Idea: about:config style tweak editor.

[TheQwerty]

This was suggested previously but serendipity, myself, and anyone else that wants to help can attempt to tackle it now.


The basic idea is that there are tons of INI tweaks and it would be nice if there were a better interface to changing and resetting them - the common thought is something similar to Firefox's about:config.


Just to collect some of the previous attempts:
It was jacky.. but the script won't run now because it falls victim to the deprecated commands-turned-functions: http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic. ... lit=tweaks

Stefan also attempted to do this but I think misses the ones Don didn't comment: http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic. ... tweaks+INI

j_c_hallgren extracted a number of tweaks in response to a similar idea in another thread: http://www.xyplorer.com/xyfc/viewtopic. ... 964#p69964

[serendipity]

Thanks for this thread.
We should agree upon a common format of some sort to make this future compatible if one of us decides to leave.
JC's list is a good starting point and something along Stefan's idea to extract Tweaks on-the-fly would keep the script going as long as Don maintains his Tweak format.

[aurumdigitus]

Gentleman: This is a noble idea but a Herculean task! A word count of the current downloaded Change Log - June 10 - indicates "Tweak" appears nearly 350 times.

As we will all benefit may the Fates smile favorably on your labors.

[Marco]

It's perfectly doable, imo, as long as each tweak is preceded by the

Code: Select all

; Tweak: blah blah

tag.

[j_c_hallgren]

It's perfectly doable, imo, as long as each tweak is preceded by the

Code: Select all

; Tweak: blah blah

tag.

AFAIK, from my prior work, that tag identifier is almost 100% true..I vaguely recall there may have been an exception or two but I may be wrong on that recollection due to passage of time...

However, there are a large nbr of tweaks that do NOT have any "blah blah" so we'd need to have our own dictionary/reference for those...and some "blah blah" are not quite descriptive enough so having a better desc would be helpful.

Don has said that he doesn't have time to add these better descriptors to INI but maybe if we were to develop an improved dataset that he could use to update his vers, that may help all of us.

There have been MANY times when a given tweak has been the cause or solution to an issue so having a better way to find/access these would seem to greatly help in this matter, esp for newer users but even for some of us veterans, there are ones that may affect a feature that we've not used before and when we do, may need to adjust it then.

[TheQwerty]

Gentleman: This is a noble idea but a Herculean task!

I think it's actually worse than that now that I've done some exploring and thinking. There's a few problems...

1) Identifying all tweaks will be difficult because '; Tweak:' is not a reliable identifier - sometimes it is missing and sometimes it is used once for multiple similar tweaks. It might even exist for keys which are no longer tweaks.

2) Describing all tweaks. The quality of descriptions for the documented tweaks is all over the place - from non-existent to succinct.

3) The quantity of tweaks. As of 12.50.0000 there are 937 keys within a fresh XYplorer.ini - at least 116 of them are tweaks.

4) Keeping up. Don's velocity makes it particularly challenging for us to maintain a separate list and documentation, we might be able to keep up if we only focus on stable releases.

5) XYS Interface Limitations. To interface with 116+ tweaks nicely we will likely have to make the GUI as HTML - this is not a real problem but I don't have the patience or skill for decent web development.


So it is indeed quite the daunting task.


I hate to say it but I think a good first step might be if a bunch of us could attempt to identify/document all of the keys in XYplorer.ini. This would give us a better idea of how reliable '; Tweak:' is and might be a starting point to getting all tweaks marked with better descriptions.

Does that sound like something other's might pitch in on?
If so how do you want to do this?

I started creating a spreadsheet in Google Drive and can open editing on it if others thing that might be a good start, but if someone has a better suggestion I'm open to it.

[j_c_hallgren]

I hate to say it but I think a good first step might be if a bunch of us could attempt to identify/document all of the keys in XYplorer.ini. This would give us a better idea of how reliable '; Tweak:' is and might be a starting point to getting all tweaks marked with better descriptions.

Does that sound like something other's might pitch in on?
If so how do you want to do this?

I started creating a spreadsheet in Google Drive and can open editing on it if others thing that might be a good start, but if someone has a better suggestion I'm open to it.

I presume that you may have used my CSV/Zip file as basis? If not, you're obviously more than welcome to use it for this....due to my eyesight issues, I may not be able to help much now but I may be able to help reviewing it at least.

[TheQwerty]

I presume that you may have used my CSV/Zip file as basis? If not, you're obviously more than welcome to use it for this....due to my eyesight issues, I may not be able to help much now but I may be able to help reviewing it at least.

On first pass I was using your CSV, then as I was looking through XYplorer.ini picking out the tweaks added since I discovered a few keys that I believe are unlabelled tweaks.

