Thoughts, Suggestions & Ideas

[s.newave]

First of let me start by saying that i think you've done an excellent job with this app so far and i think it has great potential. i have tried out a lot if not all of the other similar type apps and this is the one i am currently using and enjoying most (it also seems that its still being actively developed  ). After a couple weeks of usage here are some suggestions/ideas that i have come up with. Some of these I'm sure have already been mentioned:

*dynamically updating cache - this is something i think is greatly needed as a lot of times i want to work on files that i have recently created. It would be great to have the option to sync automatically when a file is changed/created, on an interval, or manually.
*ability to search for folders. Often times i remember the folder where something is located and not the specific filename
*ability to customize/rank search results. one option could be to rank results in the order they appear in the plugin such as the filesystem plugin for example. files from a dir higher up in the order would display first. in a similar fashion extensions could also be ranked in this fashion within each dir. i also like your idea of ranking results on usage/history
*the ability to browse through the filesystem after searching for or highlihgting any file at any time (ie type in mydoc.doc and then be able to use arrow keys to navigate up and down drive from that file. it often takes too long to start at the root  )
*to be able to arrange results either on multiple rows as it is now OR in multiple columns. i really like the info provided on the second line as it helps me in choosing the right results however i feel it looks a bit cluttered and slows down my ability to filter through to the correct result. it would be great to be able to display the info on multiple columns. this would also allow default/user specified columns to be added/hidden down the line to the filesystem plugin for example such as size, date, etc.
*something i have also really come to like in a similar program called AppRocket is the ability to pop-up the context menu or better yet would be a custom menu when pressing the right arrow key on a highlighted entry in the results window. i think this is really the most natural, simple and effective way to browse through the filesystem.
*custom actions for certain filetypes could also be inserted into this pop-up menu which would be specified in the preferences with a default action similar to how the outlook plugin works.
*it would also be great to be able to maintain a history for each entry of the websearch plugin or other plugins. this way after selecting google maps for example a history of all previous google maps searches would be displayed with the ability to filter through them as you continued to type. i often find myself entering in the same searches multiple times
*ability to specify contacts folder in contacts plugin and future outlook plugins. i have several different contact folders in outlook and it would be great to be able to select a non-default folder
*ability to create filters containing file extensions to be included/excluded when searching a directory. i often find entering the same set of extensions for multiple different folders

Plugin Ideas:
*it would be really cool to have a process plugin with columns for name, cpu, mem etc with actions to kill, optimise memory, lookup task in google perhaps . also you could filter down to a task as you continued to type
*active windows kinda of like a alt-tab replacement with actions to switch to, close, maximize, minimize, etc

Also the planned features you mentioned in the other thread look reaaaaaaaly nice and could potentially make this an absolute killer app. either way i think the fact that you have created a plugin architecture to begin with has some amazing possibilities.

Anyway i think i've rambled on enough for my first post  . keep up the great work!!!

[Dario]

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I don't have time to respond to them one by one right now, but I like all of them, and some of them are already planned. Just need to find the time to sit down and implement even some of them. New girlfriend in my life has proven to be a huge time vacuum   

Thanks again,
Dario

[s.newave]

Yea i know what that's like  Hopefully this doesn't mean this app will become yet another abandoned idea though 

[Dario]

I've vowed not to let that happen.

It's hard to work on something when you only get an hour here and there. Fortunately, my girlfriend is sympathetic (and cherishes her free time too), so we just made a deal to give eachother a week off (sometime soon) to work on our own stuff. 

[Dario]

s.newave

I've implemented a few of your feature requests in this latest beta (1.5.0.0). Here are the two that I added:

*the ability to browse through the filesystem after searching for or highlihgting any file at any time (ie type in mydoc.doc and then be able to use arrow keys to navigate up and down drive from that file. it often takes too long to start at the root.

If you select a file result and hit Ctrl-Enter, the file browser will go to the folder containing that file, so you can start file browsing from there. Pretty soon I'll add real Explorer Context menu's in there.

*custom actions for certain filetypes could also be inserted into this pop-up menu which would be specified in the preferences with a default action similar to how the outlook plugin works

Not quite what you asked for, but better, I think

[acgrego]

Is it possible to add "Modification date" (or others selectable file details) when we obtain search results or when we hit "tab" in front of the filename?

[Dario]

A more extended version of that is on my list of things to do. Somebody else requested being able to see results in Explorer like column format. I might not be able to do that much, but I may be able to allow you to pick exactly what detials you see on the result list.

[wlandry01]

Dario,

Looks like a great tool.  I haven't had a chance to use it yet but I will.  So far I've tried "Launch", "Find and Run Robot" and "Launchbar Commander", but "Guillotine" looks like a major improvement. 

As information, I did a search and didn't find anything on "Enso" (www.humanized.com) and thought you might find it of interest if you have not already seen it.  I would have tried it but the developers have set it up so that you have to hold down the Caps Lock key while typing it commands, etc. 


Wayne

[Dario]

Yah. Somebody else mentioned that. I had a look and it seemed to have some neat features.

Anyways, thanks for the heads up.

[s.newave]

Hey Dario,

Good to see you still working on the apt which is looking really good. I think a dynamically updating cache is something that really needs to be added although im sure it involves a lot of work  Even the ability to update the cache on a user-defined interval would go a long way until a dynamic cache could be added. I only reboot my PC every couple of weeks or so and having to manually update the cache every time I change a file is really tedious and something I usually forget to do until I try and search for that file.

[Dario]

Yah. It's on my short list of things to do. There is a bit of infrastructure that needs to go into it first, and some threading issues to work out.

Thanks for the feedback.