LaunchApplication plugin; problems with passing arguments in FF 3

[TonG]

Hi all,

I'am struggling with the LaunchApplication plugin v1.4 (TW v2.4.3).

To be more specific, I want to start IrfanView with a photo displayed
(IrfanView and photo in subfolder Foto).
I succeeded in starting the executable itself (IrfanView), see 1)

1) <<LaunchApplication "IrfanView" "" "Foto/i_view32.exe">>

This works with FireFox 3, Internet Explorer and the portable version
of Firefox 3.

I do have problems when passing arguments. I tried 2), 3) and 4)

2) <<LaunchApplication "Foto Kikker" "" "Foto/i_view32.exe" "Foto/
1957_Kikker_Raadhuisstraat.jpg">>
3) <<LaunchApplication "Foto Kikker" "" "Foto/i_view32.exe" "/Foto/
1957_Kikker_Raadhuisstraat.jpg">>
4) <<LaunchApplication "Foto Kikker" "" "/Foto/i_view32.exe" "\Foto
\1957_Kikker_Raadhuisstraat.jpg">>

2) and 3) do not work at all; only 4) works with Internet Explorer and
the portable version of Firefox 3, but not with standard FireFox 3.

I tried Eric Shulman's CoreTweaks plugin for the FF issues, but that
did not help either.

To circumvent the arguments in LaunchApplication I tried a few things:
1) I made a batch file that started IrfanView with a photo displayed.
The batch file as such works, but calling the batch file with
LaunchApplication does not work.
2) Also a compiled AutoHotkey script (an exe file) works alone but
does not work when called from LaunchApplication.

Any suggestions to get it working for standard FF 3 ?

Thanks for the help.

Ton

[TonG]

The strange thing is: sometimes 4) works with standard FF 3, sometimes
it does not work.

Ton

[Lyall]

I will have a look in the next few days. I have only just updated to
FF3 on my Gentoo Linux.
Thanks for raising the issue.

...Lyall

[TonG]

===================================================
Hi Lyall,

I'm working with Windows XP Prof SP3, Firefox 3.05 and TiddlyWiki
2.4.3.
Up till now described situation #4 always worked with Internet
Explorer (v7) and portable Firefox v3.05 (downloaded from http://portableapps.com/).

I tried to define the conditions when standard FF does not work, but I
can't get grip on it.
At a certain moment it looked like it did not work after rebooting,
but after another reboot it did work correctly.
If standard FF does not work, sometimes I can get it working by first
opening my TW in Internet Explorer or in portable Firefox. After doing
that (and closing the browser), sometimes it then works in standard
Firefox, sometimes it does not work.

I tried 2 other Windows XP PCs with the same - mixed/inconsistent -
results for standard Firefox. These 2 PCs also worked correctly (for
situation #4) with Internet Explorer (v7) and portable Firefox v3.05.

Thanks

Ton

[Lyall]

Wow, sounds like it's not the plugin's fault.
Particularly if it works sometimes and not others.
I hope to get into this later this week, I have just returned from an
overseas holiday and have lots of photos to file.
...Lyall

On Feb 1, 11:04 pm, TonG <ton.ger...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ===================================================
> Hi Lyall,
>
> I'm working with Windows XP Prof SP3, Firefox 3.05 and TiddlyWiki
> 2.4.3.
> Up till now described situation #4 always worked with Internet

> Explorer (v7) and portable Firefox v3.05 (downloaded fromhttp://portableapps.com/).

[TonG]

Hi Lyall,

I'm ready to publish my attempts to use the LaunchApplication plugin
in the Journal of Irreproducible Results :)

My conditions used:
Windows XP installation at C:
TiddlyWiki in the root of partition H: (ultimately meant to be at a
DVD, therefore I need relative paths)
IrfanView and Photos at H:\Foto
I want to start IrfanView in thumbnail mode in the correct folder,
normally done by i_view32.exe XYZ.jpg /thumbs. In that case the
thumbnail viewer starts in the folder where IrfanView and the XYZ.jpg
resides and opens XYZ.jpg in IrfanView itself.

To see if my problems had something to do with the paths of IrfanView
and/or the photos, I tried the following 4 cases A, B, C and D (only
the last 2 parameters for LaunchApplication are given).
I used TW 2.4.3 with only the LaunchApplication and Coretweaks
plugin.
I used Firefox 3.05 & 3.06 (FF), Firefox portable 3.05 (FF portable)
and Internet Explorer 7 (IE).

