Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

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yereverluvinuncleber
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Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by yereverluvinuncleber »

PJJ, in a recent post mentioned Altap Salamander as a file manager. I am always looking for new tools that complement RJTe and my usage of Windows. Lots of Windows components are sub-standard or annoying and it is useful to explore an alternative from time to time. This time I am hoping we can briefly explore an alternative to explorer, Altap Salamander.

PJJ, if you are here can you say why you prefer Altap Salamander, personally I use XNview or Q-Dir, have you tried these, is Altap Salamander better for any particular reason?

List of mentioned tools maintained below:

Altap Salamander https://www.altap.cz/
Q-Dir - https://www.softwareok.com/?seite=Freeware/Q-Dir
Rocketdock - https://punklabs.com/
Palemoon - https://www.palemoon.org/download.shtml
ScreentoGif - https://www.screentogif.com/
Captura - https://github.com/MathewSachin/Captura/
Context - http://www.contexteditor.org/index.php
Effective File search - http://www.sowsoft.com/search.htm
Everything - https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/
XNview - XN view is here: https://www.xnview.com ... #downloads
Last edited by yereverluvinuncleber on 04 Nov 2018 16:45, edited 2 times in total.
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pjj
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by pjj »

yereverluvinuncleber wrote: 01 Oct 2018 17:07 PJJ, if you are here
I'm always here 8) I discover new posts through Live Bookmarks (since my favorite RSS reader in Firefox is no longer supported due to XUL deprecation and I haven't found any decent substitute yet), so I'm usually up to speed.
yereverluvinuncleber wrote: 01 Oct 2018 17:07 can you say why you prefer Altap Salamander, personally I use XNview or Q-Dir, have you tried these, is Altap Salamander better for any particular reason?
I started using Servant Salamander (like it was called back then) at least 15 years ago, because I liked it more than Total Commander -- it was nicer to look at, at it had decent amount of plugins. Since then I tried a couple of freeware file managers (I can see e.g. FreeCommander is still there, but many were just up-and-coming that are no longer developed anymore, eg. Just Manager). Btw. Altap Salamander's development is stalled, too, but I can live with that :) I know XNview, but I prefer IrfanView (another decision made years ago I don't feel the need to reevaluate); never tried Q-Dir, though.
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yereverluvinuncleber
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by yereverluvinuncleber »

Tried Irfanview but settled on XNview for me because for me it is slightly more suited to being a file manager with some of the capabilities of Irfanview. Like Salamander, XNview can view PSD files as thumbnails natively without the need for hacks or plugins. When I am searching through my stacks of PSD files (of which I have hundreds) it is quick to load the images so I can start sifting.

Q-Dir is very light indeed and starts quickly, is a straight explorer replacement. It has both panels (up to 4) as well as tabs and the panels can be ordered how you like. It reminds me of file manager in Win 3.11 a little but with the look and functionality of a modern explorer. It isn't tied to the desktop as explorer is, so if the desktop ever dies you have a file manager that you can switch to if need arises. It is quirky but fun to use. Using Win10, Q-Dir is even more acceptable as it has a very compact layout whereas everything from MS seems to have a lot of unused space...

Image
Fig 01. My set up for Q-Dir, three panes showing my most used folders, one for navigation.

Image
Fig 02. My icon for Q-Dir using Rocketdock, XNview is called using the boxfile icon to the left

I like Salamander but on my system it is a draw on CPU even when it isn't doing anything. It seems to use 10% of the cpu at all times, where as when Q-Dir is idle it uses nothing or next to nothing.

Q-Dir - https://www.softwareok.com/?seite=Freeware/Q-Dir

Rocketdock - https://punklabs.com/



BTW Palemoon supports your XUL RSS reader, I am using Palemoon now and have entirely switched from Firefox after years and years of loyal FF use. Palemoon IS Firefox for me now (same UI, plugins &c) whereas Firefox is now seemingly allied to the way Chrome does things. I can see firefox dying in a few years altogether or just adopting the Chrome code base and engine and just sticking the fox on the logo.

Image
Fig 03. Palemoon

https://www.palemoon.org/download.shtml

You can download Palemoon above:
Last edited by yereverluvinuncleber on 04 Nov 2018 14:52, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by yereverluvinuncleber »

Capturing graphic images for bug reporting is useful and capturing video is even better. A tool I have been using to capture to GIF was licecap (strange name, not much software has the word 'lice' in it) but regardless that's stopped working on my laptop's GPU, it now only captures the background.

Instead I am now using ScreenToGif an open source screen capture tool that allows you to save to video or animated GIF.

It is a windows based program but it does not act like one and as such is slightly eclectic in nature, especially when it comes to saving files, it uses none of the usual windows default dialogs instead doing its own thing.

