Author Topic: All these F+R ideas are wonderful (Read 19,592 times)

mouser · « **on:** January 28, 2006, 01:02 AM »

i'm loving all the activity surrounding f+r lately -

for some reason f+r has remained one of the less downloaded apps on our site, which is partly why a program like screenshot captor has gotten so much of my development time lately.

and then ive been working like mad on a new set of apps for the site (launchbar commander and contextmenu commander) which i am extremely excited about.

but you guys have really inspired me with all the ideas surrounding f+r (farr), and you've revitalized my interest in version 2. so keep the ideas coming and let's really make a splash with it!

kfitting · « **Reply #1 on:** January 28, 2006, 01:20 AM »

Good to hear! FARR is one of my most-used DC apps!

Kevin

Amadawn · « **Reply #2 on:** January 28, 2006, 02:10 AM »

That is great!

Can you tell us more about "launchbar commander" and "contextmenu commander"?

Angel

mouser · « **Reply #3 on:** January 28, 2006, 02:13 AM »

both have their own section in this subforum though are mostly empty.
a little bit about contextmenu commander is here: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?board=51.0

jgpaiva · « **Reply #4 on:** January 28, 2006, 02:51 AM »

I wouldn't guess hat farr is one of the least downloaded apps on dc...It's the one i use the most..LOL
(Maybe i'm just weird..)

Amadawn · « **Reply #5 on:** January 28, 2006, 09:22 AM »

Quote from: mouser on January 28, 2006, 02:13 AM

both have their own section in this subforum though are mostly empty.
a little bit about contextmenu commander is here: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?board=51.0

I could not find any explanation of Launchbar commander. Can you give us a brief one?

jgpaiva · « **Reply #6 on:** January 28, 2006, 10:47 AM »

@Amadawn:
Check This Post, here are some similar programs to LaunchBar Commander.
(I also don't know exactly what LaunchBar Comm is, i just took it from from the examples, hope my idea is right)

mouser · « **Reply #7 on:** January 28, 2006, 11:37 AM »

yes, its really just a plain looking "application launch bar", but meant to grow in features. it won't be the prettiest but i hope it will be up there with the most useful.

vamp07 · « **Reply #8 on:** January 28, 2006, 12:28 PM »

I landed at this site because of far and it is the reason I donated.

Ampa · « **Reply #9 on:** January 28, 2006, 01:14 PM »

Ditto... FaRR gets used every day on my 2 machines - I have scrapped the Start menu and all other launchers.

Looking forward to v2

Ampa

Amadawn · « **Reply #10 on:** January 28, 2006, 05:31 PM »

Quote from: mouser on January 28, 2006, 11:37 AM

yes, its really just a plain looking "application launch bar", but meant to grow in features. it won't be the prettiest but i hope it will be up there with the most useful.

Why would you need an application launcher if you have FARR?

Or do you mean something like the OSX dock or something else? If so, check PunkSoftware's RocketDock (http://www.punksoftware.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=45&Itemid=143), which is simply amazing (and free!). It is almost a perfect clone of the OSX dock and it is very small and fast! :-)

mouser · « **Reply #11 on:** January 28, 2006, 05:34 PM »

yeah we are talking about something like rocketdock but not nearly as nice looking as it

Amadawn · « **Reply #12 on:** January 29, 2006, 01:52 AM »

Yeah, it is true that RocketDock really looks good (and it works really well)

. They are even able to load "Docklets" that were made for other docks (like ObjectDock). Their only current limitation is that they do not support icons very well (if you want to change the icon of a shortcut that you add to the doc you should normally use a PNG. They can use icons too but it is a bit buggy in the current version) and that they don't fully support drag and drop, but these two limitations will be fixed soon (according to the developers).

So what is your plan? What do you want to do differently that RocketDock does not do? I'm sure that you have some idea of what you want to do so I'm curious!

mouser · « **Reply #13 on:** January 29, 2006, 02:18 AM »

just a heads up that i'm going to split off the launch/dock posts and move them in a thread to the launch bar commander section.
i'm interested in a much more visually traditional launch bar, that is built for holding a lot of items in a hierarchical structure, like a menu. truelaunchbar or freelaunchbar is probably the closest match to what i hope launch bar commander becomes.
it won't have any of the flashy animation of rocketdock, but it should have some very advanced features in terms of being able to support drag and drop of items into commands, etc.

i hope that once its out in the wild we will be able to think of new features to add to it to make it a bit unique.

nontroppo · « **Reply #14 on:** February 01, 2006, 02:09 AM »

Wow, I leave the forum for a few days and the place has exploded!!!!

It is great that FARR is getting a renewed interest. I really belive it can be one of the most useful of all utilities; lets face it, application launching and managing is utterly critical for workflow (much more than the fairly esoteric screen capturing!).

I'm curious why an application launch bar will be developed. FARR does the job excellently, why not roll some of that functonality into it. You could allow a "horizontal" mode to FARR's display to generate a "launch bar" etc. Aliases could expand off that vertically. I tried truelaunchbar, but FARR was utterly superior.

