William Bartholomew

I’ve used Snagit from TechSmith for a year or so now and despite not being free it is without a doubt the best screen capture software I’ve used and I recommend it to anyone that asks me about screen capture software.This post actually isn’t about any of it’s screen capture capabilities but part of their installation. Snagit allows you to install what are called “accessories” (aka plugins) to add additional capabilities to the software. In fact, I’m writing this post with their WordPress.com accessory.

Plugins are certainly not a new concept by any stretch of the imagination, but what impressed me about TechSmith’s implementation is the installation process. Plugins aren’t normally a user-friendly concept because they usually involve putting files in special locations or doing special configuration.

TechSmith take away this complexity by registering a file extension (*.snagacc). These files are effectively a Zip file containing the DLLs and any dependencies of the plugin as well as a “manifest” containing information about the plugin. This file extension is registered to Snagit and the result is that simply double-clicking the *.snagacc file does all of the copying and configuration necessary for that plugin.

To be the most productive with Windows Live Writer I change the following settings in Tools | Options:

While I’m talking about AutoHotkey here is the script I use for launching Windows Live Writer. It is executed by pressing Windows Key+B and it switches to Windows Live Writer (or launches it if it isn’t running), starts a new post by sending the Ctrl+N shortcut, and move the cursor into the title field by sending Shift+Tab.

; Open Windows Live Writer
#b::
  LiveWriterTitle = Windows Live Writer
LiveWriterPath = %ProgramFiles%\Windows Live\Writer\WindowsLiveWriter.exe
  SetTitleMatchMode, 2
  IfWinNotExist, %LiveWriterTitle%
  {
    Run %LiveWriterPath%
  }
  WinActivate, %LiveWriterTitle%
  WinWaitActive, %LiveWriterTitle%
  Send, ^n ;Start a new post
  Send, +{Tab} ;Move the cursor into the title field
  return

I recently read an post about Mozilla Ubiquity on Lifehacker and it’s an impressive add-in for Mozilla Firefox. One of the biggest limitations I see is that its keyboard shortcut is only available from within Firefox; I really want to be able to invoke it from whatever application I’m currently using.

With a few lines in an AutoHotkey script this was easily achieved. This script is executed whenever you press Windows Key+Space and switches to Firefox (or launches it if it isn’t running) and then sends the Ubiquity keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Space) to that Firefox instance.

; Make ubiquity ubiquitous
#space::
  FirefoxTitle = Mozilla Firefox
  FirefoxPath = %programfiles%\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
  SetTitleMatchMode, 2
  IfWinNotExist, %FirefoxTitle%
  {
    Run %FirefoxPath%
  }
  WinActivate, %FirefoxTitle%
  WinWaitActive, %FirefoxTitle%
  Send, ^{Space}
  return

There is a feature in Windows XP and Vista that not many people know which can save you endless hours and it’s called pushd.

From the command-line if you type:

pushd \\someserver\someshare\somedirectory

Then Windows will automatically map a temporary drive to \\someserver\someshare, change to that drive, then change directory to somedirectory.

When you’re finished you can then type:

popd

Then Windows will change back to your original working directory and remove the mapped drive.

Here is an example:

C:\Temp\> pushd \\someserver\someshare\somedirectory
X:\somedirectory\> del somefile.txt
X:\somedirectory\> popd
C:\Temp\ >

Enjoy!

We have a site license for TextPad but I always find myself lusting after other editors (such as Notepad++).

I reinstalled TextPad today and instantly remembered the one thing that annoys me most about it… Ctrl+F is not Find, F5 is…

Luckily like most applications it does however allow changing key bindings, so I made the following changes and I’ll see how I go:

SearchFind – Ctrl+F

SearchFindNext – F3

FileManage – F5

In June I presented at the Sydney .NET Users Group, Canberra VSTS User Group and the Queensland VSTS Users Group on What’s New in MSBuild 3.5 and Team Build 2008. The slides from this presentation are now available on SlideShare.