The Fitler - Part 4 ... and more

I'm getting close to the end of development for the new Filter feature. The last change I might make is an add option to always show the Filter textbox visible when showing the popup. The feature would be purely for keyboard users only. The biggest drawback of this feature is that you couldn't use any popup keyboard shortcuts until the Filter textbox is hidden, since it receives all keystrokes.

---

Visual Tweaks

Work is being done on some clutter on the popup. A new set of goals has been made to help guide the changes. Less important features should be emphasized less. Menus that paste (Popup Clips/Permanent Clips) should be distinct from other menu items. Column icons should be reserved for icons that are clickable. Expandable menus should have a distinct look that describes how it works.

As an example, using bold characters to emphasize keyboard shortcuts was too distracting. This has been changed to a faint square around the character. This helps separate the letter from the caption in a subtle way.

The Filter - Part 3

Moving the highlight turns out to be a good way to hide the Filter textbox. It just feels natural. Some decorations or buttons may be added to the Filter, but only if this solves an important problem. Since it's now trivial to hide the Filter, a cancel button probably isn't needed.

One Filter option that's planned for the next beta is the option to only shown results on the popup. Basically, when a filter is active, no other menu items would be shown. Configuration options, also, will be able to advertise the accept/cancel keystrokes.

The Filter - Part 2

Clip Sets
Clip Sets configuration will change in the next beta. An option to always use Clip Sets will be added. In the current setup, the program automatically turns them on selectively.

Any future configuration options for the Filter will also be located under Clip Sets. At this point, I'm not sure what Filter options are needed.

Showing/Hiding
Triggering the Filter on is now a trivial task that can be done with either the keyboard or the mouse. The problem lies in hiding the Filter. The Filter requires typing, so keystrokes will likely be the preferred method. Those that are heavy keyboard users will automatically think "Escape Key" to do this, but this isn't the easiest way to do it.

Pressing ESC require moving the hands from home position. One of the hidden keystrokes features is using Enter or the Down arrow accepts the new Filter. Pressing ESC or Tab cancels the Filter completely. There needs to be some way to advertise the these features without being intrusive. Also, there needs to be a clear delineation between accepting and canceling the Filter.

Moving the highlight might be a better way to hide the Filter textbox, while keeping the results. This is natural for both keyboard and mouse users without advertising. For keyboard users, it's not natural to use the down/up arrow on a single line textbox, so this is the only drawback for this method. Tab is common method from moving between fields. On a popup window, pressing Tab is not expected either. At this point, I don't see a perfect method.

The Filter

Above is the first implementation of the in-place filter for Popup Clips in the current Public Beta of ArsClip. Now that a large number of clips can be shown on the popup, an in-place filter seems like a reasonable feature to add to Clip Sets.

To help advertise the new feature, the filter icon is only shown on the first Clip Set expandable menu and only when highlighted. On a default install, Clip Sets aren't usually visible. This means that only more advanced users that work with more than 20 clips on the popup are likely see the new feature. This is the target audience for this feature.

There are some issues with this new feature that must be addressed. Currently, only a mouse click on the icon activates the filter textbox. There are some keystrokes that perform special functions while the textbox is visible, but there's no indicator for these keys. The Shortcut keys aren't generated properly when filtering, and a few other known issues.

As always, user feedback is a must to help me polish this new feature.

Next Phase of ArsClip

The reworking of the Configuration window was a success. The hierarchy of categories is more defined making navigation and discovery less of a chore. I'm still not sure how to implement a Novice/Advanced mode, so there's still some more work to be done in the future.

Work for Public Beta v4.17 has already begun. The first feature I'm working on is a filter for the Popup Clips list. This will be part of the Clip Set display. Since I've already headers for displaying one set at a time, I've also a location where I can implement a filter. When activated, a textbox will appear on the Popup for typing. Only Popup Clips that match the text will be displayed as the search text is typed.

The two things I've not decided on is how to advertise this feature and how to activate it. These Clip Set headers already operate as expandable menus, so a click will expand a menu but does nothing if the menu is already expanded. Placing a clickable item on the caption would be confusing since there's already a right side icon to show the menu is expandable. The left icon seems like the obvious place, but it seems like something that's easy to overlook.

