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.

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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.

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[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.

Just Fixes

Good ideas appear in bursts. Usually one idea will be the start for a string of changes. If you've taken a look at the Plans and Ideas page, there are no plans and a few of very low priority ideas. The current goal for the next updates of ArsClip and Rename Master are almost purely fixes for bugs and other issues.

The only new feature is a bust. The "mousewheel" feature added to ArsClip is an interesting experiment, but it's not really useful. The only usable scenario is when the popup is not under the mouse and spacebar is used to select an item. Maybe mouseup and mousedown could be used the same way that middle click is used as a configurable action. This isn't intuitive, but may be a nice power-user feature.

For now, I'm only thinking about ideas that will fix/improve already existing features. For example, it was very easy to accidentally close a submenu trying to move the mouse to the new exposed submenu. To fix this, a delay was added before closing the submenu and selecting a new hovered item.

Better Situational Defaults

ArsClip ultimately is a collections of hacks and dirty tricks. It provides many features that aren't possible in Windows, so these tricks are needed. For example, the program can simulate a CLTR+V keystroke in almost all windows to trigger a paste. This fails for UAC protected windows and for the Command Prompt.

The program is being updated to be less intrusive and to automatically work around known issues. Since the popup now displays a "Clipboard Only" message when pasting into problem programs, it doesn't need show as many warning dialogs. ArsClip will now only display a single warning per-program, per-session. For the Command Prompt (cmd.exe), no warning dialog is shown when displaying the popup. ArsClip will also default to Clipboard Only mode for this program, unless Mimic Typing is already used by default or in the per-program settings.

Explorer is also a known problem. Since the popup requires keyboard focus by default, Explorer removes edit boxes for filenames and removes the text box for the breadcrumb address bar when it loses focus. ArsClip has been updated to when this situation. The "fix" is to use a compatibility mode. The reasoning is that it seems better to present a limited functionality popup than to make the popup non-functional in this case.

Explorer compatibility modes activates when two criteria are met. First, it detects if the name of the foreground window is "explorer.exe". Second, it detects that the control with keyboard focus is likely an edit control. When in this mode, the popup does not receive focus. As a side effect, shortcut keys are not assigned and keyboard focus remains in Explorer. Also, if you want to close the popup without pasting a clip, the Cancel button must be pressed. Clicking on another program (changing focus) doesn't affect the popup in this mode.

Technically, this compatibility mode is the same as configuring the popup to not use shortcut keys. This settings behavior had been updated to act as it did in much older versions. I'll be looking into more "dirty tricks" to make compatibility mode less restricted.

More Clipboard Bar

There were some Clipboard Bar features not quite ready for the last release. Something I learned when dogfooding the Clipboard Bar is that it is can annoying to have it blocking part of the screen. A workaround is to make the bar small, but this limits the functionality.

The Clipboard Bar now has a visibility settings. When idle, the window can be set to be transparent. This makes it less intrusive when using a full screen window (like a video) and doesn't obscure parts of the current foreground program. The bar becomes fully visible when the mouse enters the window.

Similarly, using a small Clipboard Bar means toggling the Toolbar will make the current clip almost unreadable. The fix for this is to grow or shrink the entire window when toggling the Toolbar's visibility.

ArsClip Known Bugs

For the recent lucky version 13 of ArsClip, these following bugs are currently known:

(Misc)
- icon load issue or "Bitmap image is not valid" error

I've not reproduced this error myself, but a converted clip can sometimes have an invalid icon. Once I get one of these clips sent to me, I'll be able to work around this issue.

(Removed Clips)
- cache issue after reindexing

The listed items can sometimes show old cached data after the queue size is changed.

(Clipboard Bar)
- visibility issues

I've worked around an issue when the Clipboard Bar can sometimes re-shown when another window is shown.