25 Jan 2010, 09:21
FinderPop 2.2.4b7 THRILLSEEKER BETA (tagged "Time flies like an arrow") is now available.
- Fix problem that showed up with some QuickKeys macros that used the QuickKeys menu access functions (FinderPop would mistakenly believe that the user clicked on an unused spot on the menu bar and would pop up the FinderPop menu.)
- (Hopefully) play nicer with FolderGlance - a user experienced crashes which I wasn't able to reproduce but which I could try to avoid.
- Speed up menu generation by 10% or so
- Next up: control-free popup which I've done but which needs more testing.
From the last release, 2.2.4b6:
* Make patching the Finder more robust, handle selecting multiple Finder items better, fix incorrect display of menubar-only-items (those whose name ends in '---m'.)
* Now works with the Snow Leopard Finder in 32-bit mode (apparently some intel Macs can't run 64-bit apps - thanks Stephane for the info!)
* A few more smallish bugfixes - FinderPop menu items with labels now appear correctly in the FinderPop daemon under Snow Leopard (they'd been clipped previously.)
* This should (ok, "might") work in 10.5 Leopard but I can't tell as the disk drive with my 10.5 partitions on it has started making strange clicking noises
-- I'll have to grab another disk and reinstall 10.5. Hopefully during the week.* Adds a goofy scripting facility to run scripts or programs before generating the FinderPop menu, allowing these scripts to add or remove items from the FinderPop Items folder (or indeed any folder.) Basically any file whose name ends in ".fpsh" in the FinderPop Items folder (or one level below it, ie in a folder inside the FinderPop Items folder) will be run before and after FinderPop runs; the Finder selection is passed to the script, the script can examine the selection and add or remove items to the FinderPop Items folder which will then appear (or not) in the FinderPop popup menus. I'll explain this in more detail in another post as it's not likely to be useful to any but a handful of people... but it could be used to reintroduce a measure of contextuality. I was looking at supporting old CM plugins but there are numerous problems with 64/32bitness.)
What remains to be done:
* Control-free-clicking
* Contextual Menu Support in apps other than the Finder
* FinderPop info help tag windows
Note that the menus popped up as a result of control-clicking in the unused menubar is handled by the old 32-bit finderpop-daemon so everything works as it used to there (although there was a drawing problem with labels in FP menus which has been fixed in 2.2.4b4.)
If you're installing this over a previous beta, you'll have to restart or logout for it to take effect. (Alternatively if your terminal skills are up to scratch, type killall finderpop-daemon and then open the newly-installed FinderPop prefPane which will cause the newly-installed daemon to start; any programs launched after this point will have the new FinderPop sauce added. Since the Finder will already have been patched using the previously installed version, you'll have to restart the Finder too, you can type killall Finder for that.)
--turly
I will eventually pull everything together into a 10.4/10.5/10.6-compatible release.
As usual, if there are any issues with this: http://www.fnarr.net/fp
PS: Anyone wishing to see the (rather impressive) results of my recent shoulder operation might like to look here...
25 Jan 2010, 14:01
Hi Turly,
I simply had to express how thankful i am that you are continuing development of this tool!
I became so used to having it over the years that using a Mac without it feels downright clunky.
As a database & web developer, i came to rely heavily on the ability to use FinderPop to open selected files with one of the apps in the Processes menu -- super useful when you have several SQL tools and BBedit, and you don't want to go through all the apps in the standard 'open with..' menu. Are you planning on rehabilitating this feature in future releases?
Please don't take this question the wrong way, i am not trying to rush you, nor am i trying to lobby for any feature to be 'bumped up the list' (or even added to it)...
I was merely sharing my excitement from knowing that you seem committed to getting FP to run well under Snow Leopard.
In short, Thank You!
Be Well,
Peter
25 Jan 2010, 15:53
turly wrote:I was looking at supporting old CM plugins but there are numerous problems with 64/32bitness.
Are you aware of Abracode Shortcuts that now has versions for Snow Leopard that supports CM items in Snow Leopard? There are two versions, one for 32bit and one for 64bit items, that can be used simultaneously. Apparently Shortcuts allows access to the old CM items in the new services menu in contextual menus.
(Haven't tried it myself yet, but intend to install it when I upgrade to Snow Leopard.)
