Author Topic: Fast/Responsive programs: An official SuperboyAC list (Read 30,697 times)

superboyac · « **on:** January 07, 2011, 05:47 PM »

OK, I made this list to keep track of programs that I think are very quick and responsive. This is one of my biggest hangups with programs. Probably more than anything else, I just love it when the program reacts very quickly to things like mouse clicks and other movements. I don't like slow programs that feel sluggish. So this thread has nothing to do with the quality of the program or the functions they perform. It simply acknowledges those that are just fast, which is nice.
(I'll format this better later, but I just wanted to get it started)
CintaNotes
MyLife Organized
Light Alloy
XYPlorer
EditPad (not sure yet)
EDGE Diagrammer
Sumatra PDF
LaunchBar Commander
Search Everything
List Numberer

Feel free to leave your suggestions. if I agree, I'll include it.

Below, I will list my specific criteria for these programs. It will include things like:
Fast startup times
No sluggish lags when you click on something and wait for the action to take place. I need a better way to say that. For example, I hate it when there are things like hidden sliding containers that pop out with a mouse-over, and you have to wait for a second or two until the thing pops out. I want it to pop in and out instantly! It makes me happy when i experience that and makes me want to keep using the program.

timns · « **Reply #1 on:** January 07, 2011, 10:27 PM »

Find and Run Robot
WinAmp

I would argue about Search Everything - it must have some terrible sort algorithm. Have you seen how long it takes to sort only a few thousand filenames?

cyberdiva · « **Reply #2 on:** January 07, 2011, 10:29 PM »

I too would question including Search Everything. I love the program, but I think it used to be faster than it is now. It's very fast once it does its survey of the computer, but that takes longer than I remember it taking in the past.

superboyac · « **Reply #3 on:** January 07, 2011, 10:39 PM »

Well, as far as Search Everything's indexing of the drive, I don't hold that against it. Why? Because if it takes it 10 seconds to scan 3+ TB of files, I consider that rather amazing. I'll consider taking it off...I'm just not convinced right now.

40hz · « **Reply #4 on:** January 07, 2011, 10:42 PM »

I'd add Flashnote for the people who want a quick pop-up note taking app but prefer a more traditional dual-pane text/folder structure to the 'piano roll + tags' approach found in CintaNotes or Evernote.

[attach]

superboyac · « **Reply #5 on:** January 07, 2011, 10:52 PM »

Thanks 40hz!
I have quickly fallen in love with CintaNotes. For all of you that are hanging on to the old Evernote v2.2 since Evernote v3 went all cloud on us, CintaNotes is your replacement. Look no further. And it's portable, so it will definitely find a nice home on your flash drive.

rjbull · « **Reply #6 on:** January 07, 2011, 11:06 PM »

Quote from: superboyac on January 07, 2011, 05:47 PM

I made this list to keep track of programs that I think are very quick and responsive. [...]
Fast startup times
No sluggish lags when you click on something and wait for the action to take place.

Anything made by Horst Schaeffer. I regularly use his MemPad, Date Reminder, PopSel, and Calendar, and most of the others from time to time. MemPad is another small, fast, free, portable, twin-pane organiser; see image. I have one query about your criteria, though. MemPad meets most of what you mention, but if you do a Ctrl-F search on a largish MemPad file, it's pretty slow. I believe that's because the author uses a search facility that's built into Windows itself. Also, I imagine my files have got bigger than he originally expected when he first released the program.
Total Commander
TED Notepad - one of the best small fast Notepad replacements, with an amazing range of features. Drawback, of sorts: you need to learn the keyboard shortcuts to get the best out of it, though the menus are OK.

[Edit 2011-01-09] Correcting typos. Doh! [/Edit]

40hz · « **Reply #7 on:** January 07, 2011, 11:14 PM »

^ +1 on the portability. That's becoming an increasingly big plus with me when choosing apps these days.

rjbull · « **Reply #8 on:** January 07, 2011, 11:17 PM »

Quote from: superboyac on January 07, 2011, 10:52 PM

Thanks 40hz!
I have quickly fallen in love with CintaNotes. For all of you that are hanging on to the old Evernote v2.2 since Evernote v3 went all cloud on us, CintaNotes is your replacement. Look no further. And it's portable, so it will definitely find a nice home on your flash drive.

You'd rate it that good? That's quite a recommendation. For a small, light program that seems to be fast - as far as I've tested it - there's NotesHolder in both free and payware versions. Tip; I kept finding that the payware version kept getting clobbered by AV false positives, whereas the free version didn't. And, not everyone would need the extra features, either. It has quite a nice system for clipping text from the Web along with their URLs, but text only.

superboyac · « **Reply #9 on:** January 07, 2011, 11:36 PM »

whoa, this list is going to get big fast.

40hz · « **Reply #10 on:** January 08, 2011, 12:33 AM »

Quote from: superboyac on January 07, 2011, 11:36 PM

whoa, this list is going to get big fast.

Sure is.

Fortunately for all of us, Donation Coder is one of the places where crowdsourcing actually seems to work rather well. Good crew here. Sure glad I found DoCo. Not a day goes by without somebody posting something I can use or be entertained by.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #11 on:** January 08, 2011, 12:59 AM »

The pop-up note taker category is interesting. Not a dedicated pop-up note taker, but TreePad Lite could be used for that purpose.

http://www.treepad.com/treepadfreeware/

As a "database" just create an .hjt file with it named "PopUpNotes.hjt" or whatever. Any mechanism to launch whether a launcher hotkey program, a .cmd file or whatever to open the .hjt file. When it opens in TreePad Lite the root node should be selected. To create a new child node for your note hit the Insert key. After naming the node hit the Tab key to type or paste text for the note.

