XYplorer Beta Club

Posted: **15 Jan 2009 16:38**

When right clicking and dragging a file from XY onto the desktop or elsewhere, the context menu has only "Move Here," "Copy Here" or "Cancel." "Create Shortcut Here" is nonexistent no matter what box I check in the Advanced Configuration e.g. Default items only..., "XYplorer" in shell context....
etc.
Please help! I'm lost without being able to create shortcuts to files via the drag n drop context menu.

Thanks for any help.

Posted: **15 Jan 2009 16:43**

Hello!

This is one of the few things I was never able to solve despite countless hours of trying.

But why don't you drag onto Desktop (or elsewhere) inside XYplorer (using the folder tree or the Catalog as drop target)? Works fine.

Don

Posted: **15 Jan 2009 16:46**

Hi and Welcome to XYplorer,
Yup not possible to do it directly on the desktop. But you can drag-drop anything inside XYplorer like for example: on the tree, catalog or another tab to get lots of context menu options.

Posted: **15 Jan 2009 17:04**

Thanks for the tips! That will help a lot despite my keeping shortcuts on the Desktop in some kind of categorical order. e.g. Files related to the current application I'm running. I can always rearrange after creating the shortcut in the XY desktop folder. An extra step but fairly trivial and a whole lot better than reverting to Win Explorer.

One last question. Does anyone know if this a permanent situation or one that can be fixed in future revisions?

Thanks for the rapid response. It's pretty much a lifesaver here.

Posted: **15 Jan 2009 17:35**

I'd suggest mapping File -> "Create Shortcut(s) Here" to a shortcut key, UDC, or Catalog item. Then you can select the items you want shortcuts for, use "Create Shortcut(s) Here", and then drag/move the newly created shortcuts to where you'd like on the desktop.

That might more closely resemble your habit and be an easier adjustment.

Posted: **15 Jan 2009 17:35**

Rather permanent, although never say never...

Posted: **15 Jan 2009 17:50**

yarsnave wrote:Thanks for the tips! That will help a lot despite my keeping shortcuts on the Desktop in some kind of categorical order. e.g. Files related to the current application I'm running. I can always rearrange after creating the shortcut in the XY desktop folder. An extra step but fairly trivial and a whole lot better than reverting to Win Explorer.

One last question. Does anyone know if this a permanent situation or one that can be fixed in future revisions?

Thanks for the rapid response. It's pretty much a lifesaver here.

Glad that it helped. Only admin (aka Don) can answer your question. But maybe you already know that in XYplorer you can automate a lot of commonly used tasks (such as what you are doing) and assign your own keyboard shortcut.

For example select a bunch of files you want to create shortcut for and paste the following code in the addressbar and hit enter.

Code: Select all

::focus; #201; goto %desktop%; #218;

What it does:
focus list items, copy items, goto desktop and create shortcuts
Hope you explore more here.

Posted: **15 Jan 2009 19:32**

Serendipity, thanks. It seems you have made me a liar because I do have another question now. My last was not my last.

I have barely begun to dabble in XY scripting. I created your tip script as an xys file and then assigned a shortcut key to run it. Trouble is that it brings up both scripts I have in the Scripts folder and forces me to make a choice before it will run. Not a big deal but I have been searching for a way to simply execute one specific script (keyboard s/c or not) and have not been able to find a way do it outside of entering it in the XY address bar. Trying to execute it from the Catalog makes it lose focus on the file I want to create a shortcut for and nothing happens.

So the next question: IS there a way to directly execute one specific script from a keyboard S/C or plain ol' shortcut? I've looked through the help file in every topic I could imagine a keyword for but have not been able to find anything to do that. I even created a shortcut that had the actual script as the target but Windows wouldn't accept it. Invalid syntax I guess.

I've done a lot of programming in Basic, a little in VB & VB script and a lot on programmable calculators in my day and thought I knew kinda how programming logic goes. But it sure doesn't seem to help me in this case. I could add your script as a permanent entry in my clipboard extender and easily recover it for execution in the address bar but so far, it seems everything has turned out to be more time consuming than simply dragging a file to the Desktop in XY and creating the shortcut as you and admin Don originally suggested.

This is a great forum and I really didn't expect the rapid responses. Thanks again to all that have responded.

Posted: **15 Jan 2009 20:07**

yarsnave wrote:I have barely begun to dabble in XY scripting. I created your tip script as an xys file and then assigned a shortcut key to run it. Trouble is that it brings up both scripts I have in the Scripts folder and forces me to make a choice before it will run.

hmm... you mean the two scripts in the file? To assign a KS to load/execute a specific script directly, assuming you set up your KS through an UDC (menu User) simply specify its label. For example with this in your XYS file, simply put ShortcutOnDesktop under Label, in the definition of your UDC/Load Script File.

Code: Select all

"Create shortcuts on Desktop for selected items : ShortcutOnDesktop"
  focus;
  #201;
  goto "%desktop%";
  #218;

(More on how that works can be found on the XYwiki)

yarsnave wrote:Trying to execute it from the Catalog makes it lose focus on the file I want to create a shortcut for and nothing happens.

hmm... something must be wrong somewhere, did you include the first command (focus;) ? Because what it does is put the focus on List, so it should work as expected, even from Catalog or from a KS when focus wasn't on List.

Posted: **15 Jan 2009 20:40**

yarsnave wrote:This is a great forum and I really didn't expect the rapid responses. Thanks again to all that have responded.

I'll add my belated welcome to XY forums as well!

We try our best to be prompt in replies here! Sometimes it can be in as little as a couple of min! BTW, I've also seen Don upload a beta fix to a problem report in as little as 20 min from original post...yes, that's unusual but does show the responsiveness that exists here, and is a main reason why I like XY so much!

