Program run only one time

[Guilc]

Hi there!
Am a newcomer on this forum and a new user of FARR. I am so happy to have found this software ! That’s exactly what I was looking for! Great job Mouser!! 
At the moment, I am trying to configure all the programs, files and alias I need. Thanks the numerous screencasts, it goes pretty well.
But: I can’t get out how to run only one session of a program. I mean, I did an alias to launch "dtSearch". It works perfectly, but when dtsearch is already running on my computer, FARR launches a second session of dtSearch instead of focusing the one already opened.
Is there a way to indicate there should be only one session running?
By the way, is there any alias listing all the windows opened? (in order to navigate quickly between them).

Thanks in Advance for any help!

Cheers

Guillaume

[mouser]

Welcome to the site Guillaume  

I'm afraid there is no function *YET* that can tell FARR to only launch one instance of an application, though it is a very good idea to add it, and i'll put it on my todo list; in fact i should add it to my LaunchBar Commander program as well, so perhaps it's time to move it to the top of the todo list.

As far as listing opened windows, there is a plugin for it, called FARRAltTab, though people have been posting some troubles with it recently:
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=10988.0

[alias]

As mouser said:  "Welcome!"  You'll find this a fantastic site, with tons of really cool stuff (well, you already have, obviously, since FaRR counts for that all by itself...).

You asked a question on a subject that is really important to me - I don't know what your keyboard/mouse usage pattern is, but I NEVER use the mouse, if there's a faster way (and there usually is).  I use Vim as my text editor of choice, the ViEmu plug-in for Visual Studio, Word, and Outlook, Vimperator to give me Vi keybindings in Firefox, Listary to allow navigation of Explorer & Open/Save dialog boxes, and FaRR, of course, for just about everything else...

As mouser also said, FaRRAltTab is a fantastic way to switch between open windows, but it stopped working on my system when I upgraded to .NET 4.0, so I had to look for alternatives (until mouser gets around to putting this functionality in FaRR).  What I ended up doing was modifying an AutoHotKey script from their forum to my needs, and I uploaded it to here a few days ago.  It's a purely textual listing of your open windows that narrows as you type.  I modified it to use a bit smaller font, so more windows would be visible, and a few other cosmetic changes, but the main thing I did was disable the Alphabetical sorting of windows, so they show up in "Z-order" instead (most recently used on top), and make it pre-select the second most recently activated window.  That way, it can even replace the Windows built-in Alt-Tab with only the penalty of one additional keystroke (Enter), if you're only trying to jump back and forth between the last two, which I seem to do frequently.

I'll warn you, though:  It's not "pretty" - no thumbnails, no feedback on keystrokes typed, no cutesy stuff, just an Alt-Tab replacement that works.  (Have you ever tried to pick the word document you're looking for out of a list of 5 "they all look alike" thumbnails?  But I digress...)  On the other hand, I'll guarantee you there's no faster way to switch between windows, as long as you can remember part of title of the one you're looking for.  If you need more details on how to use or install it, just ask, and I'd sure like to know whether you find it useful or not (if only so I get some indication of how weird I am...)

Alias

[Guilc]

Hi mouser!
all right! Then, I’ll wait till the function exists!!
Thanks for your help, am gonna have a look at the FARRAltTab plugin.

Hi Alias!

Thank you very much for the AHK script. I am a AHK user too, so it can be really useful. I like AHK too and use it for automatically insert signature and stuff like that.
I’ve just tried your script and I think it’s a good alternative to FARRAltTab cause there are not so many keystrokes to switch between the windows. I have just one problem, which is due to my use of the computer. I have a german keyboard, but as I am typing a lot in french, I use a keyboard called Bépo (more or less the french equivalent of the DVORAK layout), but as I am not the only one using this computer, the bépo is not a pilot, only a Portable keyboard layout made with AHK. It works very good but AHK-scripts only takes into account the "native keyboard". For example, the "F" on your keyboard is actually an "E" on my portable Keyboard, so when I strike "e" in the window of your script cause I want to activate a window with E, I got windows with F, if any . Quite annoying 
Anyway, that has nothing to do with your script, it is due to my personal configuration.
I’ll try to use it a bit and will see how it is !!

Thanks and bye for now.

Guillaume