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#1
06-10-2011, 09:33 AM
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Current filename accessible anywhere?
Since I'm juggling with more than 100 .urd files, I need much macro functionality, without which I'd be lost, but even with just some .urd files, people would perhaps like the following features:
Currently, there's the option how many tabs you want to have in the Windows Taskbar if there's more than one .urd file loaded, and there are 3 options, the one "just one" being perfect for my means. Then, in UR, you have the option to display the file list, as a "Toolbar". Very fine. a ) Now, that list, that "files toolbar", does NOT allow for alphabetical re-arrangement of those files listed there, whilst it's evident that such a command would be extremely handy for everyone who doesn't work but with just one .urd file. Thus, could we have such a comman, assigneable to a key combination, "Sort File List" = the "file toolbar"; perhaps that command would also sort the file list in the menu "Windows"; perhaps fellow users are interested in that also. b ) Then, there are two commands working at the "files toolbar", "GoPrevFile" and "GoNextFile"; very good. There's alse the command "OpenFile" which brings any file in that list into focus, even when loaded already, or adds another file to that list (if not loaed already; very good. WITHIN a given file, the commands "GoPrev/NextViewedItem" go back and forth in the history; that history array is specific to each file. Which is to say, there IS NOT ANY command, as yet, that goes back and forth in an INTER-FILE history, but then, there perhaps will never be such commands, and on top of that, such a command isn't even necessary, since when jump back and forth between two or more .urd files, the last viewed item in those files remains selected and is thus immediately accessible. So what is realling missing from UR, is a GO_LAST_VIEWED_DATABASE_TOGGLE(!!!), i.e. not any two different commands going back and forth in any history array, like in the .urd files and those history arrays stored locally in those files, but JUST ONE command, that'd work on just ONE system variable, stored within UR, not in the different .urd files, and that would automatically be updated every time a file gets focus. On a technical level, on LEAVING a file, its name would be put into a system variable, and so, whenever you work on a file and want to go back to the one you previously worked with, you trigger the command, and you are there (and at the same time, the file you've just left would be written into the variable, in case you want to toggle back to it afterwards). c ) Since we have NOT got these two features yet, I must see how to toggle between my .urd files, without having an inbuilt toggle command, since clicking on the file names (= in the "files toolbar") is ok for going to a third file, but if you toggle 50 or 100 times between just 2 files, and then with two other files, and with other files, toggling more than a 1,000 times a day, with moving the mouse and clicking on the file names, between given (if various) 2 files, that's not only awkward, but on top of that, it stresses your arm, your junctions, and so on, carpal syndrome, etc. Thus, I absolutely need a simple way to toggle between 2 files, being not able, for the above-mentioned health reasons, to continue to do it with mouse clicks, waiting for command b) to be introduced. So, when I'm working with a file, and want to toggle, the menu "Windows" is not of any help, since in that list there - as in the "files toolbar" -, the files are in initial loading order, not in access order. There is another list, accessible by "File - Recent Files", and in theory at least, it would be possible to lay the first entry there, by macro, onto a shortkey. Now the problem: Those entries there are NOT in access order !!! Perhaps they are in an order of "having been saved", or whatever, but I swear they are not in access order, if you don't save the files before going to another one, just displaying a file, just copying or cutting from it, if you leave the item "open", instead of immediate saving (that wears the harddisk, and is unnecessary on top of that if you have other bits to copy afterwards, or if you just want to LOOK INTO items there, for reference!). This is to say, the list "Recent Files" works not in the way you'd expect it to work, the last accessed / viewed file is NOT necessarily put there in position 1 (and even if it were, just a toggle would be tremendously helpful, since it would spare users to open, by macro or by hand, that sub-menu every time, which makes a lot of screen clutter even when done by macro. d ) As said before, c) is NOT a solution since it doesn't work like you'd expect it to work. So I must do it by macro, and hence my question in the title: My macro program is not able to fetch the database's title from the caption "Filename - Ultra Recall Professional"; even the big title it could not capture, let alone processing it for just having the "Filename" left -; the same with the tab in the Windows taskbar. All my macro program can do, is to put "something" into the clipboard, hence my question, where could the current .urd database's title be available for being copied to the clipboard? (With web addresses, it's simple, since you can put the address line into the clipboard, but a simple return from a UR database to the previous one, I'm lost for the moment!) Any immediate help would be greatly appreciated (whilst not by my doctor) ! And the realization of a) and b) would also be greatly appreciated, in the medium term. (I know I could do it by going by control-o and copy it at the same time, for 2 files, then having 2 system variables, and even have a toggle, toggling between the two... but then, every time one of these 2 files would change... and remember anyway, going by control-o is flashing the screen by the "Open File Window" each time, and that cannot be avoided even if a find a way to fetch the current filename for clipboard. So you see the importance of b) as a much better way of all these things I must do here, as work-arounds.) (All things being considered, perhaps the best solution for the time being would be, setting "One tab per file", and then using the Windows' Alt-Tab between UR files... but then, I also Alt-Tab in permanence between UR and IE8, so you imagine the chaos with all that...!) Any better ideas, short-term? 