However, it is open source and it does the job once you get used to it.

https://www.screentogif.com/

Image

It uses a ribbon - which is a bloody pain in the neck

Image

If anyone can recommend a better tool then I'd be happy to try it.
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pjj
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by pjj »

First off, this is truly a neat idea!
yereverluvinuncleber wrote: 15 Oct 2018 12:08 If anyone can recommend a better tool then I'd be happy to try it.
I think I can, even though I have found it just yesterday 8) It's Captura, super-flexible open source application, which can save full screen/full window/region as animated gif/mpg/whatever (and of course can make single screenshots, too.) Captures video and audio. It even has its own image editor and video trimmer (frankly, I didn't got the latter to work). It has customizable shortcut keys and command line options (though in beta). I strongly suspect this is teh tool for RJ TE screen grabs!

Image
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by yereverluvinuncleber »

Thanks for the recommendation PJJ, unfortunately that tool does not capture what I see on my desktop, none of my programs are shown, it seems to capture just what is underneath...ie. the desktop background and nothing else. I tried it once before and it seemed interesting but if you can't get it to work then it is no use to me.

It might be because my programs run on a graphical layer just above the Windows background but just below normal Windows programs. It does not seem able to capture that layer.

It maybe useful to others though. Any other suggestions?
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by yereverluvinuncleber »

Even though I use RJTe as my default coding editor I am still using Context Editor as my go-to editor for quick and dirty edits. It is my notepad replacement. I find RJTe fantastic for coding and development in general but for a quick edit that there is nothing better than firing up a fast and functional tool like context.
I have RJTe set up to act and look just like Context, so using Context now feels like RJTe-Lite.

Image
Fig 01. Context Editor. Not so different from RJTe.

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Fig 02. RJTe set up to look and function like Context.

Context is here:

http://www.contexteditor.org/index.php

Context is no longer in development and never quite left beta. Nevertheless, it is a working tool and it is largely bug free. I still rave about it as it was previously my development editor of choice. It has been demoted from its position by RJTe but it still has a use.
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by yereverluvinuncleber »

Another useful tool complementary to RJTe. Not a tool that is directly related to editing or development but a useful one with regard to finding anything or 'everything'. Generally useful when attempting to find a file to edit.

Windows NT6+ based o/s, Vista, 7, 8 and 10 have enhanced functionality with regard to searching for and finding files - by enhanced I really mean annoying and useless.

Windows XP was better. Unfortunately, it used to have two modes of searching, using clippy, or the dog or whatever it was (the moronic XP assistant) that you had to turn off as it was
both patronising and inappropriate for a commercial o/s. however, it also had the 'advanced' method that allowed you to specify, select the file filter and the folder to search for. The advanced method allowed the initiation of instant searches and instant search results as the tool found any matching files. It was usable and efficient once you switched off the dog.

NT6 brought about an 'advance' in searching that was really a retrograde step in relation to XP. F3 or a find files used to bring up a search window that had less filtering options than its XP counterpart but also used a search indexing process that continuously looked for files and maintained its own database of files in order to make searching quicker. Unfortunately it seems to do the opposite, making any system it operates on slower and often resulting in incorrect search results. Searches often yield no results at all and this is totally unacceptable in a search tool. In addition, searches are often met with a green bar whilst the search does its stuff (discovering), there can often be no results for minutes at a time while it just reports nothing at all. The continuous CPU and disk i/o overhead of the Windows search tool is considerable and if you have a low power system (eg. core2duo 2.0ghz) the first thing you should do is to disable Windows search tool.

In fact, the first thing I do on any system is to uninstall/remove the in-built search functionality that Windows has, disabling the service, disassociating it from the F3 key &c. - you can't have a search tool that you cannot rely upon.

Instead I previously installed "effective file search" which is a usable alternative to the default windows search but it operates on the folder level above rather than your current default folder which takes a little getting used to.

Image

However, there is a better and faster alternative to Windows default search and that is a tool called 'Everything'. You run it once, add a search and it takes a while to index the whole filesystem, once done, all subsequent searches are instant. That's it - INSTANT. All subsequent changes are obtained from the NTFS change journal so once the index is built there is no system overhead.

Image

'Everything' is available from void tools, is free and downloadable using the link below:

https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/

It is a superb tool if the majority of your drives are NTFS as are all mine. I do not know how efficiently it operates on drives with filesystems such as FAT, FAText, BTfrs &c.
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by yereverluvinuncleber »

I mentioned XNview earlier. A decent explorer is required to find the files you are editing, RJTed has its own explorer/project panels but it can only do so much. I open my project text files using RJTed but it cannot handle other file formats obviously.

In addition I use XNview to view PSD files. Standard Windows Explorer cannot provide thumbnails of PSD files as they are a proprietary format not owned by Microsoft, so as a result they don't build a viewer into Windows. Under XP it was possible to register a DLL from infranview and then have Windows explorer display the PSD files - but from Vista onward this no longer functioned.

When you have hundreds of PSD files as I have, then a PSD viewer is essential. That is where XNview comes in.

I have placed all my PSD files in one folder and the first thing I do is to open XNview and point it to this folder. It takes any program a while to open hundreds of PSD files, to read each and every layer within and then come up with a thumbnail representation for each but XNview does it well.

When I am photoshopping I keep XNview open so that I do not need to re-read the folder. XNview becomes my library of PSD thumbnails so that I can pick and choose from the PSDs I require.

