Issue with saving file in advance editor

[kpassaur]

Okay, first I apologize if this is not the right place to post this as I thought there was a place to report bugs. I searhed for bugs and didn't browse through all of the results for the proper place, more on that below.

Anyway, when a file is saved in the advanced editor all comments are lost. I have not tested Title, Subject, Author or Keywords. This is most likely not a big issue to some, however, it is a good way to place notes about a script. The user can easily browse to a folder in explorer and view all of the coments about a script for easy reference.

For those that do not know how to do this, open explorer, select view and then Choose Details and place a check mark next to comments. The results will now be displayed. Therefore in Subject the user can place what the script relates to and in comments place some remarks. It is a very easy and effective way to organize files (not just scripts - it is built into all files), as the user can sort them by clicking on the top bar.

Since I seem to be on a roll here, I would like to make a suggestion and it may just be me that has this issue. On the forum, when I do a search, naturally, a list of results is displayed. I click on one to open it and if it is not what I want I have to do the search again, it does not allow me to use the back button and display the list again. I have always thought it was my settings or the forum software, however, I realized that I can do it on other support sites that seem to use the same software, so I don't think it is my PC or its settings.

This is sort of a pain, actually a real pain. However, I can use the button to view the next post. The difficulty is that if there are 50 posts and I want to read five of them, I have only two choices, open each one and go to the next or repeat the search five times.

[Marcus Tettmar]

Comments? Not sure what comments you mean. How are you adding these comments - sounds like something outside of Macro Scheduler. I don't even see how to do this.

The search issue is an IE thing. It works in Firefox. Could be that a later version of phpBB gets round this in some way. In the mean time I'd advise either using Firefox or use the Site search (google search) instead. The forum search is severely limited and I am thinking of removing it completely. At the top of the search page you'll see "Search entire site". I'd use that instead. If you want the search results to only return results in the forum just add the term "usergroup" to your query.

[kpassaur]

A little about file properties. They have been around for years and very few people know about them or how to use them. There were built in for indexing files as they allow index information to be placed in a file. Most are familar with Keywords in HTML pages and it is really the same concept. However, more and more people are becoming familiar with them as they are used to organize image files or should I say your pictures.

For instance you take pictures at a party and place them in a folder, well what happens if they are moved to a different PC? If you don't place them in a matching folder you won't know what they are. With file properties the fact that they were pictures from the party can be imbedded into each file and this informaton is always there regardless or where the file is stored. (there are really good utilites that allow you to batch write this information to images) I know images and scripts are two different things but the concept is important.

Anyway each file has Author, Subject, Title and Keywords, some files have more or allow the user to create custom fields. For instance Acrobat allows up to 125 custom fields to be entered. I don't know the limits of Word but you can create your own fields, in Word you can also be prompted to fill in the information when saving a file.

Until XP only search engines in document management software really used these fields. However, XP allows a user to display the standard information in Explorer. Custom fields still need document management software. But that is beyond this message.

Anyway, each file almost regardless of type has the properties, Author, Subject, Tile, Keywords, and most have "Comments" as well. For instance txt files allow for comments and a .scp file is a text file.

To see what I am speaking about, Right click on a .scp file, open it in Notepad and select Properties and then Summary and enter a comment and save the file.

Now, open explorer, browse to the file folder, select View, Choose Details and place a check mark in Comments. Now when you view your file in explorer you can view the comments associated with it. This method works with virutally all file types. For instance, in Word you may have noticed that sometimes when you hover over a file you see a description automatically. This is what is saved in the Title by Word.

Naturally you can use more than one of the properties. So, in your scripts you can have a subject such as File Separation and place comments in the Comments field about each script.

When you are searching for your script you can open the folder in Explorer, click on the top bar above subject (provided you placed a check mark to display it) and all of your scripts will now be sorted by the subject. Sort of like having all of your scripts about File Separation in a folder. However, the script could relate to other scripts so you may not want them all in one folder. With this method you can see each one and the comments tell you about it. If you move the file the indexing information stays with it.

Hopefully this all makes sense, it is really easy once you get used to it and very powerfull.

If you want to take it one step further, there are affortable search engines that search the properties and then the text. For instance dtsearch does this and it searches about 1 gig of text per second. But a program like it is not necessary for script files unless you have tens of thousands of them to organize.

The important part is that it allows indexing information to be imbedded into a file reqardless of where it is stored and it is an estabilished standard.

[Marcus Tettmar]

To see what I am speaking about, Right click on a .scp file, open it in Notepad and select Properties and then Summary and enter a comment and save the file.

I know what file attributes are. But I am not seeing these options in Notepad. I don't see "Properties" in Notepad anywhere.

If I right click on a .scp file in Explorer and go to Properties -> Details I can see info about the file but cannot edit anything and do not see comments here.

[kpassaur]

Dont' even open it in Notepad, just right click on it and choose properties.

[Marcus Tettmar]

Perhaps it is because I am using Vista, but I do not see "Summary" under File Properties.

Let me try in XP ..... ok, it's there.

Google search .....

Ok, they changed it in Vista.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Window ... 21033.mspx

But that doesn't work for me either. I can't modify any of the values and I don't see summary or comments.

So this looks like an OS thing. First I need to find out whether or not I can actually do this in Vista because I can't at the moment. If so the next step is to find out how Macro Scheduler can read this information and then save it back to the file when the file is re-written. This is not something that is automatic.

But until I can find out how and whether I can actually set this information there's not a lot I can do.

