Author Topic: Latest FARR v2.00.140 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - Aug 15, 2007 (Read 840,318 times)

rssapphire · « **Reply #750 on:** July 19, 2007, 06:04 PM »

Quote from: JeffC on July 08, 2007, 02:00 PM

I have just installed and am now running version .125 alpha. I am getting similar behaviour - when I double click on a name in the main display the Find and Run application goes to the small window and stays - I have to press the close 'X' in the upper right corner of it's window. It launches the program correctly, and I do NOT get this behaviour when I use a function key to launch or cursor down to the program name and press ENTER.

While trying to help Mouser track this bug down by trying older versions this morning, I stumbled on to what may be the problem (when I accidentally deleted my FARR .ini file instead of the FARR .exe). FARR regenerated a default ini file -- and suddenly worked again. By going through and modifying the default ini it generated one item at a time until FARR broke, I discovered that if I set Inactive Memory Use (In the General Tab) to either Minimal or Average, I got the weird selection with mouse behavior. When left Inactive Memory Use in the default "Stay in Memory Longer" setting, FARR works just like it is supposed to. You might check this on your system.

mouser · « **Reply #751 on:** July 20, 2007, 08:58 PM »

great working tracking this down, rssapphire. i'm going to try to fix the behavior asap.

meanwhile, version 1.00.135 is now up, with a MAJOR new feature - a completely reworked hotkey system (see the new Hotkeys tab). This makes it easy to create a variety of hotkeys that bring up far in different ways.

To demonstrate the new features, iadded a new default hotkey: ctrl+break.
To use it, select some text in any program and hit ctrl+break. The text should be copied to the clipboard for you automatically, and FARR brought up with "search %cliptext%" in the editbox, resulting in a web search menu to select from. Of course you can customize the hotkeys and make as many as you want.

ps. for those of you who have been nagging me to support Winkey hotkeys you can now relax (yes Josh i'm talking to you!)

JeffC · « **Reply #752 on:** July 20, 2007, 10:44 PM »

Quote

While trying to help Mouser track this bug down by trying older versions this morning, I stumbled on to what may be the problem (when I accidentally deleted my FARR .ini file instead of the FARR .exe). FARR regenerated a default ini file -- and suddenly worked again. By going through and modifying the default ini it generated one item at a time until FARR broke, I discovered that if I set Inactive Memory Use (In the General Tab) to either Minimal or Average, I got the weird selection with mouse behavior. When left Inactive Memory Use in the default "Stay in Memory Longer" setting, FARR works just like it is supposed to. You might check this on your system.

I still get the behaviour and my memory setting is the default one. I haven't tried deleting the .ini file yet but will do so as soon as I get a chance.

Josh · « **Reply #753 on:** July 20, 2007, 11:57 PM »

MOUSEY!

It works! Oh my living bob! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! Expect a big wet sloppy........donation from me soon (I know what you dirty minded people were thinking! shame shame shame)

It rocks!

Nod5 · « **Reply #754 on:** July 21, 2007, 12:33 AM »

the ctrl+break hotkey is very useful!

In general, making FARR aware of what application had focus before FARR, what text was selected in it and so on is great.

One idea: FARR could create some special aliases/variables each time it is called up (regardless of the hotkey pressed). One for the application that had focus before FARR, one for the the selected text in that application (if any) or the selected file(s) (in the case of an Explorer like application).

example: User uses notepad.exe with the text "football is a really great sport - I just love it" selected. Starts FARR, types "addnote selected" and thus adds the whole selected text to the notefile.

example2: user uses Firefox. Starts FARR, types "pkill active" and thus kills Firefox.

With such variables, the user can stick to one single hotkey and still tie the functionality in FARR to the context FARR was started in.

mouser · « **Reply #755 on:** July 21, 2007, 12:44 AM »

farr actually does track the program that was active before it was triggered, and i will be adding variables for accessing window name, exe name, pid (process id), so that you could do the things you are talking about with pkill example.

i'm not sure i followed your notepad example though..

what i thought you were starting to suggest, which is a very interesting idea, was to trigger different responses based on the program running when you hit the hotkey.. definitely an interesting idea.. so if you brought up farr while working in Outlook, you might have farr start up with your alias for outlook clip text pasting menu.

