Author Topic: NANY 2012 Pledge & Final Release: Paste Text Like (Read 68,836 times)

anandcoral · « **on:** September 10, 2011, 05:42 PM »

NANY 2012 Entry Information

Application Name	Paste Text Like
Version	1.5.0
Short Description	Paste Text Like gives options to paste a text from clipboard in various format
Supported OSes	MS Windows Xp or higher
Web Page	https://sites.google.com/site/pastetextlike/
Author	Anand K Gupta

Description
Gives option to paste the text from clipboard, in different format, like Proper case, valid file name, hex color value, remove blanks etc. Also option for mimic typing, auto pasteboard and view the color, if possible.

Use hotkey Win+v instead of Ctrl+v for Paste Text Like options.

Right click on tray icon and select Settings`, to define the hotkey and other values.

Features
Say we make a expenses spreadsheet and put heading as "Expenses from 01/04/2011 to 15/04/2011". We will like to save the file as the header text, but when we copy and paste "Expenses from 01/04/2011 to 15/04/2011" in the save dialog, the OS throws error message. Ok, we know '/' is not supported as file name, but
can't the OS convert it itself. Paste Text Like gives option to paste it as "Expenses from 01_04_2011 to 15_04_2011".

When we copy large chunk of text from say a mail which has many blank lines and paste in a new mail, we may like to remove all double blank lines. Instead of doing it manually after paste, we can use Paste Text Like to remove the blank
lines and paste the text.

I can not tell how many times I have faced a situation where I got feedback of my App, where say after selecting a given prodcut name, the App is giving error. Now to check this I have to manually type the product name, no matter how complex it is (some medicine names) though it was given in the feedback mail. Simply coping and pasting on a list box do not work. Paste Text Like can mimic a typing of the clipboard text.

Planned Features
Pasteboard and Show color options

Screenshots

Usage
Installation
Unzip all the files into a directory you want, then launch it.

Using the Application
Press hotkey Win+v instead of Ctrl+v for Paste Text Like options.

Uninstallation
Delete all files and emove the folder.

Known Issues
Beta version, not complete yet. Hope to get some feedback and suggestions.

rjbull · « **Reply #1 on:** September 10, 2011, 07:47 PM »

Er, not to throw a wet blanket, especially as yours will have your own slightly different twist. You might like to look at these similar apps:

Free Data Capture Tool (FDC)
first mentioned on DC by kfitting, I think
Text Monkey
both freeware Lite and payware versions
Clippy
The one I found first and used most. The Web site is often down, and the file is small, so I'll attach it here.

Clippy doesn't have sentence case, which is something you might like to consider.

anandcoral · « **Reply #2 on:** September 11, 2011, 08:16 AM »

Yes, I agree @rjbull. I have tried them earlier and in fact am a satisfied user of ArcClip now, and mentioned ArsClip as similar program on the website.

But similarity ends there. All others are clipboard manager, in the sense they give scripts, edit capability, plugins etc. Paste Text Like does the most sought after job directly. In fact ArsClip has many options which I took idea for Paste Text Like, but to accomplish them in ArsClip I have to go through further dialog options and settings. I designed Paste Text Like to work more intuitively and directly for normal users.

Thanks for the feedback.

Regards,

Anand

nudone · « **Reply #3 on:** September 11, 2011, 09:58 AM »

Sounds like a great idea if it's going to be more friendly for the average user.

One suggestion, if it's even possible, would be to have a preview of how the text will be formatted before it is pasted. In other words, to make it even more intuitive to use.

rjbull · « **Reply #4 on:** September 11, 2011, 03:35 PM »

Quote from: nudone on September 11, 2011, 09:58 AM

One suggestion, [...] would be to have a preview of how the text will be formatted before it is pasted.

Text Monkey gives you a preview, but, sometimes it gets in the way. You end up doing extra Alt-Tabbing between apps. Clippy has a particularly nice approach in that you can set up one or several operations in a group, and apply the entire group in one go with a hotkey. You change between groups with a right-click on the tray icon, but, I think you can only have one hotkey at a time. I haven't tried FDC.

@anandcoral: you're simply saying your program focusses on offering the most commonly-needed text manipulations, with a specially easy interface?

anandcoral · « **Reply #5 on:** September 11, 2011, 04:20 PM »

yes @nudone, I initially added the formatted text, like say for upper, proper etc. cases, hex color value, etc., but I found that they are taking few milliseconds each time a user opens the PTL menu. He/she may be interested in pasting a 'Proper Case' text, though PTL took time in formatting other formats. So I decided to keep it as an option in 'Settings' (not complete yet) to 'Enable preview text Y/N'.

@rjbull you are right. PTL will offer the most commonly-needed text manipulations, directly. It will not be a clipboard manager. In fact it works only on the last copied text.

