LuXr - a tool for windows power users

[PeterT]

I just released the first public version of LuXr, my plugin-based keyboard "do stuff" tool for Windows (XP/2000/probably Vista) power users.

Currently, it's mostly for people like me who don't want to hunt in their 200 entry start menu each time they need to launch an app. With LuXr, to launch firefox for example, I do "Alt-X" fir [enter], taking all of 1 second. The app is very extensible with plugins, so it could do much more.

Anyway, I thought there may be some people here at B3D interested in something like this.
Try it, the download is just about 60 kiB.

 

[repi]

Sounds pretty interesting. I have a way too long quick-launch menu with the ~30 most common programs and commands I use daily and this sounds like a more efficient way to access them.

Will check it out.

 

[ANova]

Kind of reminds me of Quicksilver for OSX.

 

[3dcgi]

PeterT, have you heard of SlickRun? It has a similar goal to your program. I use it all the time.
http://www.bayden.com/slickrun/

 

[Farid]

Great

Sounds kind of neat.

 

[PeterT]

PeterT, have you heard of SlickRun? It has a similar goal to your program. I use it all the time.
http://www.bayden.com/slickrun/

I hadn't heard of it, but as their website doesn't offer screenshots I'm not motivated enough to get it.
Also, the LuXr site (and even the name!) is wayyyyy more Web2.0

It sounds like you have to define your own keywords before using them with their app. Mine actually traverses various locations and adds them to the list, and then lets you choose the one you want by any unique character combination. E.g., if you have OpenOffice Calc installed and you use my program, "op ca" or "ff al" or .... will all work to launch OO Calc. The results that are currently possible are displayed so you don't have to guess. See the screenshots on the page for a more visual overview of the process.

 

[3dcgi]

SlickRun is just a text box so there's not really much of an interface. I always thought it would be nice if SlickRun could automatically figure out what program I wanted to load so it sounds like LuXr has a leg up on it here.

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

Nice!

A couple of points though. It seems to be quite slow, even with the eyecandy turned off I seem to get ellipses that pulse when I type.

The app looks to be a bit of a CPU hog.
When it is first started it is fine, but If I do alt-x and some typing and then pres esc then it's CPU load seems to go up as other things use the CPU. I would suspect something in the message handling maybe?

I guess you are using a system wide message hook? Are you perhaps installing the hook repeatedly rather than once at the start of the app?

How do you use the Javascipt evaluator plugin?

CC

 

[Tokelil]

How do you use the Javascipt evaluator plugin?

As shown in the screenshot on the site, just write for example "e 127%8" and it will write 7.

@PeterT: Nice idea and something that I think Id use. (Using a program named hiddenmenu most of the time atm. for program launch)
There seems to be some problems with it though.
As CC wrote it seems to take up all the cpu resources when the it is open. (for example writing alt+x and then li) Looking in the task manager it shows that 0% cpu is used though for LuXr, but the display on my media player (Quinntessential Media Player) freezes and it only updated rarely when LuXr is on screen.

Also writing a name it doesn't know and pressing enter crashes the application.

Edit: Seems a bit high on the memory consumtion also IMO. Using 25MB atm. and have used 1.13min of cpu time while it has been running for like 10mins. (Compared to my Miranda IM that has been running for 4+ hours, has alpha blended contact list etc. which has used 50sec)

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

As shown in the screenshot on the site, just write for example "e 127%8" and it will write 7.
Doh.
I thought I had tried doing something like that, but obviously not!

Definatly a good concept, if the CPU load issue gets solved then it will probably be put onto my machine.
Also a good excuse for me to play around with C#

 

[Rys]

Same here. It uses about 10% CPU constantly for me, which I'm not too enamoured with, despite its obvious usefulness. However if that's the minimum you can get out of it then I'll still likely use it, cool tool.

 

[Tokelil]

Seems really heavy when typing. (probably the eyecandy thing showing, though it is disabled in the configuration) Actually makes my media player skip. (Which I can't remember I have experienced with any other programs)

I hope you can fix some of these issues, since it's a nice idea IMO. (Esp. for programs I dont use that often, it makes it really easy to launch them.)

 

[PeterT]

Please specify whether you are talking about it being open or closed when describing cpu load. It is "designed to" hog cpu when open, as - at least in my use cases - I only have it open for a very short time to do what I need it to as fast as possible. When closed, it should never ever consume any CPU, or something is seriously wrong.

RAM usage (when closed) is a main issue with me as well. Currently, on my system, it uses 20 MB when closed. However, actually, that's not the "real" usage but just the VM usage - that's also why it's hard to reduce. Sorry for the vague explanation... I'll try my best to reduce (closed) RAM load in future releases.

Also, if you have performance problems, please describe your system, especially your graphics card. It seems like there is some huge difference in some windows 2D subsystem somewhere between ATI and NV drivers. Case in point: on my old 9700 I had ~50% cpu usage when open with standard eyecandy. On my new 6800GS I get about 5%. As it's really really simple work for both of these cards my guess would be that the NV drivers accelerate some Windows API call that the ATI ones don't.