Nod5 · « **Reply #756 on:** July 21, 2007, 01:07 AM »

Quote from: mouser on July 21, 2007, 12:44 AM

farr actually does track the program that was active before it was triggered, and i will be adding variables for accessing window name, exe name, pid (process id), so that you could do the things you are talking about with pkill example.

My notepad example was unclear. What I meant is perhaps clearer here:
User selects the text "football is a really great sport - I just love it" in some window. Starts FARR, types "addnote selected" and thus adds the whole selected text to the notefile. The first part, "addnote", is an already existing alias. The second part, "selected" is the variable for the selected text. End result: the notefile associated with addnote gets appended with "football is a really great sport - I just love it"

Another question (probably an old newbie question but I didnt find an answer on a quick search): sometimes a search gets 10-30 matches. If I have set FARR max entries to display to 10, can I still jump to results 10-20, 20-30 ... somehow? For example, can I redo the same search but this time around (temporarily, for this search only) ignore the previous 10 matches?

mouser · « **Reply #757 on:** July 21, 2007, 01:15 AM »

Quote

Another question (probably an old newbie question but I didnt find an answer on a quick search): sometimes a search gets 10-30 matches. If I have set FARR max entries to display to 10, can I still jump to results 10-20, 20-30 ..

add +sall to your search.

Quote

The second part, "selected" is the variable for the selected text.

This is *supposed* to work already when you type $c but it doesnt seem to be working.. fixing now.

Nod5 · « **Reply #758 on:** July 21, 2007, 01:34 AM »

thanks!
edit:

Quote from: mouser on July 21, 2007, 01:15 AM

Quote
The second part, "selected" is the variable for the selected text.
This is *supposed* to work already when you type $c but it doesnt seem to be working.. fixing now.

When starting FARR with CTRL+BREAK then "addnote $c" works for me. I want FARR to always keep track of the previously selected text, but I'm not sure if I want it to always put that text on the clipboard. I want it on the clipboard only when I trigger some command in FARR and FARR needs to put stuff on the clipboard to carry out that command. So if I open FARR and then just close it again, I'd want my clipboard contents prior to starting FARR to be intact.

zpyang · « **Reply #759 on:** July 22, 2007, 07:19 PM »

Could you give me a copy for testing? Thank you.

mouser · « **Reply #760 on:** July 22, 2007, 07:23 PM »

Quote

So if I open FARR and then just close it again, I'd want my clipboard contents prior to starting FARR to be intact.

this was one of the reasons i totally redid the hotkey system. now it works exactly as you say -- you can configure a specific hotkey (ctrl+break by default) to copy selected text to clipboard when launching farr. other hotkeys (break or whatever), wont do this.

justice · « **Reply #761 on:** July 23, 2007, 08:06 AM »

Not sure if the hotkey system is working in vista. The build in hotkeys work, but I'm unable to get any of my own hotkeys work. I tried to attach Klipkeeper to windows+space and even alt-pause/break, but no success. I'll try tonight at home to do the same on XP to see if its me.
http://www.screencast.com/t/CwK3zr07eC

It would be great to see if we can use any key to assign hotkeys, at some point. Many people might not have media keys on the keyboard. Maybe for version 2.5 or later.

hornsts · « **Reply #762 on:** July 23, 2007, 12:13 PM »

The new enhancements and plugins are really great!

I didn't found a post about this, so I hope it's not mentioned before.
When using the special search phrases historys or historyl, the +sall modifier is not working.

The behavior of both special search phrases is:
- historyl shows results to the "max. entries in normal result list"-value
- historys always shows results to the limit of 20 (I guess it's an internal value?!)

Based on version 2.00.137.

Nod5 · « **Reply #763 on:** July 23, 2007, 03:22 PM »

Quote from: mouser on July 22, 2007, 07:23 PM

Quote
So if I open FARR and then just close it again, I'd want my clipboard contents prior to starting FARR to be intact.
this was one of the reasons i totally redid the hotkey system. now it works exactly as you say -- you can configure a specific hotkey (ctrl+break by default) to copy selected text to clipboard when launching farr. other hotkeys (break or whatever), wont do this.

Ok, just so that I understand things, is this how FARR v2 will work:

- One variable, $c, will always have the clipboard contents.
- If FARR is started with a special hotkey (CTRL+BREAK by default) then the clipboard (and so $c) will be filled with whatever was selected in the last active window.
- No matter if such a special hotkey is used or not, FARR will always put last active window name, exe name, pid (process id) and whatever was selected in that window in other variables.