ArsClip Next Version

ArsClip v4.16 beta is nearing a final release. The main changes for this release turned out to be the reworked Configuration window and reworked Commands menu for Permanent Clips/Macros. The rest of the changes are most bug fixes and minor additions.

---

One new concept added to Permanent Clips/Macros is the idea of a temporary clip list. Using a Push/Popup scheme, the state of the clipboard is saved as plaintext to be restored later in the macro.

One of the problems of automating the process of copying several items and then pasting them using the "PopupItem" command is duplicates. The Popup Clips list is a list of unique clips. When a duplicate is detected, it is either moved or ignored completely. If 7 items are copied, but dupicates are found, pasting popup items 1 through 7 from the popup list will not return the expected data.

[PUSHCLIPBOARD] will store the current state to the list. [POPFIRST] will restore first clip and remove it from the list. [POPLAST] will restore the last clip and remove it from the list. The list is either a queue or a stack, depending on which Pop command you use.

---

[SELECTRIGHT][COPYWAIT][PUSHCLIPBOARD][RIGHT][SELECTRIGHT][COPYWAIT][PUSHCLIPBOARD][RIGHT]
[POPFIRST][KEY="010056CTRL+V"][POPFIRST][KEY="010056CTRL+V"]

In the example above, two words are copied and pasted. The selection is done by using a Ctrl+Shift+Right keystroke, copy sends Ctrl+C and waits for the clipboard to report, the clipboard state is saved, and the Right arrow is used to position the text cursor and remove the highlight. The pasting is done by moving the first clip to the clipboard and sending a Ctrl+V keystroke.

Just Add an Option

My original philosophy for adding features was to add an option for anything that didn't interrupt the normal function of the program and fit the scope of the program. The negative result of this philosophy is navigation. It's hard to find anything in the configuration window with so many options.

The idea of "better situational defaults" is now the first idea. Instead of cluttering up the configuration window with too many options, my process now involves think of a way to automate the idea. If automation fails, then I can consider a new configuration option.

In the current Public Beta of ArsClip, I've reworked the Configuration window a little. Some of the categories on the tree menu have been moved to a more logical position. I've also combined several similar items into sub-categories. This reduces the list into 4 main categories and a miscellaneous category. Navigation is improved, but is not an ultimate solution.

Another idea I have is to classify options. First time users would be presented with a smaller subset of the most important options - the core operation of the program. A mechanism would allow for showing more options. I've seen this used in other programs, but not in a way that will work with ArsClip. This will require some inventing, and I don't expect to implement this idea until a future version.

Lastly, I will be considering removing options - something I rarely do. If the option is very difficult to conceptualize, most users aren't likely using it. It will either be rewritten or removed. If the option can be automated, it will be replaced. If the option is outdated or somewhat obsolete, it will be removed. For example, "Recently Removed" and the "Tooltip Popup" are prime candidates for removal; the first for being obsolete, the second for being difficult to understand and rarely used.

Research Project

I had an interesting email about a batch text file editor. The user was looking for something similar to how Rename Master worked. Since RM is just an automated text editor that happens to only edit the names of files; it wouldn't be too far fetched to create a new program from it.

I'm creating a "Research Project" for this idea. This project, however, may never leave the idea phase.

The first step is to see if there's any real demand for it. Text editing is a very old concept and has many tools that are both manual and automated for doing such tasks. The program would have to be unique or a much better version of an existing program. The program, like RM, would be a graphical tool that executes steps of a script on individual text items.

The next step is to define who the target user is. Very technical user already know about and rely on many text tools. The target user might be someone that wants the convenience, without having to be a programmer to perform a redundant task.

The third step is to create a prototype. The prototype could be a copy of RM's code, gutted to use only the common parts.

Currently, I'm stuck at step 1. Batch search and replace tools seem to be plentiful. I imagine this is by-far the most popular task for batch text editing. If true, this would make the my idea a very niche program. So, I've no real clear "yes" answer to the question "is there a demand?". I know I could make something unique, but even I can't remember the last time I needed to do editing that couldn't be handled by existing text tools.

I might be able to rationalize making a "Text Robot" instead that can also be used in a batch mode; possible by a secondary tool. It would have to also perform tasks that can't be done with current search-and-replace or macro routines: conditional editing, moving, converting.

Either way, I'm still in the idea phase.