[kpassaur]

First off I am using XP Pro with SP3, no special text editor or anything.

I tested it again and did the following.

I right clicked on the .scp file and there are two tabs, General and Summary. I clicked on Summary and the values displayed but I was unable to change them, which didn't make sense to me as I have always been able to do it.

I then looked and there was a button with "<<Simple" on it and I clicked on it. At this point I could change the information.

I changed the comment tag, opened the file in Notepad made a change in Notepad and saved the file, the comments were still there.

I then opened it in MS made a change and the comments were gone.

I realize this is not a big deal to most users; however, I am getting to the point where I need a much better way to organize the scripts.

[Bob Hansen]

I have used the Advanced File Properties for many years. I often put password info in there in a non-obvious modified format. I believe that most of them were first provided with MS Office, but that is probably not important. But I have come to know that the hard drive has more to do with the extra fields vs. the specific OS. And only NTFS can be used effectively for this. If you copy a file to a FAT drive you will not see the info.

I just found an article that can provide some insight:
http://users.telenet.be/ws36637/properties.html

I am sure there are many more articles out there, try to Google for "file property summary"

[kpassaur]

I never knew that it had to do with the hard drive. I have used it and just assumed that it was part of the file. In Acrobat, it is, as you can see it in the file.

It would be nice if scripts could contain it. Well let me explain, I tried the new Beta Version and loved the editor it is fantastic for someone like me. However two things, I didn't care for the tabs (which I don't need and are not present in the editor - great feature for others but not me) and I need a better way to organize the scripts. Therefore it is file properties or create a database with comments etc. which is overkill and a pain to maintain.

[Marcus Tettmar]

Are the tabs so much of a pain? Are you using a small monitor or something? Would it help if you could shift their position to the bottom?

[kpassaur]

I use dual 22 inch monitors, and it is not really the tabs as much as a better way to organize the scripts. On a few posts, I have heard "just use the editor", which is fine but I would like a good and easy way to organize the scripts. I know a long time ago I suggested a comments field and a way to perhaps remove the Time, Days, Repeat etc. fields. However these are necessary to most users.

I have on a couple of occasions wanted to transfer all my scripts and settings to my laptop and well, I messed up on the first couple of attempts and had to rebuild my file folder hirerarcy in MS. At the time I only had a few hundred and it only took a couple of hours (should have done a better backup - I do now).

I know I am most likely different (I really dont' know your average user) but I have over 850 scripts. A folder structure works, but if using the advanced editor with scripts that are very similar I have lost hours when I go to save a file and it already exits, because I didn't think of a better name, and there is an editor and advanced editor. I belive this is all corrected in the new version. But I still don't have a comments field. And there are other reasons as well that I would like to see comments field , or learn of a different way to organize the scripts that make them portable for when I work on my laptop. File Properties address all of these issues.

Another for instance, when I went to test the beta version I installed it on a Test PC. On my test PC I have Windows on a C and a D drive. On the C drive I run Shadow Surfer which provides me with a clean fresh install of Windows each time I reboot.

Well I wanted to install it on my D drive so it would be there later which was fine until I tried to transfer all of my scripts which were on the C dirve of my other PC, so it was not just a matter of copy and pasting the files. Well the files yes, but not the file structure in MS.

This would not have been an issue if I just used a file folder hierarcy with file properties. It was not so much of an issue as an inconvinence as it took time to do that I would have rather spent playing with the new version.

I quess each time I save a script I will just have add them with Note Pad. It would just be nice if the previous ones were not overwritten.

Currently on occasion I end up using dtSearch and do a full text search to find the script I am looking for. I just think it would be nice to have a way to organize the scripts and just use the editor.

[Marcus Tettmar]

You can already hide the Time, Days, Hotkey, etc columns. So I think the only addition you really need is a comments column. There is also a search feature in Macro Scheduler.

Or, you can organise .scp files in Explorer any way you like and use the standalone editor. But again you would like some way of seeing comments (which I don't seem to be able to do in Vista for some reason - I still need to find out why).

So if we could do either of these things would your problems be solved?

[Bob Hansen]

I agree that it would be good to be able to use the Advanced Property fields on script files.

I suspect that something needs to be done in Macro Scheduler to provide access in the Editor, but there will be no way to control the problem if not using NTFS file formats. Will have to rely on the end users to understand the limitations.

[kpassaur]

I didnt' know you could hide the fields. I don't remember that option. It is no where near as good as file properties and they travel with the file. One thing though is that some files that use properties require an ifilter. For instance Acrobat does and until version 8 you had to download it separatly and install it. It now does it by default (installs the Ifilter). This allows the search engine in windows to search the text and properties in a PDF.

More information on ifilers is here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... S.85).aspx

I just figured that you could write the properties the same way as notepad does, because when I right click on the file I can add it.

[Marcus Tettmar]

I didnt' know you could hide the fields. I don't remember that option.

You can resize columns with the mouse. They can be zero wide. Click on a column boundary and drag the mouse to make the column shorter and keep going until it disappears. The column widths are remembered.

I just figured that you could write the properties the same way as notepad does, because when I right click on the file I can add it.

I'm sure we can. Will just have to find out how. There's no magic "DoWhatNotepadDoes" function, so it's probably a little more involved, but that doesn't mean we can't do it We'll have to read the properties, remember them and then write them back when the file is saved again.

We'll investigate this. I think it will be too late for v11 but perhaps for a future maintenance release next year.