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DeskRule LITE Changelog

What's new in DeskRule LITE 2.4.1.0

Feb 14, 2022
  • Multimonitor DPI fixes, switching monitors while deskrule is running should be smoother

New in DeskRule LITE 2.3.1.0 (Jun 8, 2021)

  • Location-based photo search gets much faster in windows 10, taking advantage of indexed GPS properties (System.GPS.LatitudeDecimal etc). For more information see here
  • http://zabkat.com/deskrule/gps-photo-search.htm
  • Right click on the search results column header to choose which file properties you want to see. Normally deskrule picks file details matching the search parameters; SELECT COLUMNS menu command allows you to TEMPORARILY see extra file information. If you want to add some details permanently in all search results, use msExtraColumns registry tweak (search the documentation for more details)
  • some resizable dialogs like google maps will remember their sizes when you restart Deskrule
  • If you bought DeskRule and want to use your unlock key immediately after you install the trial, press <Ctrl+Shift+L> keys and follow the instructions. For more information see the email with your registration key.

New in DeskRule LITE 2.3.0.0 (Apr 12, 2021)

  • MOUSE PEEK PREVIEW. Press both left+right mouse buttons together to see a large preview of the item under the cursor. Then let go of the mouse keys and the preview will go away! It is also available through <Alt+Q> keyboard shortcut; then any key (except Pageup/Down) will dismiss the preview.
  • Program settings (F12) allows you to choose the preview size as a percent of your monitor. For text previews, the registry setting nPeekTextWidth is the maximum width of the popup preview window, for pictures the size is determined by the bitmap dimensions.
  • VERTICAL TOOLBAR WIDTH. When you stack search boxes one on top of the other, you can now choose the width of the left docked toolbar using program settings. The right value would depend on your taste and your screen DPI resolution.
  • In this mode, normally no property names are shown to save space. You won't see e.g. NAME before the box where you search for file names, you recognize the box by it's hint text (cue banner inside the box). If this isn't clear enough, use the registry tweak bRebarLabels (see the help file for details editing the registry). Set it to 1 to show a single letter from the title (N for Name, C for Content etc), that is usually adequate as a reminder. Or set bRebarLabels to 2 to show the full property name in a separate row, if you don't mind the wasted space.
  • QUICK JUMP TO PROPERTY. When using the normal file property search boxes, use <ALT+letter> to quickly jump to the search box that starts with "letter", e.g. <ALT+N> will jump to Name, <ALT+D> to Date modified and so on. This works best if you are already in the search toolbar area.
  • HIT HIGHLIGHTING. When you search for text in documents, the quick previewer panel will highlight the keywords found in a distinct color so you can see them in context. Pressing F3 key in the quickviewer jumps to the next keyword hit.
  • RIP FLASH VIDEOS. The on-board SWF videos have been replaced with youtube "videos" (sorry no sound but you can follow the text descriptions).
  • F1 key for help works better with your preferred web browser
  • new macro commands KEYDOWN/UP, similar to SENDKEY but more flexible. For example SENDKEY A is equivalent to KEYDOWN A followed by KEYUP A. This is useful e.g. if you want to simulate pressing SHIFT key while clicking on a dialog button:
  • a few bugfixes

New in DeskRule LITE 2.2.0.0 (Aug 22, 2020)

  • New program option (F12 key) to have search toolbars docked VERTICALLY on the left side (instead of top). Rules cannot be rearranged other than deleted and re-inserted, but many people may find this easier to manage. Note you cannot have more than one column of toolbars in this mode.
  • If a statusbar error message is too long to see whole, it will scroll FYI

New in DeskRule LITE 2.1.0.0 (Apr 4, 2020)

  • Deskrule 64-bit version will automatically use 32 bit text extraction filters, in case you have only 32 bit versions of them installed
  • Mini search engine refabrication for faster results display
  • Registry setting msExtraColumns is a comma separated list of details (columns) you want to appear in all search results along the default Name/Size/Date. Use full property names as System.Title etc

