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Cerberus
Netherlands
86 Posts |
 Posted - 01/24/2012 : 18:16:07
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I'd really like there to be a second column in the Actions window that shows which gesture belongs to which action. I really missed that in Strokeit; I had to put the name of the gesture behind each action in the name of the action by hand.
It would also be really cool and useful if the column could be sortable, so that I can immediately see which actions are triggered by the same gesture across applications.
A major reason why this is useful is that it allows me to easily find out why my global gesture isn't working in a certain application and change it. I often had duplicates that I didn't even know existed as well. Just Gestures allows me too see all actions that have the same gesture together, albeit not very intuitively. I missed that a lot in Strokeit.
I suppose showing tiny pictures of the gestures in addition to the names of the gestures would be very practical too, to get a quick overview; but I think that might require an overhaul of the entire interface, so probably not worth the trouble. |
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Rob
USA
2615 Posts |
Posted - 02/02/2012 : 11:51:46
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Deleted the other request as it would fall under this broad request of a listview anyway:
- Add column containing the first script line
However, I've been going through many attempts at making this work (using a listview) and nothing sits right with me. If it's one long detail view which looks like:
Application Name | Action Name | Gesture Name | Modifiers | Lua Script
..it looks like one huge mess and no way to select the application itself without adding a row which doesn't seem to belong in such a list.
Now, list views support groups, which would look like:
Application Name 1 _______________
Action Name 1 | Gesture Name | Modifiers | Lua Script
Action Name 2 | Gesture Name | Modifiers | Lua Script
Application Name 2 _______________
Action Name 1 | Gesture Name | Modifiers | Lua Script
Action Name 2 | Gesture Name | Modifiers | Lua Script
This is the closest I've come which looks nice, but unfortunately, the group headers (Application Name 1) cannot be selected, and thus there's no way to edit the application's settings (identifiers). Well, technically I could make it work under Vista, but not XP, which doesn't sit well with me either. Additionally, this wouldn't provide the ability to sort for all actions as they would be housed within the groups.
The only other option would be a dual pane, Explorer-like layout with a tree view on the left and list view on the right. But this doesn't really work well either as selecting the application would load the listview, so how would one edit the applications settings. And again here, it wouldn't show all actions in the listview, defeating one of the reasons for your request.
Now, all of these reasons are prefaced with the fact that I *really* don't want to rewrite the entire interface and underlying code. Period.
The most likely outcome may be a Report button at the bottom which pops up a window with a big listview as described first, it would only serve to be able to see and sort however you want, but perhaps double-clicking a row would close the popup window and switch the treeview to the action that was double-clicked. It's not ideal, but I'm not sure that the functionality you're looking for is absolutely necessary to S+; I never had a problem with the way SI's window was, to be honest.
Now, I genuinely appreciate any and all feedback and requests and I honestly hate to post this response of "Oh well!", but maybe that's something for 2.0 =)
I'm leaving this as OPEN, but most likely only pending the Report-like functionality. I've at least got the code together to populate the listview with everything I mentioned, but still would need to create sorting code for all the columns, etc. It's a pain, but I just spend a little time here and there and slowly will get there. At least once that code's done, it will serve as the foundation for a larger UI rewrite, should the time come. |
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Rob
USA
2615 Posts |
Posted - 02/02/2012 : 11:59:11
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And by the way, treeviews do not support columns, otherwise this would be a little easier to accommodate.
Now, I could add some code (optional) to append some stuff to the end of each action name, like gesture, abbreviations for modifiers, first line of Lua...but I have a feeling it would look like ****. =) |
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Cerberus
Netherlands
86 Posts |
Posted - 02/02/2012 : 13:43:22
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Oh dear, I had no idea it would be so complicated. I agree that applications should be clickable, and that XP is
Now, I have no idea whether this would be a few clicks' work, or the Tower of Babel, but would it theoretically be possible to have two views, as in, pressing a tab header would enter 'detail view', which would be like the "huge mess" you describe? The current view would then be the default view.
