry order will be monotonic not old-new-old-new.

4. The DCUpdater error was mine... obsolete default download directory.

[jdmarch]

Another suggestion: have the default contents of the popup's text box be the same as the previous entry's, but pre-selected, so that if the user starts typing it will be replaced by the new text, but if the user presses End and Enter, it will repeat (or even more helpful but trickier for you, just Enter to repeat.) This would be useful when one is working on the same project for a long stretch of time. Thanks!

[doctorfrog]

Website | Download
v1.0.16 - 2010-01-06
   * The popup now updates the timestamp in the titlebar.  (Thanks, mediaguycouk)
   + The intial popup time is now shown in the popup's statusbar.

Can you add options to toggle these? The titlebar updating causes the window to flicker every second when using bblean+bbleanskin, and I like the cleaner look of the original popup. (Yes, I know I'm one of two, maybe three dudes using bblean and Anuran.)

Minor request: Using hotkey to toggle popup timer pause should trigger sound event (auditory feedback).

[ewemoa]

I'm not having much luck using Korean text with Anuran.

Anyone else have a similar experience?