New in DeskRule LITE 2.0.5.0 (Feb 24, 2020)

  • Ctrl+mousewheel changes thumbnail size as well as view styles
  • Detective panel function DATE() converts strings to dates. Perhaps its most useful case is with an empty argument, which returns the current date. This can be used to calculate the file age in days e.g.
  • DATE("") - $System.DateModified
  • Detective panel functions FILE2 and FILEPROP can be used to compare the current item with others, e.g. for synchronization checks. FILEPROP can only fetch a single property, whereas FILE2 can execute any arbitrary expression on the second file. The example below tests if the file is newer than its namesake in E:OTHER folder:
  • $System.DateModified > FILEPROP($System.DateModified, "E:other" + $name)
  • You can have only one FILE2 but as many FILEPROP as you need in an expression. See the documentation for more details.
  • Abbreviations pseudo-environmental variable can be used to simplify complex detective expressions. Either type %ABBR% or use the Operator drop-down box. Think of it as a #define term that is replaced with something else. To define its content use the ABBR button at the right side of the desktop detective panel.

New in DeskRule LITE 2.0.4.0 (Oct 24, 2019)

  • More complete dark user interface including program dialog boxes

New in DeskRule LITE 2.0.3.1 (Oct 8, 2019)

  • Use the Program Settings toolbar button to turn on DARK MODE, the latest fashion in user interfaces. Not all things are rendered dark, e.g. all dialogs are still in windows default colors.
  • Zoom previewer takes JPG photo/picture orientation tags into account and shows correctly turned picture previews.
  • Desktop detective panel has new function DIRCNT that can count items in folder objects. See the documentation for more information.
  • Deskrule should look better in multiple monitors that happen to have different DPI resolution.

New in DeskRule LITE 2.0.1.0 (Feb 25, 2019)

  • Added registry options msCatalogIncl and msCatalogExcl which control which files go in and which are excluded from the catalog, respectively. You normally use only one of these. They are comma separated wildcards of names to include or exclude, e.g. "*.txt,*.pdf". Without them, all files go in the catalog.
  • On-demand offline cloud files are shown with a link overlay icon, to distinguish them from locally available content

New in DeskRule LITE 2.0.0.1 (Jan 21, 2019)

  • Better search in cloud drives (onedrive, dropbox etc). Deskrule will search for basic properties in cloud drives, but will not cause unnecessary downloads for (offline) files on demand, e.g. for preview purposes.
  • If some of the rule boxes get out of shape (e.g. after a window resize), deskrule will automatically arrange them. You can also right click on any toolabr and use the AUTO ARRANGE menu command
  • If a search result is in a deep folder and cannot be opened by windows, deskrule offers to create a temporary readonly copy and open that instead. Note that Deskrule can preview deep documents but most other applications cannot open their own documents if they are in a folder with too many letters.

New in DeskRule LITE 2.0.0.0 (Dec 10, 2018)

  • Offline file search. Create a CATALOG of your removable media files, and have them searched just as if all your files were connected. Deskrule will search the index of your external hard discs, DVDs etc, then tell you where they are located. You create the index table ONCE, then fast offline file searches become possible.
  • You can do a basic search by Name or modification date, or add more properties like tags and comments. You trade-off a bigger index table with richer search attributes. Optionally you can save a short text and a little thumbnail for offline preview purposes.
  • Offline search is seamless, you use the same search boxes (even the advanced search panels) as if you were doing a normal desktop file search. The only difference is the folder path: instead of e.g. C:MY DOCUMENTS you enter the special path DR::CATALOG as the root of the search, using the new catalog toolbar button next to the folder path box. For more information press F1 to access the on-board help in Deskrule.
  • The amount of preview text to store in the catalog and the thumbnail picture pixel size are tweakable from program options. Increasing the defaults will result in larger index size.
  • Introducing tip of the day window, showing useful tips and tricks every time you start the program. The window stays on top so you can try out the tips as you read them. Tips are also available from the drop-down menu next to Help toolbar button. You can also read all the tips from the file DRTIPS.HTM in the program's installation folder.
  • Negative keyword search. Adding a leading minus symbol before a keyword excludes it (NOT rule), e.g. THIS -THAT will match documents that contain THIS but not if they also contain THAT. Useful for text rules in the normal (toolbar) search mode.
  • Folders in the system search index can be searched faster. If a folder is not in the index (the normal windows index, not the deskrule offline catalog), you can press <Ctrl+Shift+I> keys to have it added. This command is applied to the folder being searched, whatever appears in the addressbar.
  • Choose property dialog shows descriptions for many common properties. For other properties you can right click and use WHAT IS THIS PROPERTY menu to find more details online. Usually the first search result is the documenation you need.
  • WDX plugins that export text content in wide (unicode) format are handled properly. For more information see here: http://zabkat.com/blog/tc-plugins.htm

