D&Do v. 1.0 Prev Next Top
- It has an uncluttered minimalist user interface:
- A title bar
- A license label
- A prominent integrated drop target and button (the target area)
- A status line
- A popup menu (activated when you right click the target area).
- An about dialog (activated through the "About" popup menu item)
- A help display frame (activated through the "Help" popup menu item)
- An open file dialog (activated through the "Load Metascript" popup menu item)
- It accepts arguments from:
- Dropped desktop objects
- The system clipboard
- A text file known as a metascript file containing many argument list templates that can be used by the program. This file also defines the D&Do behavior
- An optional one-character key input to select one of the argument list templates (a variant)
There can be up to eleven (11) specified variants
- The normal output of the program may be saved directly into the clipboard
Note: The normal output is also known as the system output or print output.
- It accepts none, one, many or tagged drops (a desktop drop object that is associated with a metascript tag)
Note: The tagged drops feature is not available in the freeware version (the non-registered version)
- It can accept the following type of drops: Directory, File, Text
- You can enforce drop type criteria for each tag and for the untagged drops. For example, you can specify that only file drops that have one of the specified file extensions (ex. .gif and .jpg) are accepted; any other drops are immediately rejected. New in v1.1, you can specify the URL type; it accepts text drops that can be interpreted as an URL.
- The D&Do activity starts either from a click on the target area, from a drop that is associated with the last tag, or from any drop
- It alerts you visually if there is an error in a non-disruptive way (no popup window, but only a simple yellow flash and an associated status line message)
- You can specify that the program executes for each drop, or once for the collection of drops
- It can display the program error code either numerically or with an associated meaningful message
- It provides a timeout service.
- It can run on Windows and Linux (with the Gnome desktop environment) and probably, it should work on UNIX
- It contains various intelligent quotation methods; one of them is current (A new v1.1 feature). This ensures that the program will properly interpret an argument that contains quotation marks.
- It contains command line parsers for a precise control of command segmentation; one of them is current (A new v1.1 feature)
- It can host many metascripts simultaneously. Through a one-key input or from a menu, you can select one of them as being the current one (New in v1.1). Note: This feature is only available on the commercial version.
- It displays in English or in French
- The D&Do can be set to one of the eight (8) basic behaviors.
Note: Three of them are not fully functional in the freeware version of D&Do
- The D&Do package is provided with example programs that may be used as templates for your own programs, in Python. VBA, JScript, JavaScript, C#, Basic and Java
- It is compatible with almost all types of program languages
- It is fully documented (In English and French)
- Its status line tool-tip displays the list of drops and the list of report messages (right-click swap-able)
- A local URL to a help file is automatically associated with each metascript file
- Its target area can be enlarged or reduced at will
- It can stay on top of the desktop screen area (through the use of an external utility, see Note below)
Note: The Java version does not provide a Stay on Top feature natively. However, you can use a freeware that enables any desktop form (including D&Do) to stay on top. One such freeware is PowerMenu and is authored by Thong Nguyen; the Web page is at: http://www.veridicus.com/tummy/programming/powermenu/. Another freeware is WinOnTop and is authored by Detlev Schaefer; the Web page is at http://www.freewarehits.de. The latter one is included with the D&Do package.
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Copyright(c) 2003-2004 Marcel St-Amant