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 Post subject: Tab w/20+ entries, same app, different parameters, app moves
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 4:43 pm 
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Now, I have a tab with 20+ items on it.

They all point to the same app but pass different parameters.

The app now has to move to a new location.

I now have 20+ entries to edit by hand :-(

I tried putting a shortcut there but the ".lnk" keeps the tab entry for accessing the app. Still have to visit every one and the change to .lnk doesn't adjust the run from item. I have to paste the full path to the new location in every entry.

As we know, I'm running objectdock in parallel with nexus shelves as I adjust.

I therefore have have the same tab in both tools. In objectdock, I stop the app, I open the .ini file which specifies these entries in vim and do some quick mass substitutions, restart the app and I'm back in action in 2 minutes.

In nexus, I see no way to do this other than visiting every entry by hand. Am I missing a way to edit all a tab's individual items easily ? This is painful.


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 Post subject: Re: Tab w/20+ entries, same app, different parameters, app m
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 5:08 pm 
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Hey, you only have yourself to blame for moving the file to a new location lol :wink:

ObjectDock stores settings in an INI file, Winstep stores settings in the Windows Registry.

If you know what you are doing, you can export the Winstep Registry key to a .reg text file, do all the editing and search & replace there, and then re-import the .reg file back into the Windows Registry.

You better do this right and make a backup of your settings prior to this, though, as settings validation checks are mostly only performed at the GUI level. :P

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinSTEP2000

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 Post subject: Re: Tab w/20+ entries, same app, different parameters, app m
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 6:31 pm 
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Thank you.

I was afraid this was the answer without having looked but I'll export it now otherwise I'll just keep using the Objectdock one which works great at the moment.

You realize this wasn't the best design decision you ever made ? :-)


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 Post subject: Re: Tab w/20+ entries, same app, different parameters, app m
PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 9:10 pm 
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kevinma wrote:
You realize this wasn't the best design decision you ever made ? :-)


I think you should read THIS and THIS then. :)

If your reasoning was correct, NOBODY would use the Windows Registry. But that's not what happens, and most of the reasons why are described above.

Anyway, the only difference here is the extra steps of exporting from and importing to the Registry. You're nitpicking and still hanging on by the teeth to how OD did things! Let go! :P

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 Post subject: Re: Tab w/20+ entries, same app, different parameters, app m
PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 2:42 pm 
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I had to move the file. Believe me, it pained me to move it. If Windows shortcuts were implemented better this would all be a mute point. Satya is working daily on making Windowz more linux friendly. The file was sitting in a "bin" folder on a windows machine.

Your refs are a Windows centric view of the world which existed over a decade ago. They were more useful when they were written. The world has changed greatly since then. I do realized you had to make these decisions then and not now.

There is a time and a place for everything and a little of it can be in the registry.

In this case no one other than I is manipulating my entries on my shelves. Object dock kicks Nexus butt here. I doubt it was by design. They just got lucky.

I understand how you got here and why you made the decision long ago :-)

If you have a vision of this living outside just the Windows world some day, book market this thread.


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 Post subject: Re: Tab w/20+ entries, same app, different parameters, app m
PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 3:03 pm 
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kevinma wrote:
I do realized you had to make these decisions then and not now.


See? You nailed it here. At the very start (i.e.; 20 years ago) I also used INI files and, if I remember correctly, the decision to use the Registry instead was made in the Windows 9x days.

Again if I remember correctly, Win9x did not have user-specific folders, but the Windows Registry already supported HKCU. So using the Windows Registry to automatically make the application multi-user compatible was a no brainer - bet you would have made the same decision back then.

Would I go back to using INI files now? NO, NEVER! :)

Plus, I forgot to mention yet another method to achieve what you wanted: make a backup (there's your INI file), edit the backup file, and restore the backup with the edited settings. Again, only two extra steps that take you 30 seconds each (export/import).

kevinma wrote:
In this case no one other than I is manipulating my entries on my shelves. Object dock kicks Nexus butt here. I doubt it was by design. They just got lucky.


Using INI files is not a 'feature', it's a design decision, and it was NOT made to help users make mass changes. YOU got lucky, but in the end it only saved you a couple of steps (export/import). :P

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 Post subject: Re: Tab w/20+ entries, same app, different parameters, app m
PostPosted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 10:11 pm 
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winstep wrote:
kevinma wrote:
I do realized you had to make these decisions then and not now.


See? You nailed it here. At the very start (i.e.; 20 years ago) I also used INI files and, if I remember correctly, the decision to use the Registry instead was made in the Windows 9x days.

Again if I remember correctly, Win9x did not have user-specific folders, but the Windows Registry already supported HKCU. So using the Windows Registry to automatically make the application multi-user compatible was a no brainer - bet you would have made the same decision back then.

Would I go back to using INI files now? NO, NEVER! :)

Plus, I forgot to mention yet another method to achieve what you wanted: make a backup (there's your INI file), edit the backup file, and restore the backup with the edited settings. Again, only two extra steps that take you 30 seconds each (export/import).

kevinma wrote:
In this case no one other than I is manipulating my entries on my shelves. Object dock kicks Nexus butt here. I doubt it was by design. They just got lucky.


Using INI files is not a 'feature', it's a design decision, and it was NOT made to help users make mass changes. YOU got lucky, but in the end it only saved you a couple of steps (export/import). :P

Spot on Jorge, we still had INI files in the very beginning, but only as a temporary thing really. Once Nextstart really kicked off with version 1.x (1.5?), you moved to the registry, rightly as it turned out. And it was indeed in the bad old days of Win9x (Win98 by then, moving to ME soon. Can't say I have a clue what parts of the registry were implemented in 9x as I was on NT from the start of using Windows, and of course NT 4 had the works.)

INI files would have been fine with a different type of file system, such as any *nix type FS or a JFS but given NTFS and the way security is implemented in Windows the registry - kludge that it is really though - is the only sensible solution to serious configurations.

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 Post subject: Re: Tab w/20+ entries, same app, different parameters, app m
PostPosted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 4:06 am 
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All points taken.

I hadn't tried to look at the backup file but might use that method next time. Note here is where I'd like to be able to just export/backup one dock or shelf and import right back in. I realize most users won't ever use it but for those of us who are power users, it is worth weight in gold.

Really appreciate you cluing me in on format of the backups. Looking at it now. Not sure why I never thought to look. This is perfect and I'll parse these up easily, create some quick scripts to parse out the pieces and pull them back together.

Now on to my next post, I think I have a handle now on what made me choose the word bizarre previously.


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