Posted: **15 Jan 2009 21:17**

yarsnave wrote:Serendipity, thanks. It seems you have made me a liar because I do have another question now. My last was not my last.
I have barely begun to dabble in XY scripting. I created your tip script as an xys file and then assigned a shortcut key to run it. Trouble is that it brings up both scripts I have in the Scripts folder and forces me to make a choice before it will run. Not a big deal but I have been searching for a way to simply execute one specific script (keyboard s/c or not) and have not been able to find a way do it outside of entering it in the XY address bar. Trying to execute it from the Catalog makes it lose focus on the file I want to create a shortcut for and nothing happens.

So the next question: IS there a way to directly execute one specific script from a keyboard S/C or plain ol' shortcut? I've looked through the help file in every topic I could imagine a keyword for but have not been able to find anything to do that. I even created a shortcut that had the actual script as the target but Windows wouldn't accept it. Invalid syntax I guess.

I've done a lot of programming in Basic, a little in VB & VB script and a lot on programmable calculators in my day and thought I knew kinda how programming logic goes. But it sure doesn't seem to help me in this case. I could add your script as a permanent entry in my clipboard extender and easily recover it for execution in the address bar but so far, it seems everything has turned out to be more time consuming than simply dragging a file to the Desktop in XY and creating the shortcut as you and admin Don originally suggested.

This is a great forum and I really didn't expect the rapid responses. Thanks again to all that have responded.

I think I know what your mistake is:
Use atleast one space on every line before the script, else it wont work. It is documented in the XYwiki and Jacky has shown in the below example too.
This wont work:

Code: Select all

focus; 
#201; 
goto %desktop%; 
#218;

But this will:

Code: Select all

   focus; 
   #201; 
   goto %desktop%; 
   #218;

Posted: **16 Jan 2009 18:35**

Well, I FINALLY figured out what my problem was. In User/Manage Commands, dummy me thought that the SCRIPT line at the bottom was for the title of the script since it's a single line window. So I created a script named "SC2desktop.xys" and assigned Shift Z as the hotkey. Default action was Run specified script.
Then the script would not run because the only command in the big window was SC2desktop which was obviously not a valid command.

After much puzzlement, it finally dawned on me that whatever I put in the Script window ended up in the Commands window when I hit Apply and maybe I should enter the whole script in the single line Script window. DUH!!! I don't know about anybody else but that seems pretty counter intuitive to me. Why not enter the script in the big window or put the script filename in the little window which would read the actual script into the big window?
Oh well, I'm sure there must be a reason and maybe I'd find it if I'd go and read the help file about UDCs. Seems I'd know that I'd have to learn before I graduated.

Anyway, that solved my problem. I have not however been able to run a script otherwise with a single Hot Key because even if there's only one script in the XY Scripts folder, it always pops up a window forcing me to select that single script. There must be a logical programming reason for that too.

I want to thank everyone again for the help, tips and suggestions. I'm not sure I'd have ever been successful if not for y'all forcing me to think.

Posted: **16 Jan 2009 19:15**

yarsnave wrote:Why not enter the script in the big window or put the script filename in the little window which would read the actual script into the big window?

hmm... but you can! I assume you're on category "Run Script", right? Then you have to write the script to run under "Script". If it's only a single-line you can type it directly right there, otherwise you press "Edit" and you can then write a multi-line script. Once you validate from that window, you'll notice that under "Script" it will now say, after the (beginning) of the first line, "[multi-line script; Press Edit ->]"

For more you can see UDC on the XYwiki.

yarsnave wrote:I have not however been able to run a script otherwise with a single Hot Key because even if there's only one script in the XY Scripts folder, it always pops up a window forcing me to select that single script.

I'm not sure what you're describing here. To what did you assign your KS ? You assign KS for one UDC, and it will trigger it. So if you assign a KS to an UDC/Run Script, whenever you press that key, the script is being executed.
And for UDC/Load Script File, it will load whatever script file you specified on that UDC. XY never does such a thing as list all the files in the Scripts folder and ask you which one to load (Well, unless you use Scripting|Load Script File of course

).

Posted: **16 Jan 2009 20:00**

yarsnave wrote: Anyway, that solved my problem. I have not however been able to run a script otherwise with a single Hot Key because even if there's only one script in the XY Scripts folder, it always pops up a window forcing me to select that single script. There must be a logical programming reason for that too.

Going by what you say, seems like you have no spaces in front of each script which leads to that pop up you are talking about. Have you checked that each script has at least one space in front of it? like this:

Code: Select all

"Create shortcuts on Desktop for selected items : ShortcutOnDesktop"
    focus;
    #201;
    goto "%desktop%";
    #218;

Posted: **18 Jan 2009 01:12**

Well, I think I'm finally getting the drift after all the help. I've got a lot of commands to learn but I'm doing some really high powered scripting now.

I've got the one to create a file shortcut on the desktop, another to copy the date in yyyymmdd format to the clipboard and yet another to load my favored mini tree.

That last one puzzled me because if I un-clicked the minitree button, it would go to full tree but clicking the minitree button again would always show only the current selected folder and my intuition told me (erroneously I guess) that it should go back to the mini tree I took pains to create. Oh well, however it works the problem is solved with a keystroke now.

When I get a script that I think is beyond kindergarten school, I'll let you know. :-)

Thanks to all! BCNU.

XYplorer Beta Club

Lost "Create Shortcut Here"in drag n drop context menu.

Lost "Create Shortcut Here"in drag n drop context menu.

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