Windows 11: A wack on the side of the head :-)

[Edward K. Ream]

Perhaps foolishly, I installed Windows 11 yesterday.

Windows 11 has certainly gotten me out of my rut!

1. My long-time picture viewer stopped working. Amazingly, Windows has nothing out-of-the-box that is even close to what I want.

So I'm working on a python script. It already does better than the commercial product in some ways.  I'll put the script in scripts.leo when it is ready. Again amazingly, Windows has problems with desktop slideshows.  Soon I'll have a workaround!

2. The taskbar is now only on the bottom. Yes, it can be moved by altering the registry.

This seemingly minor change has revealed how often (way too often) I use the mouse to launch programs. Aha/Doh!  I don't need the taskbar. I can do everything inside Leo.

For example, for years I have used the excellent open-shell app to simulate the look and feel of Windows 7.  Aha! I don't need that.  Instead of <Windows Key> (to open open-shell) followed by <down-arrow><down-arrow><return> to open mozilla, I could just do <Alt-x>moz<return> !!

New @command nodes (in myLeoSettings.leo)

@command e:

g.openWithFileName(r'C:\Users\Edward Ream\ekr.leo')

@command moz:

g.handleUrl('https://www.leoeditor.com/')

@command mail:

g.handleUrl('https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox')

And similarly for other web sites.  A 'bookmark' abbreviation is next :-)

Summary

Sometimes change reveals our ruts and blind spots.

Edward

[tbp1...@gmail.com]

You make me glad I'm resisting Windows 11!

But I don't know how you could have missed the ease of launching programs in Windows 10 without the mouse.  Here's how I've been running some common programs:

Launch command.exe:

    1. tap Windows key, type cmd <ENTER>
    2. press <WIN>-R, type cmd <ENTER>  (this way I can add parameters, like /k aliases)

Launch Firefox: tap Windows key, type fire

Launch Thunderbird: tap Windows key, type thun

Launch Leo without console: tap Windows key, type leo

Launch my py-leo-git.cmd batch file to run Leo with a console from my git clone: 

    tap Windows key, type py-leo-git

In none of these cases did I have to do any configuration or set anything up.  Well, my batch file has to be on the system path, of course.  I'll bet it works the same in Windows 11.

[tbp1...@gmail.com]

Just to be clear, aliases is not a Windows program or parameter.  It is a batch file of mine that loads some DOSKEY aliases.  One of the aliases is a command to open the aliases.cmd file in an editor.

[Edward K. Ream]

On Tue, Oct 19, 2021 at 11:09 AM tbp1...@gmail.com <tbp1...@gmail.com> wrote:

But I don't know how you could have missed the ease of launching programs in Windows 10 without the mouse.  Here's how I've been running some common programs:

Launch command.exe:

    1. tap Windows key, type cmd <ENTER>
    2. press <WIN>-R, type cmd <ENTER>  (this way I can add parameters, like /k aliases)

Launch Firefox: tap Windows key, type fire

Launch Thunderbird: tap Windows key, type thun

Launch Leo without console: tap Windows key, type leo

Launch my py-leo-git.cmd batch file to run Leo with a console from my git clone: 

    tap Windows key, type py-leo-git

I used a similar workflow.  But <Alt-x>mail<return> inside Leo is much better.

So is <Alt-x>goo<tab><return> to google something!

Edward