I request you to try copy 120,140,170 (the numbers with commas is a rgb color value) and press Win+v and select 'Show Color'. You can see what color the rgb values represent, in the menu itself. This will help a lot to developers like me.

Thanks all for the suggestions.

Regards,

Anand

kyrathaba · « **Reply #6 on:** September 23, 2011, 01:26 AM »

Sounds like a handy utility, anand!

anandcoral · « **Reply #7 on:** October 03, 2011, 11:16 AM »

Well, by grace of GOD and good wishes of friends, I am hectically busy with my project work. Though I need them but was unable to fulfill my heart desires, which is here

We are celebrating Durga Puja here in Bengal, India now. So, got some time free and am happy to say that latest beta of Paste Text Like is uploaded. Still have the "Pasteboard" and "Show Color" option due, but this is more or less ready for normal user usage.

Hope to hear some comments and feedback.

Regards

Anand

Jibz · « **Reply #8 on:** October 03, 2011, 11:46 AM »

This is just a random thought I had when I saw this tool -- would it be useful to have an option to paste as html? i.e. substitute characters like <>& etc. with their html escapes.

anandcoral · « **Reply #9 on:** October 03, 2011, 04:53 PM »

Well @Jibz, that's in back of my mind, but I want to complete the version 1.0 first with what I envisioned.

Have noted it both for Text2Html and Html2Text options, for next version.

I welcome you to use Paste Text Like and give some feedback.

Regards,

Anand

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #10 on:** December 15, 2011, 11:10 AM »

Hello Anand.

Here are some suggestions.

What if the Settings "locked" your preferred style of pasting? For example, I'd always want to paste stuff Plain Text, Proper Case, Remove Double Spaces. Aka, there's "almost never" a reason I'd use Inverse case or caps, have double spaces, etc.

So then if your favorite style is "locked" then you just let your muscle memory work Control-V happily. Right now it feels clunky because I have to stare at the menu and pick two levels of choices and right now, it's faster to fix certain mistakes than use your program! (But only small ones!) But with "locked settings" then you're definitely on to something! I will soon be doing a ton of "cleanup processing" at work. Of course, pulling up the menu "overrides" the "locked setting", so for example I'd paste some text with lines because the lines need to be there, 20 times, but then once for some other purpose go the "long way" and paste it No Lines, that one time.

Another small request. Make the "make valid file name" have an option to use - dashes. I like dashes. I hate underscores : )

Cheers,

--Tao

P.S. I like CamelCasing, it lets me make hybrid words that I combine for file names, like AppsExamined NotResponded ToFile etc. Not sure how to systematize that though. Very roughly it's like "delete every second space, starting after the first ____ spaces", Which is 0 if you want the first two words joined, or else it skips a space because the first word is okay as is, (like a client last name) then the rest become the hybrid adjectives.

anandcoral · « **Reply #11 on:** December 21, 2011, 10:21 AM »

Thanks @TaoPhoenix for the suggestion.

I also use 'Remove All Blanks' many a times in a day. Having a locked style will definitely benefit. Also I will try you suggestion on filename. I wanted to make a release before Christmas, but looks like Santa is sending more project work to me now

Regards,

Anand

kyrathaba · « **Reply #12 on:** December 31, 2011, 01:57 AM »

anand, if you want to make any more changes/updates to the program before releasing it, let me know. It's a great app, and we want to get it screencasted as soon as possible. The way mouser and I know these apps are ready is when the authors change "Pledge" and/or "Early Beta" in the OP title to include the word Release.

rjbull · « **Reply #13 on:** December 31, 2011, 09:38 PM »

anand, what do you mean by the planned "Pasteboard " feature, please?

anandcoral · « **Reply #14 on:** January 01, 2012, 09:19 AM »

kyrathaba I have changed the title to 'Release', so that you can take it after midnight. I will try to add any polish, if possible, before that.

Enhancements based on feedback will continue, as I get time.

rjbull, "Pasteboard" feature is something like when you copy any text in any program, it is automatically saved in a file sequentially. I do not think, I will get time for it now, as I am busy finishing "Stick A Note". Give me another 2 weeks or so.

Regards,

Anand

anandcoral · « **Reply #15 on:** January 01, 2012, 05:21 PM »

Updated the version and removed 'beta' in original post, to release as final version.

Regards,

Anand

ralfs · « **Reply #16 on:** January 10, 2012, 11:54 AM »

Hi,

Congratulations, I find this little tool very nice.
It could replace some other tools on my PC.
Therefore I've some suggestions:

I would like to use other keys than the listed ones, e.g. WIN & INS. Is this possible?
It would be nice if a second hotkey could call my most used command (Plain text) without further klicks or keys
For keyboardusing it would be faster to select and execute the different commands by prefixed numbers in the dialogbox like in FARR (e.g. 1=Plain text, 2=Mimic..., 3=UpperCase, ...)

anandcoral · « **Reply #17 on:** January 10, 2012, 04:23 PM »

Yes, ralfs, you can change the hotkey from the 'settings' option (right click on tray icon for the menu). I have kept only the standard keys as special keys behave differently if language is different.

