Request a tiny custom app again

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Request a tiny custom app again

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

brc64 posted:

Something I was looking for a long time ago and still think would be could be a video game console-style command prompt. You know how most PC games have an optional console, usually accessible by pressing ~ or something similar, which drops down from the top of the screen? I'd love to have something like that in Windows, only have a command prompt come down. Bonus points for transparency options, but honestly, I'd be happy just to see it work.

It would need to either have a user-configurable hotkey or something ridiculously unlikely, such as winkey+`. I'd also like for it to be completely hidden, if possible, when not in use. Just like in the video games.

Try this app: http://www.anappaday.com/downloads/2006/09/day-8-jedi-console.html

There's a link to a modded version on that page that has a couple more useful features not seen in the original.

# ¿ May 28, 2008 21:54

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 01:40

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

Yossarko posted:

I'd really like a small (invisible) app that reproduces the Mac OS X way of taking screenshots. Three shortcut keys, one to capture the screen, one to capture a window and another to capture a region (cropping). Either Mac-style CTRL+SHIFT+1/2/3 or (the preferred) PRNT-SCRN, ALT+PRNT-SCRN and CTRL+PRINT-SCRN.

Try Screenshot Captor. It's got a low memory footprint and does a bang-up job of handing different types of screenshots, plus you can set up different hotkeys for different types of screenshots.

# ¿ May 25, 2009 14:51

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

I just filled out a request for an app that will "embed" a notepad document onto my desktop so I can quickly type out random ideas that come to me when I'm on the computer. I'm using Windows 7, if that helps. Here's hoping it's possible!

# ¿ Nov 3, 2009 04:20

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

grrowl posted:

Start > Accessories > Sticky Notes

I'm already using these, but when I want to type to a note, I have to hit Alt+Tab a number of times to get to it and then start typing. I'm looking for an app that will let me hit Win+M and then start typing.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2009 06:11

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

Dicky B posted:

51KB
http://www.pleasesendhelp.com/crap/DeskPad.exe

I can't test this on Windows 7 but it's incredibly bare-bones so I'd be surprised if it doesn't work. On startup and shutdown the application automatically reads from and writes to a Notes.txt file in the same directory as the executable.

First off, thanks for humoring me!

Next, you'd better get your surprised-specs out because I got an error when I tried to start the program :sigh:

That's the first time I've seen an error like that...any idea what's causing it?

Edit: I took a look at the Application event log, and came across this error:

pre:

Activation context generation failed for "D:\Matthew\Desktop\DeskPad.exe".
Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC90.DebugCRT,processorArchitecture="x86",
publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b",type="win32",version="9.0.21022.8" could
not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.

IAmKale fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Nov 6, 2009

# ¿ Nov 6, 2009 01:33

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

Dicky B posted:

That's pretty cool! Could be that you need to install the VC++ Redistributable Package:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a5c84275-3b97-4ab7-a40d-3802b2af5fc2&displaylang=en

I already have that installed. I reinstalled just in case, but the problem remains. I even tried setting the app to Vista SP2 compatibility mode, but no luck there, either.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2009 06:10

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

Dicky B posted:

Wow I was tired yesterday. Here's a working version:
http://www.pleasesendhelp.com/crap/DeskPad.exe

If you're a programmer and can tell what I did wrong then please shut up.

Hey, it starts up now! However, when I hit Win+M, is the deskpad window supposed to receive focus? That's not happening on my end, when I hit Win+M and then start typing, Windows acts like I'm trying to type out the name of something on my desktop.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2009 16:09

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

Dicky B posted:

Done! The window should now take focus when you use the Win+M shortcut.
http://pleasesendhelp.com/crap/DeskPad.1.0.zip

You are now 80% more productive!

Now the deskpad window flashes when I hit Win+M, but it still doesn't receive focus

Did you say you're coding this for Vista? I wonder if there's some fundamental differences between Vista and 7 that's preventing the app from working like it should.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2009 19:26

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

Dicky B posted:

Possibly fixed it. Let me know if this one works...
http://pleasesendhelp.com/crap/DeskPad.1.0.1.exe

Next time I'm doing this in VB .NET

Awesome, this release works! Thanks for humoring me and making this app :3:

# ¿ Nov 6, 2009 20:07

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

I'd like to request an app that would let me bind Ctrl+Space (or maybe any global hotkey combination) to perform a web search with whatever text I currently have copied to the clipboard. Work correspondence is all in Japanese and so I often look up words that I don't know using http://jisho.org/.

I want to replace this:

Highlight text, Ctrl+C, Alt+Tab over to Chrome, middle-click Jisho shortcut, Ctrl+V, Enter

With this:

Highlight text, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Space

For a while I was doing this with Launchy but twice already (about once every other month or so) I've restarted my computer only to find out that Launchy had completely reset itself. This forced me to go in, clear out a bunch of defaults, add my custom search, change the skin, and change the hotkey combination. It's way too much setup for something I hardly use outside of this one feature.

Basically I'm looking for something simple without a bunch of setup aside from specifying a website and a search string (ex. http://jisho.org/search/%s to specify where the copied text should be appended to the URL) and maybe the specific hotkey combination.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2015 00:17

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

Corla Plankun posted:

That's super easy to do with autohotkey. If you can't figure it out I can make you a little script later tonight after I figure out why my desktop isn't booting.

You were right, it was pretty simple to write in AutoHotKey. This seems to work, but I'm having an issue with restoring the old contents of the clipboard after performing the search. Text content works fine, but if the clipboard contains image data then that gets blown away when I try to restore it. Is there a way to preserve the contents of the clipboard data completely, or is AutoHotKey only capable of handling text data?

code:

#NoEnv  ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
; #Warn  ; Enable warnings to assist with detecting common errors.
SendMode Input  ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%  ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.

; Variables
SearchUrl = [url]http://jisho.org/search/	;[/url] Search text gets appended to the end of the string

^Space::
	Old = %ClipBoardAll%	; Store the current contents of the clipboard 
	Clipboard = 		; Blank the clipboard so ClipWait knows when to fire
	Send ^c 		; Copy the highlighted text
	ClipWait, 1		; Wait for the clipboard to get the text. Continue after 1 second (in case nothing's highlighted)
	Run, %SearchUrl%%Clipboard% 	; Perform the web search
	Clipboard = %Old%	; Restore the user's clipboard content
	Old =			; Clear up memory
Return

Edit: This doesn't work at all with Unicode characters...
Edit 2: Nevermind, the issue was with the PDF I was trying to copy text from

IAmKale fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Sep 11, 2015

# ¿ Sep 10, 2015 17:17

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 01:40

IAmKale: Jun 7, 2007; やらないか; Fun Shoe

Chunjee posted:

See if that works any better for you. Doesn't modify clipboard so you shouldn't have any trouble restoring.

Thanks for your version, I see an area or two I might be able to improve my script. As for restoring the clipboard, I figured that out too - I just updated my last post with the most recent version. I tested it by copying a segment of an image in Paint.NET and then running a search with the script. Hitting Ctrl+V right afterwards pasted the image data back into Paint.NET just fine!

Plus this had the added benefit of no longer needing to hit Ctrl+C first - I went from this:

Highlight text, Ctrl+C, Alt+Tab over to Chrome, middle-click Jisho shortcut, Ctrl+V, Enter

to this:

Highlight text, Ctrl+Space

# ¿ Sep 11, 2015 05:39

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Request a tiny custom app again