The - mixed - results are summarized below.

A) "Foto/i_view32.exe" "\Foto\XYZ.jpg /thumbs"
FF portable works
FF sometimes works. If it does not work there is no error from
LaunchApplication, only IrfanView looks in C:\Program Files\Mozilla
Firefox instead of in H:\Foto
IE: IrfanView message File not found; no message from
LaunchApplication

B) "Foto/i_view32.exe" "H:\Foto\XYZ.jpg /thumbs"
FF portable works
FF works
IE: IrfanView message File not found; no message from
LaunchApplication

C) "H:/Foto/i_view32.exe" "\Foto\XYZ.jpg /thumbs"
FF portable works
FF sometimes works. If it does not work there is no error from
LaunchApplication, only IrfanView looks in C:\Program Files\Mozilla
Firefox instead of in H:\Foto
IE: LaunchApplication cannot locate/execute file 'H:/H:/Foto/
i_view32.exe'

D) "H:/Foto/i_view32.exe" "H:\Foto\XYZ.jpg /thumbs"
FF portable works
FF works
IE: LaunchApplication cannot locate/execute file 'H:/H:/Foto/
i_view32.exe'

Lateron I tried situation A) with different PCs.
In that case I used a DVD with TW (with more plugins than the test
above), IrfanView and photos on it and got comparable results.
In a few instances when FF did not work, it looked in the folder C:
\Program Files\RSS Bandit (in most cases it looked in C:\Program Files
\Mozilla Firefox when it did not work).
Sometimes I start FF from my RSS reader. I tried to reproduce such a
situation (starting FF from RSS Bandit) and then situation A) but
could not reproduce it. It just sometimes happens.

At a certain moment I thought about putting FF portable on the DVD and
start it from there, but there were 2 problems:
1) You cannot use FF portable from DVD (it will copy itself to hard
disk)
2) FF portable 3.06 behaved different from 3.05
When I upgraded FF portable from 3.05 to 3.06 (http://
portableapps.com/) even FF portable looked in the wrong folder! But FF
portable 3.05 still works correct.
In both cases the message of LaunchApplication is the same:
LaunchApplication executing 'H:\\Foto\i_view32.exe' \Foto\XYZ.jpg /
thumbs

Any idea to get it working correct?

Thanks,

Ton

> > > > > I'am struggling with theLaunchApplicationplugin v1.4 (TW v2.4.3).

>
> > > > > To be more specific, I want to start IrfanView with a photo displayed
> > > > > (IrfanView and photo in subfolder Foto).
> > > > > I succeeded in starting the executable itself (IrfanView), see 1)
>
> > > > > 1) <<LaunchApplication"IrfanView" "" "Foto/i_view32.exe">>
>
> > > > > This works with FireFox 3, Internet Explorer and the portable version
> > > > > of Firefox 3.
>
> > > > > I do have problems when passing arguments. I tried 2), 3) and 4)
>
> > > > > 2) <<LaunchApplication"Foto Kikker" "" "Foto/i_view32.exe" "Foto/
> > > > > 1957_Kikker_Raadhuisstraat.jpg">>
> > > > > 3) <<LaunchApplication"Foto Kikker" "" "Foto/i_view32.exe" "/Foto/
> > > > > 1957_Kikker_Raadhuisstraat.jpg">>
> > > > > 4) <<LaunchApplication"Foto Kikker" "" "/Foto/i_view32.exe" "\Foto
> > > > > \1957_Kikker_Raadhuisstraat.jpg">>
>
> > > > > 2) and 3) do not work at all; only 4) works with Internet Explorer and
> > > > > the portable version of Firefox 3, but not with standard FireFox 3.
>
> > > > > I tried Eric Shulman's CoreTweaks plugin for the FF issues, but that
> > > > > did not help either.
>

> > > > > To circumvent the arguments inLaunchApplicationI tried a few things:

> > > > > 1) I made a batch file that started IrfanView with a photo displayed.
> > > > > The batch file as such works, but calling the batch file with

> > > > >LaunchApplicationdoes not work.

[Morris Gray]

I've just tried these successfully since Paint Shop Pro is my default
image program. So there is no need for the executable in the code.