Yes, you can just press the underlined hotkey of the PTL popup menu, i.e Win+v then u to get 'uppercase' or Win+v then r followed by a to remove all blank spaces and duplicate blank lines from the text and paste it.

Regards,

Anand

ralfs · « **Reply #18 on:** January 11, 2012, 11:58 AM »

Hello Anand,

thanks for reply.

Quote

I have kept only the standard keys as special keys behave differently if language is different.

In my mind the "standard-special-keys" like Del, Ins, Home, End, ... dosn't have different behaviour in different languages.
So WIN & INS is working well by modifying the ini-file directly:

[Settings]
hotkey=#INS

Quote

Yes, you can just press the underlined hotkey of the PTL popup menu

Yes, thanks, but the underlined hotkeys aren't very highlighted. So you have to memorize them or search the text for underlined letters.
Can they be highlighted bold or red?
Or another suggestion: the gray boarder on the right is as to the manner born for hints.

Quote

It would be nice if a second hotkey could call my most used command (Plain text) without further klicks or keys

What do you think about a second program hotkey for a preferred action (in my case: Plain text) without popup menu?

KRSMAV · « **Reply #19 on:** January 11, 2012, 04:56 PM »

yes Yes YES to a hotkey for paste plain text without going through the popup window.

Thank you.

anandcoral · « **Reply #20 on:** January 11, 2012, 05:57 PM »

Let me see.

- option to lock selected PTL menus (as suggested by TaoPhoenix) so that the most used by user can be at the main popup
- short cut key of each menu as decided by user
- hotkey setup max 4, on user choice menus (as requested by ralfs and KRSMAV)
- Some new menu options to manipulate text like text2html and vice versa, etc. (as suggested by Jibz)

Hmmm.., looks like I can do it.

But, yes but, the configuration option for the above need some time to make, which is in very short supply to me (oh how I hoped GOD should upgrade the day time to 48 hours).

In a quick response I may give a definable hotkey for paste plain text, via ini itself, so that advance user can get started while I make the dialog windows.

Wish me time.

Regards,

Anand

ralfs · « **Reply #21 on:** January 11, 2012, 07:19 PM »

Thank you, that sounds wonderful.

I hope a lot of minutes and hours will fall down from the sky next time.

Regards

Ralf

empyrean · « **Reply #22 on:** January 15, 2012, 08:35 AM »

Thanks for the handy application, Ananad.

I would like to suggest an additional format. When you copy a link from an article in a browser (eg, Chrome), you get something like Sample #1 below. When you simply paste it into an email client (eg, Thunderbird), it changes your formatting because of the embedded class and style attributes and the span tags. It would be nice if you could eliminate all attributes except href and all tags except <a> and </a> (see Sample #2).

Sample #1
<a class="h5"
href="http://futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/13/10150612-robot-surgeons-may-get-upgraded"
style="margin-top: 7px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px;
margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px;
padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px;
border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: initial;
border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color:
initial; border-image: initial; outline-width: 0px; outline-style:
initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 18px; vertical-align:
baseline; color: rgb(17, 68, 119); text-decoration: none;
font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; font-family: Georgia,
serif; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-color: initial;
font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal;
orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px;
text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255,
255); "><span property="dc:title" style="margin-top: 0px;
margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;
padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px;
padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width:
0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px;
border-style: initial; border-color: initial; border-image:
initial; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial;
outline-color: initial; font-size: 18px; vertical-align:
baseline; ">Robot surgeons may get upgraded</span></a>

Sample #2
<a href="http://futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/13/10150612-robot-surgeons-may-get-upgraded">Robot surgeons may get upgraded</a>

empyrean · « **Reply #23 on:** January 15, 2012, 08:39 AM »

Sorry, some of the text was changed without my catching it.

"all tags except <a> and [/url]"
should have been
"all tags except <a> and </a>"

empyrean · « **Reply #24 on:** January 15, 2012, 08:50 AM »

Another suggestion:

When pasting text like a file name, provide the following options in the menu or the settings dialog (Expenses from 01/04/2011 to 15/04/2011):
* Remove invalid characters (Expenses from 01042011 to 15042011)
* Remove invalid characters and spaces and capitalize any letter that immediately followed a character that was removed (ExpensesFrom01042011To15042011)
* Replace invalid characters with X, where X could be specified via a setting (Expenses from 01_04_2011 to 15_04_2011 or Expenses from 01-04-2011 to 15-04-2011)