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#2
06-10-2011, 09:57 AM
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Maybe create shortcuts to the .urd files and use the shortcuts to switch between them (could add the shortcuts to a launcher program to quickly access via keyboard).
http://www.kinook.com/UltraRecall/Manual/itemmenu.htm
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#3
06-10-2011, 11:20 AM
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1 )
That was a quick answer, thanks! So I tried, but triggering those shortcuts, even by clicking with the mouse there (just for trying), takes several seconds (ok, I have a Pentium 725, but all those netbooks out there need good response time also), and for more than just a few files... No, even for just a few files, going directly to those files, by macro program / launcher, would be the better idea, but not by those desktop links to items (!) within those files. No, finally, juggling with dozens of tabs in the taskbar is awful, but at least, I could swap by control-alt (= 1 key in my system), and for any switch to the IE8, there would be a direct launch from macro, not per alt-tab. Of course, real probs start when I want to go back to UR since now, one of the two UR files has been thrown out of the in-UR-toggle and has to be accessed by mouse-click again. But I could live with such a scenario for some months, I hope, it's better than continuous mouse-clicking (= not only clicking, but moving the mouse first...). 2 ) As for the inbuilt toggle, I said, technically it would be entering the current file name into a system variable. In fact, that was a non-technical description in order to not complicate things, the technical solution would be this, and the triggering would be made on ENTERING any UR file: - have a system variable lvd[3] (lvd standing for lastvieweddatabase) - have a command "GoToLastViewedDatabase", assigneable to a shortcut a) on every entering of a UR file, some lines of code would do this: - put the current filename into lvd[3] - put lvd[1] into lvd[2] - put lvd[3] into lvd[1] - thus, the current file's name is in lvd[1], the previous one's is in lvd[2] - of course, lvd with 3 places could be with 2 places instead, lvd[3] being replaced by a local variable, but it's more elegant to have even the necessary double-switch within the system variable needed anyway b) on every command "GoToLastViewedDatabase", some lines of code would do this: - read lvd[2] - show / go to that file lvd[2] (load it if necessary, or just switch) - and a) is triggered here, as it is by any switching to / opening a .urd file by whatever means (^o, mouse...) As a (tremendous) programmer you know this much better than I do, it's just for reminding you how easy it would be to implement, not even 1 hour (!), for a very big enhancement of UR's functionality...! Thus, might this be possible medium-term? (And a sorting of the loaded files would be handy, since today, for having them sorted, you must manually sort them on paper before loading them, and then, when working, and adding additional files to your bunch, it's all cluttered again, though.) Or, even a MANUAL re-arrangement (= on top of that, or instead of that) would be handy: Then, the PrevFile / NextFile commands could alternatively do the work of toggling between given files (that you'd have to rearrange side-by-side for that, so that might be an additional option, not the long-term solution to avoid the above-mentioned 1 programming hour all in once)...
