57 replies to this topic

[joebodo]

JS,

Thanks for the comments. They give me inspiration to continue developing this application.

I'll get off my a$$ and try to fix a few of the bugs I know are there (but I ignore). Let me know what issues you have found and I'll add them to my list. I'll also check the code into the SVN repository so others can help if desired.

The documentation and/or tutorial would be great. I tried to make the program intuitive and simplistic but I think I failed (I've always been bad with UI design). Any ideas to improve the usability would be appreciated.

--joebodo

[QuaraMan]

Hello joebodo,

I love the interface and your plugin style.
But I have a question: When is it possible to use your program at my work.
I look for such a beast for years and now I have found it, but I do not know what means in this context "Noncommercial".

Does this mean it is not legal to install it on computers that are used for working?

My only intention is that I can give me and my colleagues a nice user Interface to otherwise complicated things.

Thanks for your answer

[Fry]

Noncommercial means it cant be sold.

So go ahead and use this at your work

[QuaraMan]

Thank you Fry for answer.

[JoeSchmoe]

Hi, Joe,

Sorry for the delay in following up. I've got a lot of other stuff to do, but I definitely will do the tutorial I promised.

Regarding more debugging work, that sounds great. I'll start making a list of anything I notice (as a Redstone favorite..), and post it here when it gets larger. I look forward to a new version of the code.

Would you be willing to entertain reasonable feature requests?

[joebodo]

I would rather implement new features than do bug fixes

[geor]

Hi,

as an AHK beginner, & before I get absorbed in this launcher that seems to be well crafted & really appreciated,
I'm curious as to how it might compare to Pegtop Pstart (which I do have experience with) ?

What RAM/resources does Redstone use, etc ?

Thank You

[JoeSchmoe]

I get the sense that JoeBodo doesn't like writing much (he hates documentation, for example), so I'll post a response and he can follow up if he doesn't like it.

I'd say that the biggest difference between Redstone and Pstart is that Redstone is an open source AHK application with its home in this thread. Thus, if you don't like the way that something is with Redstone, you can always change it, most likely with help from the author. For example, I wanted to be able to set up hotkeys to open up specific screens (a.k.a. lists). The next day, joebodo showed me how to change the code to do exactly what I wanted. He also seems open to feature requests (see above).

Unfortunately, because Redstone is an interpreted AHK program (all AHK programs are interpreted, even if they are "compiled"), it is heavy. Right now, the compiled version is using 8.2 megs on my machine, or just over 1% of my total memory usage. I don't mind this because my launcher is a program that I use all of the time. It feels quite responsive unless it is just starting out and needs to reindex.

You may want to just try the program out. I will post a first draft of the tutorial that I promised above within the next 45 minutes.

[JoeSchmoe]

This tutorial has been replaced by a much better tutorial. The new tutorial can be found at:
<!-- m -->https://ahknet.autoh...stut/rstut.html<!-- m -->

When you first open Redstone, you will see a screen something like the following:



Redstone is organized around a collection of filters, and a list of the easiest ones to use is given on this screen. Most of what you do in Redstone will be selecting and using different filters.

By default, the Redstone window is set to disappear whenever it loses focus. If you want to bring it back, just press Alt-{space}.

A first filter to check out is the "Start Menu" filter. There are three ways to navigate to it:
1.) The above picture shows my "User Filters" filter. If you are looking at your "User Filters" filter and your cursor is the the edit box in the bottom right hand corner of the window, you can just type "s", and "t" to select "Start Menu" and then press the Enter key.
2.) If you'd rather use your mouse, just click on the windows icon, , in the bottom left hand corner of the window.
3.) Finally, if you aren't looking at your "User Filters" filter and you want to use your mouse, you can click on the ">" symbol in the upper left of the window. (Look for .) It will show you a list of all of the User filters. Just click on "Start Menu." If you want to see more filters, including hidden ones, right click on this same button.
By the way, if you ever get into the wrong filter, you can always go back to the previous filter by pressing Alt-{leftarrow}. Like all hotkeys, this hotkey is configurable using the "configuration" hotkey.

You might wonder what the "v" is in the control. It controls what the window does when it loses focus.
1.) if it displays a "v," the window will disappear when it loses focus. (Typical for a launcher program.)
2.) if it displays a "^," the window will always stay on top of other windows.
3.) if it is empty it will behave like a normal window.

If you follow the above instructions to get to the "Start Menu" filter, you will see something like this:

Your cursor should be in the edit box in the lower right hand corner of the window. If it isn't there, get it there.

Suppose you want to open AutoHotkey help. Type "aut hel." Redstone uses an implicit AND between "aut" and "hel," so it searches for a file with both "aut" and "hel" in the name. When I do this, I get:

You can then use the {up}, {down}, and {Enter} keys to launch the specific program that you are most interested in.

Redstone may be slow to search for files the first time you use it because it has to index everything.

Note that you can resize the window if you have a large monitor or just need to read long path names as I do above.

Redstone is smart enough that if you start typing and it is clear that you aren't doing something else, it will automatically start searching as if you were in the Start Menu filter. Thus, if I want to open up AutoHotkey help, all that I need to do is type:
Alt-{space} "aut hel" {Enter}
which can be done quite quickly.

Because Redstone will automatically switch to searching the start menu, you never have to use the three methods I described above to get to the Start Menu filter. You can use any of them to get to the configuration screen, though, and that is where we are going next. The icon for the configuration screen/configuration filter looks like

We are checking out the configuration filter now because, you may want Redstone to search some location other than the Start Menu. Perhaps you want it to search a folder of documents. You can change this by going to the configuration filter, opening "Items to Scan" (perhaps using the arrow keys), and adding a new directory to scan. To do this, right click on the list area and choose New. You can add your directory using AutoHotkey variables, which is useful if you want to use this on a USB flash drive. I won't go into the details, but drop me a line if you want them.