Some other thoughts:

Is support for selecting multiple results items (similar to selecting multiple files in Explorer) planned?

When selecting a result, and dragging it outside FARR a "copy-here-plus-mouse-pointer" is displayed. In Explorer, pressing right click while dragging cancels the copy action (and a regular pointer without the plus reappears). Not so in FARR. ESC cancels the drag action in FARR just like in Explorer though.

Regarding "+sall": two natural hotkeys for adding/removing that phrase from the textbox could be CTRL+PAGEDOWN/PAGEUP (if there's no other planned use for them that is)

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #764 on:** July 23, 2007, 04:55 PM »

Quote

Is support for selecting multiple results items (similar to selecting multiple files in Explorer) planned?

very good idea, i would love it for my music search alias ... select multiple and then do action on it...

even better, select multiple items in a file explorer (windows explorer, total commander, directory opus, ...)
invoke FARR (with a specific hotkey)
FARR opens with all the selected files/folders as a result list...
then perform actions (zip, email, image resize, etc...)

Quote

Regarding "+sall": two natural hotkeys for adding/removing that phrase from the textbox could be CTRL+PAGEDOWN/PAGEUP (if there's no other planned use for them that is)

very good idea

Nod5 · « **Reply #765 on:** July 23, 2007, 07:58 PM »

Nitrix-ud & others, using CTRL+PAGEUP/DOWN as hotkey in FARR for adding/removing +sall can be "testdriven" with the Autohotkey script below:

Code

^PgDn::
IfWinActive, %A_space%Find and Run Robot v2 ahk_class TMainForm
{
ControlGetText, xvar, TEdit1, %A_space%Find and Run Robot v2 ahk_class TMainForm
ControlSetText, TEdit1, %xvar% +sall, %A_space%Find and Run Robot v2 ahk_class TMainForm
}
return

^PgUp::
IfWinActive, %A_space%Find and Run Robot v2 ahk_class TMainForm
{
ControlGetText, xvar, TEdit1,  %A_space%Find and Run Robot v2 ahk_class TMainForm
StringReplace, xvar, xvar, %A_Space%+sall,,1
ControlSetText, TEdit1, %xvar%, %A_space%Find and Run Robot v2 ahk_class TMainForm
}
Return

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #766 on:** July 23, 2007, 08:10 PM »

Thanks Nod5

i thought i could not control Find and Run Robot with autohotkey until now....
there is a space before the title... i missed that !

cheers

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #767 on:** July 23, 2007, 08:35 PM »

well in fact it seems i cannot control anything

@Nod5

Code

F12::
ControlGetText, xvar, TEdit1, %A_space%Find and Run Robot v2 ahk_class TMainForm
ControlGetText, xvar2, TPanel1, %A_space%Find and Run Robot v2 ahk_class TMainForm
Msgbox %xvar% %xvar2%
return

i'm trying to access the TPanel1 text (the status bar)
the code above does not work
do you have an idea ?

same question for the result list...etc.

jOc · « **Reply #768 on:** July 23, 2007, 09:55 PM »

Absolutely fabulous. I like it. The interface is still clean and it is even more responsive. I like the way it can be configured.

In a meanwhile a colleague pointed me to dash. Althogh nice presentation, the program is far from being as good as farr

But I do have a minor comment. It took me about 10 minutes to remove almoust all built in aliases and plugins. Although I did steal a few aliases and include them in my personal ones (I like the thing with icons). I would prefer a clean installation, without plugins and without aliases (just keeping existing personal). To remove some aliases I had to manually edit the xml file.

Mouser, your progy rules!

jOc

jgpaiva · « **Reply #769 on:** July 23, 2007, 09:58 PM »

Sorry jOc, but i don't understand what you mean. Why did you take so much time to remove them?
You could only disable each of them (and they are only 10 or something) by clicking the box highlighted in the next image:

[edit] Also, for more info in Dash vs Farr, see this thread [/edit]

mouser · « **Reply #770 on:** July 23, 2007, 10:04 PM »

jOc: welcome to the site, and thanks for the kind words about FARR. You've probably gathered by now that the software on our site is heavily driven by user comments here on the forum, so keep the suggestions coming -- we take them extremely seriously.

as jgpaiva points out, it's very important that you solve this by disabling the built in aliases (and then doing what you said you did, copying the ones you like to your personal alias file/folder).