I though FARR was the antidote to all of that: contextual adaptive searching to stop the tyranny of cascading hierarchical menus; and now we are going back to it! :p

kfitting · « **Reply #15 on:** February 01, 2006, 02:33 AM »

I somewhat agree nontroppo. Not that a launch bar is bad, it just seems that FARR makes one almost unnecessary. Granted TrueLaunchBar does do a lot more than just launch things though... can't quite rule it out! But, I hear what you're saying and it confused me too when I first heard it.

Kevin

mouser · « **Reply #16 on:** February 01, 2006, 03:42 AM »

i have a big launch bar on my desk and use FARR.
for me i use a launch bar as a kind of "visual memory"
it's like a menu for me, it helps me remember the programs i have available that i use alot.

i guess it depends on how good your memory is

in cognitive science there are concepts of "recall" vs. "recognition"; if you can recall what you want to launch you can use farr, but if you need a visual image to remind you what apps are available, then a launchbar can help you

jdmarch · « **Reply #17 on:** February 01, 2006, 04:03 AM »

I'm another who sees no use for a launch bar, at least as I understand it. FARR allows me *not* to construct custom hierarchies in my start menu as I did formerly. If I want some specific reminders, I can put them in a FARR alias group, the best of both worlds.

Just my 2 cents.

JoTo · « **Reply #18 on:** February 01, 2006, 10:06 AM »

I come to DonationCoder through FARR. It's my most used and helpful DC-App beside the ScreenshotCaptor.

Maybe some Users are not so addicted to FARR because it is a neat, unspectacular, behind the scene, not colorful or graphic impressive application.

The real usefullness of FARR comes in, when you are (as i am) a visually impaired person. Colorful programs with tiny graphics are a no-no for me. But i am fast in typing. So i bet, i am double as fast in getting in my needed programs with FARR as everyone else with every other graphic launchbar.

Sure, i use PowerPro too, to set up some other tasks (keyboard shortcuts, mouse actions, custom menus a.s.o.) as starting applications. So i use a kind of launchbar too, but for starting apps FARR is THE BEST!

There are other appstarter/Hotkey utils out there. Even PowerPro (i use) can of course do this job. But the main difference between them and FARR is, that i never have to think about to add a new installed program to the Hotkey-Utility with FARR. When i install a new program on my machine, normally a startmenue link is installed too. And within this second this new app is accessible automagically via FARR without any further action neccessary. Thats GREAT and makes FARR a standing out in wading through all other zillions of hotkey utilities.

I agree, that in some special situations i use the startmenue as well, when i'm not sure which installed app is the best to use for this or another task. Then i go into my well hierarchical, categorized startmenue to get an overview what is there available. But this is only 5% of all my tasks. Most of all i use some few apps every day and i well know which i want to use for this or that, and then comes in the play the giant FARR! :-)

As i'm happy with FARR as it is, i recently have no suggestion for V2. But i will think again about it. Maybe i'll get a horrible difficult idea to get mouser in sweat for 30 days while implementing it. Aaaah, maybe mouser will implent a "serve a cup of coffee, free!"-function in FARR V2. That would be nice. :-))

CU
JoTo

cybersnoop · « **Reply #19 on:** February 01, 2006, 12:09 PM »

I donated just because I think F+R made 1000s of launches and I felt I needed to do something back. Anyway, keep up the good work.

nontroppo · « **Reply #20 on:** February 01, 2006, 07:36 PM »

Quote from: mouser on February 01, 2006, 03:42 AM

i have a big launch bar on my desk and use FARR.
for me i use a launch bar as a kind of "visual memory"
it's like a menu for me, it helps me remember the programs i have available that i use alot.

I had demoed TrueLaunchBar and loved it before finding FARR. I'll comment in the other thread about what I liked about it.

But one neat thing was the aesthetics, one could easily lay out and order different blocks (that could collapse) to make a very visually clear and logical mapping of all my apps. Very neat were virtual folders, hooking into the start menu to simplyfy management. However, once FARR was installed, the launch bar almost instantly got ignored. So much so that when time came to register or abandon it, there was no competition. I thought I loved the hierarchical and minutely organised menu's, but I didn't miss them very much at all.

The whole premise of FARR is to free you from the tedium of laborious maintainance of the classification which all launch bars rest on, but I have an idea for the best of both worlds (read below)!

Very interesting the comment from JoTo!!!

FARR is actually really beneficial for visually impaired users, I didn't think of it but it is another reason FARR rocks!!!

Quote from: mouser on February 01, 2006, 03:42 AM

in cognitive science there are concepts of "recall" vs. "recognition"; if you can recall what you want to launch you can use farr, but if you need a visual image to remind you what apps are available, then a launchbar can help you

OK mouser, I have a proposition for you:

Instead of a seperate basic launch bar app, FARR can arrange virtual groups (a bit like aliases). These groups can be searched in using FARR, BUT they can also be bound to a button that can be placed on the FARR interface. One can thus dock FARR on-screen, set up some virtual groups and bind them to buttons. That gets you a launchbar interface while still leveraging and integrating the brilliance of FARR!