Image

XN view is here: https://www.xnview.com/en/xnview/#downloads
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by inspector71 »

pjj wrote: 02 Oct 2018 07:00
yereverluvinuncleber wrote: 01 Oct 2018 17:07 PJJ, if you are here
I'm always here 8) I discover new posts through Live Bookmarks (since my favorite RSS reader in Firefox is no longer supported due to XUL deprecation and I haven't found any decent substitute yet), so I'm usually up to speed.
Sage? I'm a fellow 'refugee/victim' (apologies to all those actually, really suffering) of the Quantum slashing of extension APIs.

Still can't replace Sage, TabMixPlus in particular. But other really simple features get butchered monthly, such as the Developer Toolbar which I never used until recently when, AFAIK, I found out it's the only way to put Firefox into media=print mode for developing print CSS. *sigh* ... such a shame to see Firefox mismanaged.
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

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inspector71 wrote: 03 Dec 2018 02:20 Sage? I'm a fellow 'refugee/victim' (apologies to all those actually, really suffering) of the Quantum slashing of extension APIs.
I tried Brief, Brook Fead Reader and Feedbro, but they're far far behind NewsFox (which is discontinued and for which I keep separate Fx 56 installation). Life must go on, though; before NewsFox I was using another RSS reader and barely imagined life without it -- and now I can't even recall its name :)
I guess I'll dump all Quantum good-for-nothing feed/live bookmarks readers (for now I use Drop Feeds) and start using Tiny Tiny RSS on my server. Oh, well.
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by yereverluvinuncleber »

I have a strategy for my old Firefox extensions, it is Palemoon mentioned above, all the firefox XUL extensions work and there are work-arounds for those that stop working for some reason. I do have to retain Firefox for the moment but only for those sites that are badly coded and look for specific browser features (bad practice as sites should be browser agnostic) but in general PM sorts the extension problems for me and is faster than Firefox for what I want to do. I am running ALL my old Firefox extensions and the PM browser is fully supported with a non-zero community.
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by inspector71 »

yereverluvinuncleber wrote: 03 Dec 2018 16:55 I have a strategy for my old Firefox extensions, it is Palemoon mentioned above, all the firefox XUL extensions work and there are work-arounds for those that stop working for some reason. I do have to retain Firefox for the moment but only for those sites that are badly coded and look for specific browser features (bad practice as sites should be browser agnostic) but in general PM sorts the extension problems for me and is faster than Firefox for what I want to do. I am running ALL my old Firefox extensions and the PM browser is fully supported with a non-zero community.
Yeah it would be nice if Palemoon / Waterfox / Unified XUL Platform (UXP) could be relied upon as a fallback but whilst I have no actual evidence to support this assertion, I worry that browsers are too big of a task for small teams or one individual to fund / maintain. Absolutely would love evidence to the contrary! However there's been a few alternate browsers over the years and AFAIK few, if any, have lasted the long haul.

If all the Firefox spinoff authors could contribute to the UXP repo that would increase the probably they would all succeed. However, as the spinoffs all chose to break away in the first place, I wonder if they are at all inclined to play nicely with others.

I also worry that ultimately, it will get increasingly harder for those small teams or individuals to cherry-pick security fixes from upstream Firefox. OTOH, browsers with less market share are a smaller footprint and thus much less attractive to exploit authors :)
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by yereverluvinuncleber »

Well, briefly, so it doesn't turn into a PM/browser discussion, PM is ACTIVELY developed and the basis for that development is the UXP framework which is fast becoming a useful standard around which a number of developments are forming. It has life by itself. They can be relied upon, they are usable now. I use PM 100% of the time with an occasional dip into increasingly unpleasant FF. With regard to whether small teams can do what is required ie. to support a browser into the future, well PM is standing on the shoulders of giants, the giant being that massive open source code base. Your question is really targetted as to whether open source projects can be self-sustaining, well, yes they can, that is proven. Whether the browser technical developments will allow PM to exist in its current form - that much is debatable but not for a discussion here on this "Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe" thread. Please start a new thread for a discussion re: open source and browsers! :)

PS. Your final point - agreed!
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Re: Useful Tools Complementary to RJTe

Post by yereverluvinuncleber »

pjj wrote: 03 Dec 2018 10:50 I tried Brief, Brook Fead Reader and Feedbro, but they're far far behind NewsFox (which is discontinued and for which I keep separate Fx 56 installation). Life must go on, though; before NewsFox I was using another RSS reader and barely imagined life without it -- and now I can't even recall its name :)
I guess I'll dump all Quantum good-for-nothing feed/live bookmarks readers (for now I use Drop Feeds) and start using Tiny Tiny RSS on my server. Oh, well.
I understand Interlink (a brand new thunderbird fork) has in addition to mail, RSS support, http://binaryoutcast.com/projects/interlink/ one of those apps built on the Unified XUL Platform.

Image
Last edited by yereverluvinuncleber on 02 Jan 2019 16:27, edited 1 time in total.
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