why?
the reason these alias files are marked as read-only and make it so hard for you to modify them is because they are replaces when the program is updated. this approach was actually a lot of work, but i implemented it specifically so that we could allow users to easily modify their own aliases, and share aliases, while still making it possible to update aliases (both included with farr and shared by others), without risking erasing the users aliases. so that's why that checkbox is there, so you can always disable an alias file, and then even if it gets updated it won't affect you.

now to your other point:

Quote

I would prefer a clean installation, without plugins and without aliases (just keeping existing personal).

i've been debating this back and forth with myself for a couple of weeks leading up to farr 2 release. i am leaning towards making it a lean download without any plugins, but making it really easy to install new plugins using the updater tool. Inlcuding alias files is not as tough a decision since they are so small and lightweight..

Nod5 · « **Reply #771 on:** July 24, 2007, 12:57 PM »

nitrix-ud: No, I don't know how to grab the status bar text in FARR. The autohotkey command StatusBarGetText doesn't work in this case either.

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #772 on:** July 24, 2007, 01:17 PM »

@Nod5

thanks anyway...

i hope mouser will add a way to manipulate/get FARR info...

Cheers

jOc · « **Reply #773 on:** July 24, 2007, 10:35 PM »

Hey mouser and jgpaiva,
please don't be bothered by my comments. As I said FARR is of great value to me, and I will donate some 50 bucks, because I know what it means to develop a great SW. I have never used any services as pay pal or sth similar, but I will learn.

I am a kind of user, that really streams to have in installation and in memory only whats needed. I hate (=don't use) progiz that have millions of features and have fancy resource-eating GUI. I like progiz, where the philosophy keep-it-sweet-and-simple is taken into account.

I wrote 10 mins, but that was partially my fault. I was curious if there is anything usefull. And because I am new to FARRv2 I needed some tome to get familiar with this idea of multiple aliases and also plugins were new for me. Please do not take me wrong, I like this plugins idea (actually I left nwconn and plist), but I have deleted others. I don't need them. And they just make mess when I need to configure stuff. Also with aliases it took me some time to realize there are sections of aliases that could be disabled. Actually I deleted them from a folder (again they just do mess @ configuring).

Now I know all this stuff and next time, it would only take me 1 minute do delete what I don't need.

The improvement I do like very much is browsing through folders. I have a folder for which I have set high score. In that folder I put links to folders I use often. What I like is, if I start to type the name of the link (that is in that folder, having favorits links) and pres tab the alias for the link is resolved into path and you can directly browse in that *favorits* folder.

I don't know if anybody asked for that or it is maybe implemented. One thing I miss (slickRun for example had (actually it still has, but I don't use it anymore) that) if you type something that FARR can not catch that it threw it to system (like you were typing to Run box). This way you could simply type cmd and get console, or maybe regedit... And you would not need aliases for www and similar, because all that works in Run box.

Thanks for all good work!

Regards,jOc

mouser · « **Reply #774 on:** July 24, 2007, 10:46 PM »

Thanks for the nice post jOc, let me respond to some of your comments:

Quote

please don't be bothered by my comments. As I said FARR is of great value to me, and I will donate some 50 bucks, because I know what it means to develop a great SW. I have never used any services as pay pal or sth similar, but I will learn.

Note that you do not have to donate $50 -- you can donate whatever you want.

Quote

One thing I miss (slickRun for example had (actually it still has, but I don't use it anymore) that) if you type something that FARR can not catch that it threw it to system (like you were typing to Run box).

Josh actually asked for this and i kind of implemented it in an odd way -- i need to add an alias to make it easier to use. Basically i added a way to tell farr what to do if there are no results found. See the "The noresults alias" help topic in Advanced Use:

Code

You can now create a special alias called noresults.
If user hits enter when no results are shown, this alias will be triggered.
It can be useful if you want to do something like launch what they type directly (as if it was on path), or invoke another search program, etc.  Just use $$1 in the results.

I will make a default alias for this to make it easier to use.

Quote

The improvement I do like very much is browsing through folders. I have a folder for which I have set high score. In that folder I put links to folders I use often. What I like is, if I start to type the name of the link (that is in that folder, having favorits links) and pres tab the alias for the link is resolved into path and you can directly browse in that *favorits* folder.

just to make sure: you are saying this is something you already can do, not requesting something new?