Shared Permanent Groups Redux

This feature needs updating, badly.

First, the program isn't correctly showing that a group is shared on another computer (on the Share window). Clicking the "share" button on a group that is already shared causes duplicates to appear.

Second, the process is very conceptual. It needs better explaining. For example, once a group is shared, there's no indication on what happens next. While the process is automated, the program does not give any directions or visual cues to let you know that no other actions are needed. The share window needs to communicate this better.

Third, the About/Help tab can be used to go into detail on how to use ArsClip in a shared location. Once again, the process is automated, but the program doesn't have any directions or requirements listed. In reality, once the program is placed in a shared location (a Windows Share or a cloud-synced location), everything is automated. For shared groups, the program automatically keeps track of when a group is changed and each instance will update on a timed interval. Offline instances will update when first started.

Lastly, I need more feedback. I use feedback to guide my work, but there's not been very little feedback on this feature. This was a highly requested feature, but most users don't require it. The result is that it's not very likely to get any feedback, even when there are issues or improvements needed.

The Well

It's that time again, as the well has run dry for new new features. The good news is that the programs are feel feature complete. This does mean that I'm in a maintenance mode and only fixing issues.

I'm about 90 percent sure that I misfiled some user feedback for new features, so feel free to resend your requests if they've not been implemented.

The one idea I have for the future is an online library of scripts for ArsClip and Rename Master. Currently, example scripts are hardcoded into the program and require a full update to change. My idea is to have scripts that will do the job or can be used as a base to create custom scripts. The library will be fully integrated into the program

Global/Shared Permanent Clips 3

The coding is almost done for this feature and will likely be available as a Public Beta tomorrow.

The "Databases" tab has been updated to include a Shared Permanent Groups link. This will bring up a window that can be used to convert a group to be global.

When a group is converted, all clips and hotkeys of the group are copied to a single database. Each instance will create a copy of the group in it's local database. Instances will be updated either by a timer or when the program is first run. Any changes made to that group's clips will also trigger an update.

A new "shared.ini" file in the "clipdatabase" folder is used to keep track of synchronization. A setting has also been added to this file to not include importing hotkeys for each machine. By default, all machines will import both the clips and their hotkey settings.

Global/Shared Permanent Clips 2

The design phase is almost complete. I've found a method that satisfies all the goals, and this was probably the hardest part. This method requires only 3 small changes to the existing database functions and the rest of the program remains unchanged. The only exception is a change to the user interface to set a Permanent Group to "shared".

Global/Shared Permanent Clips

This feature has been the most requested: the ability to have Permanent Clips that can be shared with all instances. When run from an external drive, AC automatically uses a single database, so all computers use one set of clips. For other installs, you can import from other databases, but there is no sync mechanic to keep them all up to date.

This is the feature that is currently being researched and designed. There are a few ways to do it, and they all have drawbacks. The goal is for the method to be fast, reliable, and requires the least amount of changes to the code. The methods to detect a shared group and keep it synced needs to have little impact on performance of the Popup. The design requires a separate database for shared clips, to remove read/write conflicts. The last goal removes most of the possibilities to introduce bugs.

AC Mini

While AC Mini is not in full development, it's still getting some maintenance. The current beta fixes an intermittent crash issue for some systems. Also, the Google App changed the internal name of it's search textbox, so the program was updated to detect it.

A "Killer Script"

To be successful to more than just advanced users, I think the new JavaScript feature needs a script(s) that shows off what it can do.

This is more difficult than it sounds. Usually, a script is so specific for one user's needs that it won't work for anyone else. This is the point of adding JavaScript support in the first place. In Rename Master, having example scripts was an easy task. I'd often get questions about "how can you rename X to Y?" and it would be the same renaming process for other users.

Something as simple as "extract all URLs" sounds great, but is an extremely difficult task to do correctly. Several libraries exist for this task and almost all of them have issues. I've even written my own for the MakeLinks browser extension, to detect "may be" links. Still, this is a candidate for a "killer script".

I've one user that is copying address information and pasting it into a form. The addresses can be in multiple forms and each needs special detection and treatment. While this is another difficult task, it sounds like it may also be a candidate.

I'll be looking through my archive of user feedback to find more.

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Another feature that might need to included is a way to get scripts from the website, instead of just using hard coded examples. Will scripts be added or updated frequently enough to merit this work? I'm not sure. This feature may have to wait for a future version.

ArsClip JavaScript Explained

In the newest Public Beta, a new clip type has been added: JavaScript (technically JScript/ECMAScript3 for this implementation). This is obviously for advanced user.

Currently, the clipboard state is passed as a parameter to the "main" function. The Popup Clips are optionally included as an array of string. This is the only data that AC directly includes in the script. Indirectly, the script can have AC execute the [TOTEXTFILE=""] command to store the changed clipboard to a file. This may change in a later version.

The JavaScript clip uses 2 special labels for embedding AC macros. The "start_ac_macro:" and "end_ac_macro:' labels mark the beginning and ending of this code. This is just syntax sugar for using the "manuallyExecuteMacro(macro)" function.

Some notes about the implementation:

Currently, cscript is used to execute the "main.js" file. This command line program has been a part of Windows since XP. Mozilla's SpiderMonkey engine may be used instead in a future update. The simplest method was tried first.

Cscript is executed using a hidden command prompt to prevent any focus issues with the script.

Any number of start/end label can be used and they conditionally executed or loop executed by the script.

AC shows a single JavaScript function to be executed, but this is wrapped with supporting code be hind the scenes before execution.

AC and the script use a named pipe for inter-process communication. This will likely be used even if the implementation changes.

Error messages will reference the line number of "main.js", not the line number of the current clip.