At that point I felt I might need to step back and see if some courageous volunteers could help us document all of XYplorer.ini, so some text manipulation and copying and pasting resulted in a table of all of the keys.



In thinking about the actual script, I believe a key component will be the ability to see which tweaks differ from their default value and the ability to reset them. But to do that the script will need to know there the default settings, which means the script either has to jump through some hoops to generate a default XYplorer.ini locally or we need to provide this data remotely or with the script.

[TheQwerty]

I finally decided to take a look at how jacky's script worked and I got it running again.
However, considering it just turned 5 years old and XY has changed a bit over those years I then broke it by turning the setkeys into echos.

I am only posting this so anyone interested in helping us can see what jacky did and how menus were used.
It's also an interesting walk into history at how scripters had to get creative to code around the young and not as developed scripting engine. Though in getting it running I removed some of those innovative things.

It's worth noting that jacky hard-coded all of the tweaks and custom descriptions (maybe the same as the ones that were once on the wiki?), which is certainly an option for us, but I think we'd all like to have something a little more flexible and future-proof.

[TheQwerty]

Well I'm slowly working through the INI file...
If anyone would like to help (please!) the spreadsheet is here.

Anyone with this link can edit the file so please don't be rude and do be courteous.
The 'Protected' sheet is for changes I've verified and placed under some protection.
The 'Import' sheet is just a copy of my original import of XYplorer.ini.


Keep in mind that this is based on a fresh copy of XYplorer 12.50.0000 - so please download that and work from a freshly extracted copy. It also wouldn't hurt to delete XYplorer.ini every so often as your working.

My workflow has been to pick a key then attempt to figure out what causes its value to change and what features/commands use that value, and finally what acceptable values are or what they mean.

With over 900+ keys this is going to take some time and if no one else helps then I will probably give up.

[j_c_hallgren]

My workflow has been to pick a key then attempt to figure out what causes its value to change and what features/commands use that value, and finally what acceptable values are or what they mean.

With over 900+ keys this is going to take some time and if no one else helps then I will probably give up.

Not sure why you're looking at all the keys at this point -- have you already found all the new tweaks added since I did my CSV?

Remember that many/most keys are things that we're probably not wanting to muck with anyway and I'd hope that Don never added a intended key for tweak without some sort of a tag...

[TheQwerty]

My workflow has been to pick a key then attempt to figure out what causes its value to change and what features/commands use that value, and finally what acceptable values are or what they mean.

With over 900+ keys this is going to take some time and if no one else helps then I will probably give up.

Not sure why you're looking at all the keys at this point -- have you already found all the new tweaks added since I did my CSV?

Remember that many/most keys are things that we're probably not wanting to muck with anyway and I'd hope that Don never added a intended key for tweak without some sort of a tag...

The Tweak identifier is not reliable.

There are tweaks missing it - LayoutSP, BJSound*.
In some cases a single identifier is used to mark multiple tweaks - RenamePreview*Color*, *CustomExtensions.
I believe there are probably also instances of tweaks added without mention in History.txt.


Given those I'm not sure how anyone proposes we locate all of the tweaks otherwise.

[serendipity]

Well I'm slowly working through the INI file...
If anyone would like to help (please!) the spreadsheet is here.

Anyone with this link can edit the file so please don't be rude and do be courteous.
The 'Protected' sheet is for changes I've verified and placed under some protection.
The 'Import' sheet is just a copy of my original import of XYplorer.ini.


Keep in mind that this is based on a fresh copy of XYplorer 12.50.0000 - so please download that and work from a freshly extracted copy. It also wouldn't hurt to delete XYplorer.ini every so often as your working.

My workflow has been to pick a key then attempt to figure out what causes its value to change and what features/commands use that value, and finally what acceptable values are or what they mean.


With over 900+ keys this is going to take some time and if no one else helps then I will probably give up.

I'll definitely help, but will have most time in August only. I'll help out in weekends and holidays when possible.
Thanks for your effort, i think it will pay off eventually.

[j_c_hallgren]

The Tweak identifier is not reliable.

And I agree with that.

There are tweaks missing it - LayoutSP, BJSound*.
In some cases a single identifier is used to mark multiple tweaks - RenamePreview*Color*, *CustomExtensions.
I believe there are probably also instances of tweaks added without mention in History.txt.

True -- but I think most are documented somewhere -- maybe just here in a forum post but that helps.

Given those I'm not sure how anyone proposes we locate all of the tweaks otherwise.

I was simply suggesting that we attack the less obscure ones first and once those are all found, then look for the more hidden ones -- because otherwise, one may be tempted to give up when even having the less obscure ones available would be a great help.

[Marco]

Maybe Don, in the source code comments, has a complete list of all the tweaks available. Don? Are you there?