At this point, we have only covered about a quarter of what the program can do. I'll let you explore for the rest, but let me know if you want me to extend the tutorial and I will. Otherwise, you can just go through the other User Filters. Once you are done with them, RIGHT click on the ">" symbol in the upper left of the window. (Look for .)

While you explore, keep in mind that Redstone is extremely customizable and that much of the functionality is accessed through right-click context sensitive menus, so right-click on everything and see what is available.

For example, one of the filters is for your favorite things to launch. Whenever you find a file as we did above with AutoHotkey help, before you open the file and leave Redstone (or even afterward, because it stays in the same place), just right click on the file, choose "Add to List"->"Favorites," and the file will appear in your Favorites filter. If you find yourself using the filter a lot and are technically inclined, you can check out the following post: http://www.autohotke...ghlight=#207096
It is in response to the following request:

Also, is there a way to set a hotkey so that you open Redstone to a specific filter? For example, there are a number of files that I use extremely frequently. I would like to put them in my favorites filter. Suppose I could open Redstone to my favorite's filter by pressing !{spacebar}. I just press that, then the first one or two letters of the file's name, then enter, and the file pops up immediately. That sounds terrific, but it hinges on being able to get to the favorites filter very rapidly.

Good luck exploring. Any feedback or requests based on this tutorial are welcome.

A link to this tutorial is http://www.autohotke...ghlight=#208581

[geor]

@JoeSchmoe - Thanks a $1M for your explanations & the tutorial -
I'll get a chance to play with it all later this weekend.

My PStart typically consumes average 7 MB,
and something as essential, efficient ( > Microsoft "Start" ), etc.
as a really good kicka** launcher .....
well, that's why we trim the fat in the places we can,
so that we can invest it back in the places that really matter, right?

Again, the helps available in this forum are 1st class,
& I know my mastery in this realm is occurring rapidly because of it.

Gratefully ..........

[JoeSchmoe]

Hi, Geor, glad I could help.

When you do check it out please bear in mind that it is still under development, so there will be some bugs. For example, when you click on an item in the lister (the part of the window where the filter you are using is displayed) sometimes the click isn't registered by the program and you have to click another time. It seems to happen more frequently with right clicks than with left. I find this a little frustrating sometimes, but JoeBodo is working on it.

JS

[joebodo]

Do you only see the right click problem when selecting items in a list? Or, is the problem with right clicking on buttons, etc?

[JoeSchmoe]

Sorry for taking a couple days to get back to you. My schedule doesn't allow me to check the ahk forums very often, but I do get around to it eventually. Maybe that's a good thing since I'm sure you have other commitments as well. :-) Have you made any progress in the mean time?

Regarding the bug, I only recall seeing it when using the lister. In the future, I'll keep an eye out for whether it ever happens elsewhere. For some reason, it isn't doing it today.

I also have a bunch of questions if you are up for fielding them...
1.) Where should I look to find the code that is called when I just start typing after opening Redstone? I'd like to be able to see exactly which lists it checks and which order it checks them in.
2.) When does Redstone reindex? I.e. when does it go through the "items to scan" list and make a big list of what it finds?
3.) What do the prefixes on the source code file names stand for? CR, CRI, CRL...
4.) Is there any way to open a folder in Windows Explorer from within Redstone? Occasionally I want to use other functionality and think Redstone would be good for navigating to folders.

Thanks again for the awesome program.

[joebodo]

I modified two files to fix the problems with right-clicking an item in the list. I added a comment to each place where I modified the code (but you should be able to just replace your two files with the provided ones).

http://www.mediafire...php?g3id82ygjz3

[joebodo]

1.) Where should I look to find the code that is called when I just start typing after opening Redstone? I'd like to be able to see exactly which lists it checks and which order it checks them in.

In the lists.lst file, the Search:Yes indicates that this list is included in the search results. The SearchOrder:100 indicates the order that this list is searched.

Example:

/listName:Lists /type:List /Name:History /List:History /Search:Yes /SearchOrder:100 /Persistent:Yes /Unique:Yes /AddMode:Insert

The code that combines the lists is in CRL_Search.ahk.

lists := syslist_Get("Lists", "/filter:Search=Yes")
	list_Sort(lists, "SearchOrder")

2.) When does Redstone reindex? I.e. when does it go through the "items to scan" list and make a big list of what it finds?

The application only indexes the first time that the program is run (ever). To reindex, you have to run the "Refresh Search List" command (this should be in the favorites list). Alternatively, you can type in: *Scan Refresh

Sometime in the future, I plan to make this automated.

3.) What do the prefixes on the source code file names stand for? CR, CRI, CRL...

In a newer version, I have moved these into different directories. This should help to understand the structure of the program.

CRL are list handlers.
CRI are indexers.

4.) Is there any way to open a folder in Windows Explorer from within Redstone? Occasionally I want to use other functionality and think Redstone would be good for navigating to folders.

Oops, slight bug. Fix this code in CR_Command.ahk (around line 81):

if (A_Command = "Command UserAltRun")

Then, you should be able to hold down the control key and double click on any folder.

This behavior is set in the types.lst. Here is the entry for a folder:

/listName:Types /type:type /typeType:folder /run:Files SetFolder /altrun:Files Run /icon:file /Fields:Name,Command /keyFields:Command /Details:Command

The /run indicates what should happen if the user double clicks on that type. The /altrun indicates what should happen if the user has the control key down and double clicks on the file.