Rated 5 stars at SnapFiles
   Shareware and Freeware



This Month's Donators V. Richards C. Silverio (P. Borisoff -- last month's top donator $20) ... more PayPal

 

Use with caution.
These public beta programs contain new fixes and new features that haven't been fully tested. I need you to tell me if you find any problems with these program or even if the changes listed work as you expect.

joejoe Jul-12-24 12:08 AM UTC

Current Plans for RM and AC

I've started to update the "Plans and Ideas" sublink on this page again. I got really lazy and completely forgot about this section of the website for a while. I've been using "labels" in GMail for a very long time to keep track of user feedback. I, however, want a more transparent way for users to see what's planned.

Currently on Rename Master and ArsClip have new active entries. NewFileGo and MouseWrangler have no current plans, but are not closed for further development. All other programs are currently no longer being developed.

joejoe Jun-27-24 6:52 PM UTC

ArsClip and the New User

I've updated the Permanent Clips/Macro tab to try to make is a better first experience for new users.

Now, all the "Special Groups" are hidden by default and shown in bold when made visible. The idea is to show the most important information to the user and let them discover the other features when/if they need them (Progressive Disclosure).

I've also updated the help information section. It will update to show context sensitive information when clicking on different Permanent Groups. There's also a "links" section that will navigate to other locations to show more information. For example, the "_Clip Menu" group help information has a link to the Configuration window to show the Clip Menu section. It also has a link to the Help/About section for this group.

The Help/About has been updated with some more information, some links, and pages for the newer Special Groups.

---

This is a first attempt, so I'm open to any feedback for improving this help information. I'm sure there's some missing category in the Help/About tab that I've not thought about. Also, I'm sure there's a lot more places where helpful navigation links can be placed.

joejoe May-14-24 7:55 AM UTC

Plans Changed

As you can tell, AC and RM updates didn't happen as planed. AC ended up being released first and then RM was just released today.

The planned change for adding HTML previews in AC wasn't delayed until next next version. I was able to test this on my system for long enough to feel confident about adding this change as a new feature. RM also had the planned change for selective RegEx text fields added in the current version instead of a future release.

A change has been made for the update process. Now, the new version and the previous version will be available as a precaution. Even though AC and RM have built in backup functions, I think it is better to still allow for all users to have access to revert. Donators, however, still have the option to have access to all previous archived versions.

joejoe Dec-17-23 2:36 AM UTC

AC and RM Roadmaps

Rename Master is currently in feature freeze. No new features will be added at this point - only bug fixes and polishing. Final preparations are being made for an official release. It's been several months since the last release, so the remaining TODO list items are scheduled for the next version. A JavaScript Step, a better method to switch between Wildcard/RegEx textboxes, as well as a way to do number math for renaming are all planned.

ArsClip doesn't have any further planned changes for the current version. Experimentation is happening with a new HTML viewer, but this change would occur in the next version if things work out. The release is currently scheduled after RM has been released with time allocated for any possible hotfixes.

joejoe Dec-09-23 7:20 PM UTC

ArsClip and Rename Master Beta Status Updates

I've received some excellent feedback/ideas from a user, so I decided to temporarily switch focus to updating RM. The new features are support for longer filenames (Win10 build 1607 and above), better navigation support for the Renaming Script, and a ?reg? metavariable to turn a single search textbox into a full Regular Expression. There are 2 polish items left on the TODO list for RM, so this is almost complete.

AC Beta still has one major feature left on the TODO list. Similar to the new "_Clip Menu" group, the new group will be to customize the "Alter Clipboard" menu on the Clipboard Bar. I'll be using this space to also disclose some new HTML scripts, to show off the new scripting support. I'm still testing a new HTML control in a experimental project, but I doubt this be in the next official release. There's a lot of testing left to be done with this control: it needs to be fast, stable, and fit the size limits of the Tooltip.

joejoe Dec-01-23 1:34 AM UTC

ArsClip Beta Roadmap

I've a few items that I've already planned for the next Public Beta.

The first change will be experimental. I'll be adding a new command line parameter to generate a language.ini file. This won't support all text in the program, but most static controls will be included. This will be a compromise between having zero language support and completely rewriting the program.

