[Ghoser777]

I haven't been developing as much as I use to, but a student of mine asked if there was something equivalent to the run daliog window on OS X. I hadn't seen any 3rd party apps that did that, so I threw something together to show him. Now I'm wondering if this app is useful enough or does it need any more bells and whistles before it should be called a finished program? I kind of like how it's set up now, but I'd love suggestions.

http://homepage.mac.com/fahrenba/irun/irun.html

Thanks!
Matt Fahrenbacher
Humongous Elpehants and Tigers

[CharlesS]

Drag the Applications folder into the Dock.

Voilà, instant Start menu. Except that it can't get out of sync with the file system.

[Ghoser777]

Gah! I miss typed - that should have been the Run Dialog window, not the start menu. DOH!

[CharlesS]

It's not Dock-aware. If the Dock is on the right side of the screen, the Quit button ends up underneath the Dock, and is difficult to click.

[Ghoser777]

Which is why if you're clicking on the status item, you can always use apple-q!

I see spotlight hovers over the dock - I'll just need to do that. Already fixed on my local build (not uploaded).

[Mafia]

Originally posted by Ghoser777:
Which is why if you're clicking on the status item, you can always use apple-q!

I see spotlight hovers over the dock - I'll just need to do that. Already fixed on my local build (not uploaded).

they make widgets like this. but i believe its a pretty useful app.

[Turnpike]

I use this all the time in KDE... don't know how much I'd use it in Aqua.. it's a different ball game. I'll give it a try though!

EDIT:

okay, a few things

1) I don't like the auto complete. I made the mistake of using "ls"... now I can't use "l" (an alias to ls with some flags I like) without hitting "L", "Backspace" which isn't good. Perhaps if I could turn off auto-complete... or better yet, if it would pop up auto-completion candidates in a drop-down or something after a few seconds, so long commands would be easy to get to with a few letters and a mouse or arrow, but simple commands wouldn't be burdened with it.

2) a key command to open this window would be great, so I didn't have to use the mouse to get to it... even an AppleScript to do it would be okay, as I could bind it to one of the extra keys on my keyboard or a different keystroke.

3) if a command has no output, would it be possible to not open a terminal window? Maybe as a pref or something... or there could be something like return brings up a terminal window, shift+return runs the command and doesn't bring up a terminal window... this would be handy.

4) compared to most everything else, it's UGLY... but I'm no interface wiz and it gets the job done, so I'm not complaining

5) it's is kinda finicky about where I put the mouse after clicking on it... could it perhaps stay up until I click something else?

6) perhaps a way to manage preferences is in order.. even a simple .conf file in the Application Support folder or something. These things I've mentioned... combined, at least, I think would keep me from ever using the program (I have terminal bound to a key on my keyboard for quick access)... but I can understand other people might want it to be super-light-weight like it is.

7) don't listen to me, 'cause I don't know what I'm talking about.

that's all I've got for now... great idea



Further EDIT:

You said you hadn't known of third party apps that did this... QuickSilver does, with the Terminal plug-in.

[Ghoser777]

Yuck, this is not fun To get the behavior you want from the combo box (and I'm almost there), it took some nasty subclassing. Anyway, I've created two new interesting bugs that I have no idea how to fix:

1. Typing the first letter in the combo box works fine - typing the second letter makes the combo box show the first letter repeated twice, then the second letter. Interesting enough, requesting what the combo box's string value is programmatically is what has been typed, but not what is displayed! Setting the field's value has no effect... fascinating. It does link up properly after the delete button is pressed once.

2. It requires 2 returns to issue a command - 1 to dismiss the popup, another to actually send the command.

I'll see what I can do with these...