25 Jan 2010, 16:06
petersphilo wrote:i came to rely heavily on the ability to use FinderPop to open selected files with one of the apps in the Processes menu -- super useful when you have several SQL tools and BBedit, and you don't want to go through all the apps in the standard 'open with..' menu. Are you planning on rehabilitating this feature in future releases?
You'll have to refresh my memory - how did this work differently to control-click an item and choose a process from the resulting FinderPop->Processes submenu?
Are you talking about something along the lines of control-option-clicking an item and having a Processes menu pop up, with the item being sent to the chosen process?
RonaldPR wrote:turly wrote:I was looking at supporting old CM plugins but there are numerous problems with 64/32bitness.
Are you aware of Abracode Shortcuts that now has versions for Snow Leopard that supports CM items in Snow Leopard? There are two versions, one for 32bit and one for 64bit items, that can be used simultaneously. Apparently Shortcuts allows access to the old CM items in the new services menu in contextual menus.
(Haven't tried it myself yet, but intend to install it when I upgrade to Snow Leopard.)
That's an interesting link, it's definitely do-able... it's more a question of finding the time to do it right. I'd never heard of Abracode Shortcuts, must have a look. Thanks!
25 Jan 2010, 17:04
You'll have to refresh my memory - how did this work differently to control-click an item and choose a process from the resulting FinderPop->Processes submenu?
Hello again,
i apologize, that is, in fact what i'm talking about. However, in prior versions, if you were to control-click a file (even a folder if i recall correctly) and select the FinderPop->Processes submenu, that file would be opened by the selected process. Currently, on my Macs at least, doing this opens the selected process, but does not open the file inside that selected application.
i apologize if i'm being unclear.
in any case, i reiterate my Thanks!
Be Well,
Peter
25 Jan 2010, 17:20
Bugger, have I broken that again?
I'm won't be at my Mac 'til tonight. So is it only Processes that won't open the item, or does it apply to (unopened) apps chosen from the FinderPop menu as normal?
You're presumably using FP 2.2.4b7 on MacOS 10.6.2 ?
25 Jan 2010, 21:53
Hey Peter,
I'm back at my Mac now and right-clicking a text file in the Desktop and choosing 'HexEdit' from the resulting FinderPop menu works as you would expect - HexEdit displays the contents of the text file. Then, switching back to the Finder without quitting HexEdit, I control-click another text file, and this time choose the HexEdit application from the FinderPop menu's Processes submenu. This results in the new text file also being displayed, as you would expect.
So I'm at a bit of a loss. Can you give me a concrete example? Is it only the Processes submenu that has this problem?
@ Anyone else reading this, if you have similar problems, could you please chime in?
BTW, note that when you control-click a file and then choose an app from the resulting FinderPop menu, FinderPop will check to see if that app is already running, and if so, direct the 'open file' request to the already-running app... so it is possible that you do not always need to navigate all the way to FP's Processes submenu if an alias to the app in question is more readily available (eg, as a FinderPop Recent Item or directly in the top-level FinderPop menu.)
Sorry about the relative lack of clue here - I hate it when things work fine on my machine but don't on others'. I'd much rather be fixing the bugs than typing this kind of thing :-)
26 Jan 2010, 02:15
Hi again,
i really feel like a jerk now for saying this, but i just tried trashing the FinderPop preferences, rebuilt the permissions, trashed all caches (using Cocktail 4.7), and still no change.
i also tried messing around with FP settings (ie: inline fp items or no; use custom icons or no; etc...), but it's a no go for me.
i am, indeed, using 10.6.2 and FP 2.2.4b7
The app i use the most is BBEdit, usually opening all sorts of UTF-8 text files (.sql; .php; .html; .js; etc...), but since i'm usually a one-man operation, i also end up using a great variety of graphics apps as well and, of course, every single web browser that can run under SL..
i really appreciate your concern with this, but please pay it no more mind: it could very well be my System that is screwy..
Thank you again!
Be Well,
Peter
26 Jan 2010, 04:09
Hi Turly,
Thanks for the new beta. No problems so far. I am able to use Quickeys without getting the unwanted menu. And I can select a file and open it with an "open with" menu item. Both the application and the file will open. I'll let you know if I run into any problems. Perhaps you are closing in on a new final version. Be well.