Anyway, CPU usage when it's open is ok according to my goals as long as it's below 100%. Except if any of you can tell me a good reason to reduce it (again, when it's open). If many people really want to keep it open for long and multitask at the same time (though I don't see why and how that would be possible) I may make an ultra-light version that uses ordinary windows - but it will go against the first principle behind the program so I'd rather not

Some specific things:

Also writing a name it doesn't know and pressing enter crashes the application.

Thanks, will be fixed, never even tried that

Compared to my Miranda IM that has been running for 4+ hours, has alpha blended contact list etc. which has used 50sec

Of course Miranda is far more effeciently programmed, but it is really unfair to compare it's alpha-blending to the uber haxx () done by LuXr. MI (which I also use) just tells windows it wants it's whole window with some level of alpha. that's obviously not what LuXr does...

... even with the eyecandy turned off I seem to get ellipses that pulse when I type.

Another bug, that checkbox doesn't work. For now you can set the ellipse frequency to 100 (yeah, it's actually a kind of reciprocal of the frequency, but whatever ). Will be fixed in the next version.


Thanks for all the feedback! I really appreciate it. If any of you come up with a plugin (simple ones are really easy - see the source for "e" or "g") please tell me!

[edit]One last thing: If someone releases a plugin somewhere (as unlikely as that may be), and you don't trust the source, either look at the code or tell me to, plugins can do everything. Yes, that includes formatting your harddisk after sending your identity details to some scammer.

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

The CPU usage issue I am seeing when LuXr is closed.

Some steps to reproduce (not the only way I can produce the issue, but should be easily duplicatable).
Run luxr.
Alt-x
type in any rubbish
press escape (to close the luxr window)
open the start menu

The CPU for luxr goes up to ~25% on my machine. Interestingly invoking luxr again with Alt x and escaping will drop the load again until I do something like open the start menu etc.


My machine is an 2.8Ghz P4 with 512MB Ram running Windows XP SP2.
Graphics card is a Radeon 9600SE with 128MB.

One plugin that springs to mind is one to access a special folder of scripts/shortcuts. This would allow an easy user customization method without them having the need to know C#

Another would be to search the destkop and My Documents folders for documents and launch them with the appropriate application.

CC

 

[PeterT]

Ok, I just found a method to view the real RAM usage, which is about 1.5 MB when closed and 5 MB when open. I don't think I'll worry about it any longer and instead just add an item to the FAQ
Please just believe me when I say that as soon as you actually need your memory, LuXr will release all but less than 2 MB of it. Or check it yourself using perfmon if you're the suspicious type...

The CPU usage when closed is extremely strange. No system should ever show anything there because it just doesn't do anything...

 

[Tokelil]

Yes CPU usage is when it is closed. Right now when typing this it uses between 10 and 20%! (Seems like CCs trick with alt+x and esc it brought it down to 0% again though...) This is on my laptop, so it isn't running full speed atm., but's it a P-M 1.73 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 6600 mobile...

Dont mind it taking CPU power when open (as you said the whole point is for it to be fast) though I do mind if it makes my music etc. skip. Im not really running a light theme on this PC in any case.

About the comparing it to Miranda, Im not using the default playlist but clist_modern fully skinned with alphablending in the skin and avatars displayed etc. So probably also quite heavy on the drawing code Id imagine.

Anyway, as said I like the idea. Also CC idea about a d() plug-in seaching in documents folder would be quite cool. Also a p() to seach though ones programs and launching visual studio with the project would be cool

 

[PeterT]

Really really strange...
I followed the instructions exactly, but I cannot reproduce the CPU-usage-when-closed bug. I can't even get one single percent

Can you post some very precise instructions if it's not too much effort? I really want to get to the source of this.

Btw, I found a way (and by "way" I mean "way ugly hack") to make the task manager show a more reasonable value (still not perfect):

Good enough?

 

[Rys]

Definitely sits there using 10-20% for me, even while 'closed', and that's with any level of eyecandy on or off.

System specs:

Athlon 64 FX-60 (dual-core, no overclock), 2GiB, Windows XP Pro x64, 84.25 Forceware and 7800 GTX.

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

Really really strange...
I followed the instructions exactly, but I cannot reproduce the CPU-usage-when-closed bug. I can't even get one single percent

Can you post some very precise instructions if it's not too much effort? I really want to get to the source of this.

Btw, I found a way to make the task manager show a more reasonable value (still not perfect):

Good enough?

Well the instructions I gave were as explicit as I could get.
From reboot:
press ctrl-shift-esc to bring up perfomance monitor
Run luxr.
Press alt-x
type in characters alskdajls
press esc
click on start button.

performance monitor will show luxr shoot up to higher cpu load.

I am at home know and have just tried on my laptop, the behaviour is slightly different. On my laptop when I open the start menu the luxr cpu load goes upto 50%, but it drops back down to 0% when I close the start menu, on my work machine it does not drop down until I do the alt-x esc thing.

If you release a build with debug messages in then I can run with debugview running, and we would be able to get an idea of what is going on.


CC

 

[PeterT]

All your systems suck! Even my lowly old AXP 1700+ shows 0%.

But seriously, I'm dumbfounded by this... can anyone tell me the exact steps when it happens, compared to the exact steps to when it does not happen?

[edit] Thanks, didn't see the above before posting. Was replying to Rys.
[edit2] Just tried it, nothing. Zero. Nada.