If that is impractical, presenting a 'detailed view' in this 'report' you suggested sounds great! However, if sorting proves too difficult there, it would already be a big improvement for me if there were a button that opened the report in Excel, so that I could sort it in there.
Or even if it could dump a .csv file somewhere: then I could write an AHK script to create the button, open the file, and display it. (Double-clicking on an action in the report to edit it would be nice, but visible gestures and sorting by gesture would be my highest priorities; I have had to press down, down, down through the entire list of actions several times already to find out why my new action didn't work. I can live with that, of course: stability and reliability are no. 1.)
As an alternative—but I have no idea how easy or hard this would be—, there could be a drop-down list that displays all other actions associated with the same gesture, located somewhere under the box that displays the shape of the gesture on the right, when you are editing an action. Again, this might be way too much work.
The option to add the names of gestures to action names would also be great!
I am very thankful already that you have made this program, and I never expected you to pay so much attention to my feature requests, so don't feel obliged or anything! Everyone uses a program differently, and I can very well understand that not everyone might miss this feature. It's still a great program. |
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Rob
USA
2615 Posts |
Posted - 02/02/2012 : 14:56:23
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There are a lot of possibilities, but the main limitation is due to the way I rushed putting a UI together. The core of the program I spent months on, planning and making sure it was clean and flexible. Not the UI; once I got to the point where S+ actually functioned based on the settings in the XML file, it became a mad rush to just get some kind of UI together so I would be sure to actually finish the app while I still had full steam!
The amount that I've learned throughout the development of this app is staggering and there are a million things I can look at and think of how I'd do many things differently. At some point, it will get the better of me and I'll rewrite the EXE (the DLL is where everything happens, the EXE is just to initiate the hooks, provide the tray icon, and the various windows). But for now I'm in a more relaxed mode after spending 60 hours/week for almost two months (not counting the 3 or so months back in 2009) finishing S+.
The report popup is something I know I'll put together, as I said, the code will be valuable when a rewrite of the EXE takes place.
You can actually import the whole StrokesPlus.xml into Excel. In Excel 2007, I just went to the Data tab, clicked From Other Sources->From XML Data Import. Select StrokesPlus.xml, click OK about no schema, click OK to the destination and viola, you have a huge spreadsheet with a ton of columns. But, row 1 allows you to sort based on the element grouping, so if you scroll over to column AU (for me, anyway) it's named GestureName and click the little down arrow, you can sort the whole file and by the placement of action name, modifiers, and Lua fields in the XML, those columns are all right next to each other. It's not pretty, but it does allow you an easy way to troubleshoot a gesture, to see if it's been used somewhere else. In fact, in that drop down, you can just check the gesture name in question to only see those rows.
Anyway, I'll do better things with the S+ UI in the future, but nothing dramatic for a while..especially with a brand new baby girl who just arrived 2 weeks ago =)
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Rob
USA
2615 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2012 : 07:06:07
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Added in 1.5.3
Report button to Actions window which pops open a list view containing all defined actions in sortable columns.
Note that double-clicking items in the list does nothing, it's really just a report. |
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Rob
USA
2615 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2012 : 07:07:28
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| Marking this complete with the disclaimer that the Actions window will be given a makover at some point, utilizing this new code. |
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Rob
USA
2615 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2012 : 07:16:10
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Well, what ya think about the recent updates?
I demand validation! =) |
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Cerberus
Netherlands
86 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2012 : 10:30:44
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| Wow!!! It's beautiful! The report works flawlessly. Now I can immediately compare what does what. And the thumbnails are extremely convenient in the actions list too: they allow me to quickly see what which gesture was supposed to do again. Much better than Strokeit. Great work! |
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Rob
USA
2615 Posts |
Posted - 02/15/2012 : 15:12:32
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Whew! Glad it received the Cerberus seal of approval :-)
It was a lot of work, but I'm glad you requested it to push me to get the thumbnail code working; I felt it really needed the images but didn't have the motivation to figure it all out without your asking. |
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[COMPLETE] Actions in sortable list with columns
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