Very basic walkthrough including installation and
highlight of main features. Please note that the
screenshots are not updated unless major changes take
place - version numbers are not considered major changes
;)
The
installation should be fairly self explanatory, it
should be noted that Transfz is set to automatically
add itself to your 'startup' folder - this options
may be toggled by going into the options interface
which is available through the tray icon (which is
always on when Transfz is running), the Global Menu
or the Start Menu of Windows.
If you chose to start Transfz at the end of the setup
you'll find that the only initially visible change
on the desktop is the addition of a extra icon in
the icon tray. You may place the mouse cursor on
this icon for a short interval to call forth basic
statistics on your usage of the program or simply
click it to open an application menu.
To
get started with Transfz Open Notepad and jot down a
few notes (or find a piece of latin that you just
had lying around for the purpose...). Select a piece
of text or a word (like "potenti." in image above)
and click the default Global Menu hotkey ctrl+d.
This will bring up the menu you see in screenshot
above. You can now click any of the standard enabled
search engines to instantly launch a search for the
selected word. This feature works in all
applications - including Firefox, Internet Explorer
and other browsers.
As
you may have noticed in the earlier screenshot the
Global Menu contains an array of the last copied
text bits. Whenever Transfz runs it keeps a updated
array of the text you copy - this allows you to copy
multiple items from one section of a document,
scroll to another and then insert them all. No more
unnecessary scrolling back and forth in documents,
and, even better, no more changing back and forth
between different applications to copy multiple sets
of data. Copy what you need, then change to the
location where you want to insert it. This feature
can of course also be used as a basic memory aid.
This sums up the walkthrough, of course you may adjust and
modify Transfz to suit your exact needs, the
Options
will be your key to get this done - most features should
be self-explanatory but a detailed explanation of the
options is available right here. Things not covered here
include the Direct Hotkeys and the Extensions,
both are features that can significantly aid the
power-user. Also see the
video
section for further input on basic use.
This topic is only meant for advanced users. If you
simply want to see whatever extensions are available
for Transfz please go to
Transfz Extensions. Extensions items are
written in the
AutoIt language. AutoIt is a powerful rapid
development language that allows for quick
implementation or advanced features that would take
weeks in say C++ or Java. A quick way to become
acquainted with how to write them is to open one of
the included extensions in Notepad (the included
extensions are all stored in plaintext although this
is not necessary):
As you can probably gather the AutoIt language itself is a
BASIC dialect, so if you have any prior experience
with this type of language the learning curve will be considerably
smoother. In order to write your own extensions you
should go to the
AutoIt forum
and get acquainted further with the language. If you
need a particular extension but can't write it
yourself feel free to visit the
Transfz
forum to ask for help on the matter (there are posts on
the forum outlining the basic of all the needed
materials for both basic and advanced extension
development). And lastly, the quickest way to get
something working is to hack something that already
works: copy some of the extensions already available
and start coding away.
The Options module can be accessed both through the
Global Menu's "Show/Hide Opt." link and also by double
clicking the Transfz tray icon. Even though it is by no
means necessary many may find it worth taking 30 seconds
to be become accustomed with the options since they
allow one to tweak Transfz to fit one's personal
preferences. Please note that the screenshots may not be
100% equal to the newest version of Transfz since new
features and fixes are still being applied liberally
during the beta phase of the program.
Features from top to bottom:
Startup
1. "Load Transfz auto..", places a shortcut in the
"Startup" folder thus ensuring that Transfz starts
automatically each time the computer is turned on.
2. "Use customly selected browser",
lets Transfz use a different browser than the system
default, examples could be Firefox or Opera.
3. "Browser state on search..", as a
default the system default browser opens up in the
foreground, 'on top' of the document/application
where the search was launched from from, this
setting allows the browser to open in the background
instead. Best feature if you want to keep reading a
document and then check the terms you searched for
later on.
Global Menu Appearance
4. "Enable
Clipboard..", this enables the clipboard
menu in the Global Menu, it can hold up to 30 of the
last copied items.
5. "Enable Extensions..", determines
whether Extensions (Micro Apps) is to be incl. in
the Global Menu
6. "Auto update", turns automatic
updating on/off and allows manual check for updates
Privacy
7. "Clearing
the Clipboard Menu list", [Clear Now] clears
away both Transfz clipb. list and whatever is held
in the one-item-Windows-clipboard. The [Clear on
Exit, xxx] option determines whether or not the list
will be cleared whenever Transfz is shut down - in
case you use Transfz in multi-user environments this
is definitely recommended in case personal data has
been handled by the app.
Language
8. "Interface
language..", allows you to switch the
language used in the Transfz modules, if you wish to
do a translation that has yet to be made please see
the language
translation post on the forum.
Transfz was written from the point of view that
quite a few of the most time saving and efficient
functions in browsers such and Internet Explorer and
Firefox (namely the capacity to search) are simply
not integrated enough with the overall OS for their
full potential to show. The same philosophy was
behind the decision to improve upon the clipboard
feature of windows itself alongside with the
extensions that allow advanced text manipulation,
the type of text manipulation would normally be
application bound - no longer.
In order to make sure that Transfz does not become
overly complicated from a user standpoint the
following design decisions have been made:
A) The user graphical user interface (GUI)
decisions. Transfz is shipped with a conservative
amount of features enabled and the Options GUI
itself is actually novel in the way that is does not
allow you to 'overconfigure' everything to death (we
have all seen the effects of this phenomena in most
larger Office software packages and it is not good).
The features of the Options panel are simple and can
quickly adjust and enable/disable the features of
Transfz without you having a degree in software
engineering.
B) The technical decisions. Transfz is build as
a modular application not only from a user
standpoint but also from the technical perspective:
Options, About and Help modules are separated from
the main program which means that the GUI and
graphics made use of does not take up system
resources, lending itself to a fast experience of
Transfz as an integrated utility. The basic idea
here is to ultimately NOT notice the program once
you have become acquainted with its main features.
C) Up until and including version 1.10 the
individual modules was compiled as separate exe
files, this strategy has been abandoned since the
install size and code-reuse ultimately suffered from
it. On the other hand the modularity has been
maintained through the use of individual launch
processes for each of the 4 modules
(about/options/hook and main program).
(trees) planted on its account!