Firefox 3.05 - TW 2.4.3 - Vista

Here the code is on disk K: - picture on disk C: - Psp.exe on disk C:

<<LaunchApplicationLink "PSP" "Program relative to Tiddly html file"
"file:///C:\Pictures\Emily\emilypond.jpg">>

Here code is on disk K: with picture relative i.e. "K:\Pictures
\emilypond.JPG" - Psp.exe on disk C:

<<LaunchApplicationLink "PSP" "Program relative to Tiddly html file"
"../Pictures/emilypond.JPG">>

At all times the TW is file:///K:/TWNotes/twt-notes.html

The forward and back slashes are as shown.

Perhaps this will give you a clue.

Morris Gray
http://twhelp.tiddlyspot.com
A TiddlyWiki help file for beginners

[Morris Gray]

I might add it works equally as well on IE7

TWT-Notes is online with LaunchApplicationPlugin 1.4.0 installed.
http://twt-notes.tiddlyspot.com/

Morris Gray
http://twhelp.tiddlyspot.com

On Feb 24, 11:52 pm, Morris Gray <msg...@symbex.net.au> wrote:
> I've just tried these successfully since Paint Shop Pro is my default
> image program.  So there is no need for the executable in the code.
>
> Firefox 3.05 - TW 2.4.3 - Vista
>
> Here the code is on disk K: - picture on disk C: - Psp.exe on disk C:
>
> <<LaunchApplicationLink "PSP" "Program relative to Tiddly html file"
> "file:///C:\Pictures\Emily\emilypond.jpg">>
>
> Here code is on disk K: with picture relative i.e. "K:\Pictures
> \emilypond.JPG"  -  Psp.exe on disk C:
>
> <<LaunchApplicationLink "PSP" "Program relative to Tiddly html file"
> "../Pictures/emilypond.JPG">>
>
> At all times the TW is  file:///K:/TWNotes/twt-notes.html
>
> The forward and back slashes are as shown.
>
> Perhaps this will give you a clue.
>

> Morris Grayhttp://twhelp.tiddlyspot.com

[TonG]

Morris,

Thanks for thinking and coming up with an alternative.
Unfortunately I cannot use it. Let me explain:

I started gathering stories, photos, city maps etc about my birthplace
Amsterdam.
Till I found TW I put the stories in Word and made PDFs of it and
showed photos etc with IrfanView.
To distribute it to family and friends I made a CD with PStart (a menu
program especially made for portable software) as the main menu.
I do not know what programs they have installed, so I needed portable
freeware programs - on the CD - to show the stories as PDFs (with
Foxit reader), the photos (with IrfanView) etc.
This as such worked, but could be made better.

In the meantime I discovered TW and managed to get the stories and
photos (max height 400 px) in it.
I used tabs to show many photos in limited space.
Lateron I learned to enlarge the small photos by linking to larger
ones (thanks to your TW Help site Morris).
But there are a lot of photos and city maps that I did not use in my
TW but wanted to show.
I made slideshows in IrfanView (saved as exe file) and these can be
started with the PStart main menu.
To zoom in on a special photo or city map it was easy to start
IrfanView from the PStart main menu in thumbnail mode, so you can
select the photo/map you want to see and zoom in.

When I learned about the LaunchApplication plugin, I wanted to
exchange my PStart main menu by a TW main menu.
I got it working with the portable version of Firefox (v3.05) and it
just looks great (better than the PStart main menu).
I showed PDFs in iFrames, started slideshows and could even start
IrfanView in thumbnail mode.
But when I tried it with other browsers (Internet Explorer, non-
portable Firefox) I got the problems as mentioned before.
So I tried to use a portable version of Firefox on CD/DVD, but found
other problems (cannot be used directly on CD/DVD but will be copied
to hard disk and only my - special? - v3.05 works OK now).

It would be nice if I got the LaunchApplication plugin working with
different browsers, but if that is not possible I have to look for
alternative ways.
For the time being I use my (special) portable version of Firefox on
CD/DVD.
In the worst case I have to re-use my old PStart main menu (but if you
are used to the look and feel of the TW main menu ...).

Ton

On Feb 24, 2:03 pm, Morris Gray <msg...@symbex.net.au> wrote:
> I might add it works equally as well on IE7
>
> TWT-Notes is online with LaunchApplicationPlugin 1.4.0 installed.http://twt-notes.tiddlyspot.com/
>

> Morris Grayhttp://twhelp.tiddlyspot.com