New in DeskRule LITE 1.6.2.0 (Oct 23, 2018)

  • Fixed google maps (picture geolocation search) problem
  • Improvements to desktop detective (SYSTEM and TOKEN commands), allowing external (DOS or powershell) programs to be used when searching for documents; see the documentation (F1) for more details
  • Macro command MATH allows simple integer arithmetic operations

New in DeskRule LITE 1.6.1.0 (Oct 23, 2018)

  • Search history toolbar button offers quick access to recent searchesNote that you can save searches you frequently use via the "disk" toolbar icon
  • Plain text (toolbar) rules show a history of frequently used keywordsAlso note the addressbar supports autocompletion of partial folder names using the UP arrow key.
  • Macro command NOPOPUPS will cause any dialog windows that appear during the macro execution to be invisibleIf you are annoyed by windows flashing quickly as a result of macros, put this NOPOPUPS instruction first in all your macros

New in DeskRule LITE 1.6.0.0 (May 8, 2018)

  • Advanced search panel: If you select more than one compatible rules, you can modify their properties simultaneously. For example say you want to find music tracks that contain "Mozart" in either the Title or Artist properties. After you insert the 2 text property rules, select them and type the desired text to find. Both rules will be defined on the same data.
  • If the selected rules are not compatible (e.g mixed text and dates), you can only change the boolean context of the rules.
  • Macro recorder allows you to compose macro commands "programming-free". Pressing F9 key you can do simple operations (launch commands, manipulate dialogs etc). When you are done, click on FINISH (macro recording) button and you get the script written for you automatically.
  • To edit the previous macro without invoking the macro recorder press <Alt+F9> or quit the macro recorder immediately

New in DeskRule LITE 1.5.7.0 (Feb 21, 2018)

  • A few improvements in the macro engine. This is a free upgrade for existing customers, please use CHECK FOR UPDATES menu (under the question mark/Help toolbar button) to get yours.

New in DeskRule LITE 1.5.6.0 (Dec 22, 2017)

  • When searching for multiple keywords inside files' contents, the previewer window will show all keyword matches, and in a more pronounced fashion too
  • Search option to clear WDS (fast) search results before starting second phase robust (slow :) search. See the FRESH RESTART option in the program options dialog (F12 key). This is useful when WDS results aren't what you were expecting to find.
  • Macro commands (F9 key, not available in LITE version) support debugging and single stepping, handy if you need to troubleshoot your macro instructions. While single-stepping a macro, you will see more information about each command as it runs, and you will see the command's active window drawn with a distinct border
  • Ctrl+F9 key repeats the last macro

New in DeskRule LITE 1.5.5.0 (Oct 2, 2017)

  • Deskrule looks better in high resolution monitors with a large icon skin. It is automatically adjusted depending on your display resolution
  • You can "zoom" item icons in and out using CTRL+mouseWheel. Each zoom level goes either to larger icons/thumbnails or smaller, all the way to detailed view mode.
  • [UWP-store version]: fixed problem with google maps (picture geolocation)

New in DeskRule LITE 1.5.1.0 (Mar 13, 2017)

  • Easier drag-drop from search results to other windows (deskrule window stays in the background)
  • Fixed bug for very high resolution display DPI (large text size)