The next change will be some optimization for loading the program. I've already started to do record the loading speeds for all the windows in the program. I've pinpointed the slowest loading parts to diagnose. I found that writing to INI files is slow due to external scanners, so I'll be updating these to be in-memory writes followed by a single disk write. The last Beta already optimized the Configuration window ArsClip.ini storage. The last Beta also optimized the loading of Removed Clips in the History tab, but there are probably more places for optimizations.

A small tweak for Clip Sets is planned. When multiple sets exist, but the last Clip Set has less clips than the configured size - blank spaces will be shown instead of shrinking the Popup. This will help the Popup feel a bit more consistent in size and will work better when using the Scroll Wheel to change Clip Sets.

Custom Clip Menu macros will be moved to the clip database. This will work about the same, except it wouldn't make sense to enable Global Hotkeys for these clips.

Similarly, I'm still planning on added an Alter Clipboard section to the database for the Clipboard Bar. I've some design issues to work out still, but this would show off some of the new HTML Clip support with some default clips.

Lastly, I'm testing a newer HTML Viewer that could be used for showing HTML Clips on the Tooltip and possibly the Clipboard Bar.

joejoe Nov-19-23 8:08 PM UTC

ArsClip Beta Feature Freeze

No new features will be added to the current Public Beta of ArsClip. Enough has changed that I just want to focus on fixing issues and preparing for an official release. The current changes can be summed up as: scripting support for HTML Clips and History/Permanent Clips Tab polishing.

This is a first step for better HTML Clip support. Ideally, I'd like HTML Clips to be visible as formatted text on the Clipboard Bar and on the Tooltip when hovering clips. The currently solution for showing HTML Clips in the History / Permanent Clips works OK, but would not work for those other locations. I'll be researching a better solution (more below).

For the next version, it's going to be a bunch of research. First, I had an idea for supporting a language file. It wouldn't cover everything, but I could automate the extraction of pre-designed text from windows. To fully do translation for my software would just be too much work and I'd have zero idea if the translation was done well.

I'm also testing a new control for displaying HTML. If I had a way to convert HTML to RichText, this would be perfect. I've just not found a solution for this, since AC already supports RichText in a lot of locations. Since AC supports old OSes, I'm looking at a solution that's not dependent on "Edge". So, the control needs to be quick, not rely on an OS specific component, and let me disable scrollbars. The biggest issue with the current solution is that it doesn't work for smaller windows like the Clipboard Bar and the Tooltip, since the scrollbars take up so much space. I may just have to have HTML formatted text as an option to ensure Tooltips are quick.

joejoe Nov-03-23 5:18 PM UTC

ArsClip and HTML Clips

I've added support to Permanent Clips for retrieving data from HTML Clips. My plan is to use these to create a group of "Alter Clipboard" clips that do specific functions for HTML data. For example:

function main(clipboardStr) {
var doc = getClipboardHTMLDocument();
if (doc == null) return;

var links = doc.getElementsByTagName("a");
for(var i = 0; i < links.length; i++)
{
links[i].innerText = links[i].innerText + ' ( ' + links[i].href +' ) ';
}

setClipboard(doc.body.innerText);
}

This function gets a standard DOM Document object for the HTLM Clip on the clipboard. Then, it places the URL in parenthesis for each link. Finally, it converts the entire clip to plaintext. So, basically, this preserves links for clips made from a web browser. You could easily change a few lines and create an "extract links" script instead. Example:

function main(clipboardStr) {
var doc = getClipboardHTMLDocument();
if (doc == null) return;

var links = doc.getElementsByTagName("a");
var s = "";
for(var i = 0; i < links.length; i++)
{
s += links[i].innerText + ' ( ' + links[i].href +' ) \n';
}

setClipboard(s);
}


Over the years, the Chrome engine has stopped supporting RichText and now only places an HTML Clip for the formatted text on the clipboard. My idea is to expand the current "Alter Clipboard" menu of the Clipboard Bar to work with HTML Clips. At the same time, I want the menu to be a Permanent Group that users can customize. So, if you have any HTML Clip needs - let me know. I might be able to whip up a quick script.

Older Items






Got an idea for improvement, a bug to report? Just want to say hello? Send me your feedback.
I can be contacted at jackass.joejoe@gmail.com English only please.