Portablility

[anklbitr]

Ok, this would make Guillotine the killer app for me.  I would love to be able to use it off of a USB flash drive (all settings kept in the application directory, no registry use).  I don't know how possible that would be, but it would be great to be able to load guillotine up on any machine that I work on.  Thanks again!

Dave

[Dario]

Again, I haven't tried it, but this should already work, since I save no information in the registry. All settings are stored in the Guillotine.xml file found in the local directory.

The one thing I can think of that may be useful to add is the ability to use environment variables for the file system plugin, so that for example you can do something like %USER_MY_DOCUMENTS% which would expand into "C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserName\My Documents", which would be handy, I would think, if you were logged in with different user names on different machines.

[anklbitr]

That's great news.  I'm actually posting it to http://www.portablefreeware.com.  Again, great work!

Dave

[Dario]

Cool. Thanks!

So I take it you tested it and it works?

[c6gunner]

Hey, I've been using Guillotine as a portable app for a while, so I know for sure that it works.  I have a few requests, though, that would go a long way toward improving it's usability in that respect.  So here they are:

1)  As you already suggested, make guillotine work with environment variables.
2)  Implement support for relative paths.  For instance, if I have Guillotine on my portable memory-stick, it'd be nice to be able to tell it to index "..\" for all executables, since the drive letter changes on every computer I plug it into.  Relative paths would allow it to function regardless of any changes in the drive letter or path.

and things that have nothing to do with portability:

3)  Implement a search method mid-way between "realtime" and "offline".  As an example, guillotine could save all indexed files to a XML file, and then keep track of how many times each file has been launched.  Files which are accessed often would be cached in memory, while other files are only recorded in the XML file.  This way, as soon as a user starts to type, the program could search the memory cache and return quick results.  Once the user stops typing, the app could then perform a search of the xml file for other results.
4)  Allow the exclusion of files based on name as well as extension.  For instance, my start menu probably has about 200 links to "uninstall" for various programs.  I can't exclude them by extension since that'd stop indexing ALL my links, so I'd like to exclude any file containing the word "uninstall".
5)  Allow filtering by file type simply by entering the extension.  For instance, if I want to search only for documents, I'd type ".doc my first essay", and the program would return only MS Office ".doc" files.  Even better, allow capatogires, so for instance, if I prefix my search with "doc" it would limit the returned results to a set of extensions which I could specify in the options.  In the case of "doc" I could tell it to search extensions "txt doc rtf diz".  For "app" I would have "bat exe com lnk".  And so on.

I've actually been interested in writing a plugin to handle that last suggestion, but I have no idea how your plugin architecture works, and, unless it's in javascript or VBScript or some such, I probably wouldn't know how anyway.  Hope you can use some of these ideas anyway.  Cheers.

[Dario]

Hey c6gunner. Thanks for your input. All great suggestions.

Can you prioritize these for me, at least as you see them in importance? I'm trying to put together a list of things to work on in the short and long term.

Also, the SDK (which I haven't actually released yet), is in C++, so it doesn't sound like you'd be able to write any plugins for it anyways...

Dario

[c6gunner]

Sure thing.  Here goes, in order of priority:

1)  Get the program to use environment variables and relative paths.  This would make the program 100% portable, and also has the advantage of being the easiest idea to implement (should be no more than 15-20 lines of code).

2)  Implement filtering by file type/categories.  This greatly expands the versatility of the program, allowing you to index a greater variety of files while maintaining relevance in the search results.  Might be best if written as a plugin instead of changing the program, but you'd know more about that than me.

3)  Allow filtering by full file name (and possibly variables, eg being able to use "uninst*.exe" instead of just "uninstall").  Should also be fairly simple to implement.

4)  Implement the third search-type.  While I think this suggestion could greatly improve the performance of the program, I've listed it last in priority because a)  performance isn't as important to me as versatility, and b)  it'd probably take the most work to implement, and I'm sure your girlfriend will keep you distracted long enough to delay this step for quite a while

Too bad the SDK is C++.  I used to to a bit of Borland C back in the early 90's, but haven't been keeping up with all the changes, and was never that much into it anyway.  I keep telling myself to set aside some time and learn C++, but something always ends up side-tracking me.  I wish I'd found the time to learn it - if I had, I could just grab the open-source code for "Launchy", and make my own version of guillotine

[Dario]

Sounds good. I'll add them to the list. The third-search type will likely never make it, but I have plans for something similar (better?). I've alluded to it on other posts in here. And yes, my girlfriend isn't that generous with my time 

[Dario]

Ok. I found a few free hours over the weekend and added some of the features you requested. I added your priority 1 and 3 (evironment variables and filtering). They're in 1.2.0.0 which I posted earlier today.

Some of the others will take a bit more time, and they might be behind some of the other plans I have, but they'll get in there.

[c6gunner]

Sweet!  I didn't think you'd get it done this soon, but I'm quite happy to see it.  Now I can permanently get rid of the two program launchers I was using for my portable software.  Thank you VERY much!

[Dario]

You're welcome