-Harry
26 Jan 2010, 04:12
I just tried it with the "processes" menu and that worked as well.
-Harry
26 Jan 2010, 10:37
oups....
installed directly from zipFile within BetterZip!!!
Obviously coudn´t install correctly.
Retried from unzipped folder and it works now....
sorry for disturbing the forum......
Regards,
Ernst
26 Jan 2010, 19:03
petersphilo wrote:it could very well be my System that is screwy..
Hmm, that's a bit unlikely. But what happens if you have an alias to BBEdit in your FinderPop Items folder?
Does control-clicking an item and choosing BBEdit from the "top-level" FinderPop menu work OK?
I.e., is it ONLY when you select something from the Processes menu that you run into problems?
28 Jan 2010, 14:00
Hello again,
It is, indeed, super-weird: I have 2 aliases in my FP items folder; one of my home folder, and one of the root of the hd, and they also produce the same behavior: the application selected comes to the fore, but does not open the document.
In fact, if i enable the FP option to remember the last 2 items, and i use one of those, or if i place an alias of BBedit, TextEdit, Pages, or anything else, they all behave the same exact way.
So, in short, the only place that will launch the desired app along with the selected document is the "Open With..." sub-menu.
The only 'haxie' i have on my system is GeekTool, but even if i remove it and restart, this behavior does not change.
Thank you for everything Turly!
Be Well,
Peter
28 Jan 2010, 14:49
When you drag and drop a document icon onto the application icon in the Dock, will the application launch and open the document?
28 Jan 2010, 16:49
Hmm. It could simply be that FinderPop is not seeing the item you're control-clicking.
When you control-click an item, FP normally adds it to the FinderPop menu - generally at the bottom, and in bold.
Are you seeing this? If so, that would explain things.
Are you on an old (32-bit) Mac, by any chance?
01 Feb 2010, 04:07
turly wrote:Hmm. It could simply be that FinderPop is not seeing the item you're control-clicking.
{...}
Are you on an old (32-bit) Mac, by any chance?
I do believe that is the case; FP does not 'see' the item i'm clicking, even though the standard Finder's 'Open With...' part of the contextual menu does function properly.
Your question about running a 32-bit system freaked me out: I am running the very latest MacBookPro 17", so i thought for sure that SL would just run in 64-bit right off the bat.. However, for some insane reason, my system was running in 32-bit. I have changed the proper .plist file, so that now my system boots in 64-bit kernel mode every time.
However, unfortunately, this has had no impact whatsoever on FP. Even though i re-trashed both preference files, and then proceeded to an insanely long process of turning features on/off, and restarting every time a change was made...
If i may.. i am only a web db developer / sysadmin, but i can offer this: if it's a problem with your code, other oddities related to it will eventually show up; if it's a problem with my system, i'll eventually realize what it was due to some other failure.
in short:it seems like everyone else here running Snow Leopard is doing just fine, so we must conclude the issue is on my end.
What's more, in no way does it diminish my enthusiasm for FinderPop!! Please know that! You have produced a great piece of software: no need, at this point at least, getting hung up on small individual issues.
You are doing a great job, and so many of us benefit from it!
Thank you again,
Peter
01 Feb 2010, 21:52
It might be worth opening Console.app and then control-clicking something in the Finder.
When things go wrong or are not quite what it expects, FinderPop will print out an error message there.
You can email the Console.app output if it's too big - turly@finderpop.com - and I'll have a look.
If you're up for it, I will try to get you a debug version of FinderPop next weekend - let's see if we can figure out what's really going on here - and thanks for your patience!
18 Feb 2010, 15:48
Hi Turly,
I finally got it!
It turns out that the file called .GlobalPreferences.plist (located in ~/Library/Preferences) was corrupted somehow...
I actually removed it while re-installing everything because my HD died (bad blocks).
What exactly was wrong with that file, i could not tell you, but that was clearly the culprit.
In any case, thank you so very much for your instantaneous support!
Be Well,
Peter
18 Feb 2010, 20:38
Well, that's good news!
Mind you I haven't a clue what the GlobalPreferences.plist file is. If your disk had bad blocks, who knows what might have happened.
BTW, and you probably already noticed this, version 2.2.4b7 has been superceded - see 2.2.4b8 beta for the latest-n-greatest FinderPop...