Latest Rename Master Updates (Part 2)

The latest round of changes are a result of issues reported long ago.

When dealing with a long list of files, you can highlight files, but there was no way to navigate them. There's now a menu (and Alt+H shortcut) that will move to the next highlighted file.

The Breadcrumb style Filepath now supports keyboard navigation. I try to design my programs to be keyboard friendly, but this feature had no keyboard support. Now, it can receive Tab focus and supports left/right arrow key navigation and Space/Enter activation of buttons.

A lot of code has changed behind the scenes to clean up mistakes made over a decade ago. When reviewing the code, I've discovered issues that were reported years ago. These were mistakenly misdiagnosed. For example, one of the Windows routines I use for converting file timestamps fails if the years is less than 1980. Windows itself has no problems showing this in Explorer.

I've emptied the TODO list in on the Plans and Ideas page. There are only 2 Future ideas left that may or may not be added in this version.

Latest Rename Master Updates

The "Case" settings in RM have been an issue for a long time. They were mostly hard-coded for English and failed to work with non-English character. These options aren't used very often and they only activate after running the Renaming Script steps.

The upper/lower case logic has been rewritten. The routines using the system locale settings are now explicitly used for all of the options. Before, most characters would be replaced with an English equivalent. They now work with more characters. This still fails for the Turkish specific "i" characters.

The "word" definition has changed. Before, a pre-defined list of characters was used to determine word delimiters. Words are now made of "alphabet" characters, and "alphabet" characters are defined as characters that have upper and lower case versions. All other characters are considered delimiters.

The "Case" settings may be converted into a Renaming Script Step for flexibility. This way, the Renaming Script can override or customize how these options behave. Currently, case is applied after running the Renaming Script.

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The JavaScript feature has been update to support Unicode literals. This way, you can create your own custom upper/lower case routines. This will work around the current known issues with Turkish characters. Example:

function main(PreviousStepFilename, optionalObject) {
var result = '';
for (var i = 0; i < PreviousStepFilename.length; i++) {
var c = PreviousStepFilename.charAt(i);
if (c == "I") {
result += "ı";
} else if (c == "ı") {
result += c;
} else {
result += c.toLowerCase();
}
}

RM_SetNewFilename(result);
}


The above script will work around the lowercase issue with non-dotted "i" Turkish characters.

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Quality-of-Life update suggestions are a priority. There's a small change to the Rescan prompt after performing a rename while in Subfolder Scan mode. There's a new "Always" button that will automatically select the "Rescan" option. This selection will last until the program is exited. This is a small changes, but it can create a better flow to the program in certain cases.

Current Plans

I've officially released ArsClip, Rename Master, and MouseWrangler latest version over the last 3 months. My current plans are to make sure the "Plans and Ideas" section is up-to-date. As usual, I completely forgot to update this section. So, I'm scanning my emails for things to list.

If your fix/feature is not listed, feel free to re-send an email.

I'll wait for about a week to begin working on Rename Master, since it was just released. It spent a long time in beta, so I'm not expecting any issues that would require a fast hotfix.

ArsClip Pending Release

The last change for this version of ArsClip has been made. The current beta is now Release Candidate 1. This is a small release that mostly targets scripting changes and fixes.

The last update changes how plaintext is retrieved from the clipboard. If a File clip is detected, it will extract the text and return it; otherwise, it will query the clipboard just for plain text. This mostly only effects scripting areas of the program.

MouseWrangler 2.0 - Fourth Test

Behind the scenes, the code for detecting mouse gestures was reworked. This solved a lot of issues and limitations, but it also bound to introduce new issues. This fourth test fixed a few of those issues as well as issues caused from newly added features.

Two small new features were added. The Welcome screen was updated to include an example gesture. This will create a simple gesture that will show the Configuration screen. The Configuration load speed was improved when showing the Per-Program list.

A fifth test is needed to address more issues. There are two small program additions already planned for this test, but no more features will be added after this.

There are planned changes scheduled for version 2.1, but these will require significant changes. The idea is to rework how gestures are displayed in list form to make them easier to understand and visualize.


EDIT: Public Beta 5 was release and now the program is in feature freeze. All ideas for changes are scheduled for a future release. Only bugs and minor tweaks are being addressed.

MouseWrangler 2.0 - Third Test

All major planned features have been added in the current Public Beta test version. The Configuration and Gesture Wizard have been reworked. Support for monitor position specific gestures has been added. A new Welcome screen has been added.

A fourth test version will likely be needed to perform tweaks to the existing features.

MouseWrangler 2.0 - Second Test

This version adds mouse chording (optional, on by default) to toggle enabled/disabled gestures for the current program. So, you don't have to exit the current program to change this setting.

The next test will include: a revamped Configuration window, a new Welcome window. If there's time, the Edit Gesture Wizard will be revamped and support for monitor edge gestures will be added.

For example, the keystrokes window could have a dropdown of some common keystroke shortcuts. A common example would be closing the current tab in a browser (CTRL+W).

I'm also thinking about adding some new default gestures to do things like show the Configuration window or show the Edit Gestures window with the current foreground program already highlighted.

In total, there should be about 3 or 4 test versions before all planned features are implemented.

MouseWrangler 2.0 - First Test

The new Public Beta of Mouse Wrangler has uploaded. This first version reworks the Edit Gestures window to make is less confusing. Gestures are now split into two sections: Global and Per-Program.

The Global gestures can be triggered no matter the current foreground program. The Per-Program gestures are specific to the current foreground program, but there is an option to disable all Gestures (including Global) for the selected program.


Next Test Version

I'll be testing ways to activate the "Disable All" feature without having to manually open the Edit Gestures window. Maybe when the gesture drawing is active, a small hint text will appear at the top/bottom of the screen. This text would instruct how to disable for the current program. Maybe by performing an action like double clicking SHIFT while while gesture drawing is active.

This task needs to be easy to discover and and to perform. It also needs to be difficult to perform on accident. By default, gestures are disabled when the foreground program is running full screen. This catches the most common case, like when a game is running.