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#6
06-12-2011, 02:22 PM
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1 )
Well, that's what I meant last week: Nothing or almost nothing is done for me, even when programming just would take 1 h (or 90 min.), so why should I help out UR with its accessibility problem concerning the "masses"? As said before, even that two commands, NewSib and NewSub, are real problems for UR beginners, and many of them don't dig any further then. So there IS the need for a "beginner's manual", and all I'm asking for, is to do some basic things I really need. If course - I "discovered" this by thinking again, not by searching the menus fervently - you can make your macro pop up the dialog "SaveAs"; just a control-c then, an Escape, and you're done, the name of the current file being in your clipboard. Then, you do the open file dialog, put that name into the file name line, by control-v, and again, you're done. So, your macros are popping up, and closing again, various menus, just in order to have a simple file toggle: that's very beautiful indeed, and takes no time on a state of the art laptop weighting, say, 10 pounds. /irony off, for the casual reader 2 ) Even MyInfo, a program inferior by design and by execution, has such a file toggle, even if on my request. So why didn't I stay with MI? I jumped to UR the moment I had discovered the unintended use of the children pane; I had been desperate for a multi-level outliner, as I had done (a non-stable one) years before, so that additional pane in UR makes me accept a lot of weird things - but the normal would-be user doesn't even know of such spectacular uses and will have left long before discovering them. And now I discover those little UR quirks that poison my work day, and it's little things, not big ones... 3 ) You say, not many UR users will have a hundred files; of course not. Users having TWO files, or three, won't need a file toggle, the "NextFile" / "PrevFile" commands will serve them as toggles. But even if you have 3 files open, making without a File Toggle is awkward, since you must do "NextFile" when you want to jump from file 3 to file 1 (= in the line), and "PrevFile" for jumping from file 1 to file 3. When you have FOUR files, even that isn't possible anymore, and you must press the one of those Prev/NextFile commands TWO TIMES, for jumping over another file between. When it comes to FIVE files, you consider my above-mentioned macro. So, please, let's be hones, it's not my very specials needs that ask for such a command, it's the needs of ANYONE who normally uses more than 2 or max. 3 files; perhaps I should have stated this, but such is the fact; ridiculizing the need for the command is easy when you consider 100 files, but fact is, you'd do a favor to anyone who hasn't got all his stuff in one big file. 4 ) Since in the children pane, the value "has children yes / no" is computed at "play time" (what was the correct English word for it again), it should indeed be possible, without too many programming efforts, to make it a little easier to the eye, i.e. to introduce the "plus" sign on the left of the entry if there are children for that entry, in that children's pane. Please note, I'm NOT asking you for doing a second tree, collapsable and expandable, I'm just asking for a sign, indication where "expanding the item in a flat way", so that the children of the item would fill up the children pane would be possible. 5 ) Most of my jumping around between files, I do it by links to those files (and sometimes, to items there, but mostly, for the time being, links to files); I explained all this in detail in a previous post (hint: you can search this forum for posters; if you see then that my very first posts were written in pidgin English, well, that was for amusing myself since once, kinook had said he didn't understand, and it seemed that my mother tongue wasn't English? right so, but then, I'm able to make me understood nethertheless in most circumstances, and I quickly outgrew of that pidgin English approach, didn't amuse myself anymore). But the important thing here is: When you click on a link (!) in the children pane, it doesn't bring you to your desired file, like clicking on a link in the tree... but it sets focus... to that very exact entry... in the tree, instead... from which then you can click in order to execute the link: weird ! But normal, considering that that children pane had never been intended to make UR a - spectacular - 3 pane outliner. This and other behaviors of the children pane should be amended, but from then on, UR will have become VERY close to being one of the top ten programs out there, all areas confounded. (Perhaps, you could do something on the way UR links to ITEMS in other files: Since the functionality is there, the execution of the necessary commands could indeed be adapted to normal ways of using individual software, the way it is to be done now, is just spectacularly weird - but this isn't a critique: That it IS possible even now, set this program apart, already!) (And then, my not being able to link to ITEMS in UR files from third party programs was indeed due to the fact that I had installed a PORTABLE version of UR Prof. on my harddisk, instead of installing the "install version" - well, to think that could be a problem, or even, to think that you didn't install the "normal" version, to begin with...) Again, a help file in which you turn round and round and round, whereas the highlights of UR would deserve to be highlighted in a way that prospects GOT THEM! I'm not speaking of making a beginners' manual that should be published "as is" - my English is too poor for that. But for the CONTENTS of such a manual, I think you could trust me. 6 ) 100 files, the idea came from not having enough (= 50 all in all) favorites in one big file, at a time I thought exterior links to items weren't possible (cf. point 5 above). So it was for "having it flattened out", with exterior programs being a super-level floating over the 100 files, accessing them by filename (i.e. links from 3rd party software to UR FILES instead of links from those 3rd party softwares to ITEMS within one UR file). And now, as in the old days, ActionOutline and MyInfo (where splicing up your files into tiny ones was a necessity for me), I like it better this way, it greatly enhances the representation of my stuff in my mind (about 60.000 items, and more and more...); just do it in a way that those things are self-contained, even if that means that one file hasn't got by 50 items, and another one 1,000 or more; that the secret, not making any effort to have files of approximately the same size, but making efforts to have self-contained files, of whatever size they might be. 7 ) And then, there are multiple ways of searching multiple UR files; I tried them all, with somewhat incredible result. It cost me 3 work days (since I tried more and more of such programs, and even programs you wouldn't suspect to do the work, and it was those programs that delivered the best results) - it was a passionate experience. I'd very much like to share this experience with fellow users. Thus, please back my toggle request in number, and my findings will be yours.
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#8
06-12-2011, 03:56 PM
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Quote:
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#9
06-12-2011, 06:10 PM
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While parsing these posts, my mind strays to the Loebner Prize.
The items on the current roadmap are MUCH more important to me.
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Linear Mode