TreePad Lite has the fewest features. No image support. But for that reason it's very snappy when it opens. The .hjt file format is all text. You can store quite a number of notes in a few KB.

40hz · « **Reply #12 on:** January 08, 2011, 02:54 AM »

@rjbull - thanks for the mention of TED. I took a quick scan of the features list and was quite impressed. I've been looking for something that was small, made extensive use of key combos, and offered word completion. That would make it ideal for use as an editor for forum and blog composition IMO.

If this thing works half as well as it looks, it will become a permanent addition to my toolbox. And that's a pretty rare event these days.

4wd · « **Reply #13 on:** January 08, 2011, 03:49 AM »

Notepad2 - Notepad replacement, standalone capable.

Even better is Notepad2-mod

Quote

Changes compared to the official Notepad2:

Code folding
Support for bookmarks
Syntax highlighting support for AutoHotKey, AutoIt3, Bash, LaTeX, Lua, Ruby, Tcl, NSIS and Inno Setup scripts
Improved support for NFO ANSI art
Support for replacing Windows Notepad using a clean, unintrusive registry-based method
Native x86-64 support
Other various minor changes and tweaks

40hz · « **Reply #14 on:** January 08, 2011, 12:29 PM »

I'm frequently driven crazy by people who say things like "Why don't we get together and (fill in the blank) say...three weeks from now?"

I'm one of those people who uses specific dates for everything. I'm not comfortable with concepts like "three Fridays from now" when making plans. So a convenient calendar is a good thing to have.

Enter AMP Calendar from AMPSoft. A simple portable app that does one thing extremely well. It puts a one-year pop-up calendar in your system tray.

Click on the tray and you get this:

[attach]

cmpm · « **Reply #15 on:** January 08, 2011, 02:47 PM »

Very fast load time word processor.

Free.
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en/nova.htm

And it's big brother is fast too.
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en/

40hz · « **Reply #16 on:** January 08, 2011, 05:15 PM »

To go along with Atlantis mentioned above, here are two more excellent wordprocessors that are small in footprint and long on features:

AngelWriter by Angelic Software.

This is one of my all time favs. Slick, very familiar interface, with a surprising amount of features packed in. It has support for tables, pictures, and most everything else the average or more sophisticated user could want.

[attach]

Bamse · « **Reply #17 on:** January 08, 2011, 08:02 PM »

From your preferences you will have to hate IrfanView not to include it. I prefer XnView but IrfanView is close to my definition of snappy

About Everything be sure you use latest version, not the one on frontpage. Check changlog at forum section "Announcement". It says 20 and 100 times faster and it is. I can sort 450000 objects in 4-5 secs, and up to at least 55000 is close to instant. Last update is already old so some have declared it abondonware. Not so if you ask the forum (and shut up and be happy with a free product). Still highly screwed up release policy. Don't know if that counts. If money is the problem I am sure many people would gladly pay lets say 10$ for this program. One of those I wish would go payware to be honest. If Microsoft reads this it should be added they are idiots for not including similar functionality in Windows.

superboyac · « **Reply #18 on:** January 08, 2011, 09:05 PM »

40's on a roll!!

Bamse's right, I don't like Irfanview as a program, but it sure is fast.

cmpm · « **Reply #19 on:** January 08, 2011, 09:25 PM »

XnView has a Shell Extension enhancement now.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/xnviewse.html

Also there is CreativeDocs.Net for some interesting work.
A little slow at first start but a bit faster after that.

http://www.creativedocs.net/downloads/files/

40hz · « **Reply #20 on:** January 08, 2011, 10:25 PM »

Quote from: superboyac on January 08, 2011, 09:05 PM

40's on a roll!!

Actually, I'm best on rye toast. With a pickle. No mayo please.

JavaJones · « **Reply #21 on:** January 08, 2011, 10:44 PM »

No mayo?

I have lost all respect I once had for you.

- Oshyan

40hz · « **Reply #22 on:** January 08, 2011, 10:55 PM »

Quote from: JavaJones on January 08, 2011, 10:44 PM

No mayo? I have lost all respect I once had for you.

- Oshyan

Well, if that's the case, it won't be the first time somebody has.

Note: I used to like mayo. Got out of the habit when I was in a band. One of the roadies for a major group we had a quasi-relationship with told us one thing you never did when you were on the road was eat anything that came with mayo. Or at least you didn't if you didn't want to get very sick sooner or later. Good advice it turned out to be too - as our singer learned the hard way. Twice.

cyberdiva · « **Reply #23 on:** January 09, 2011, 01:08 AM »

Quote from: Bamse on January 08, 2011, 08:02 PM

About Everything be sure you use latest version, not the one on frontpage. Check changlog at forum section "Announcement". . . One of those I wish would go payware to be honest.

Thanks for this info. From time to time I've simply used Everything's "Check for Updates," and I've always been told that the version I'm using (1.2.1.371) is up to date. After reading your message, I went to the forum site and found a download for version 1.2.1.451a, but then I saw that it's an alpha (I normally avoid alphas) and it was released in November 2009! So what's the story? Is it stable? Are they still working on it? Like you, I'd gladly pay money for this program. However, since that's apparently not possible, I'd just like to be sure that I'm not trading a stable version for one that still isn't even in beta.

AndyM · « **Reply #24 on:** January 09, 2011, 03:32 AM »

Quote from: 40hz on January 08, 2011, 12:29 PM

Enter AMP Calendar from AMPSoft. A simple portable app that does one thing extremely well. It puts a one-year pop-up calendar in your system tray.

This is much better than what I had. Thanks for the tip!!!