Repository Applications Update Information

Discussion in 'Misc Discussion' started by Glenn, May 17, 2015.

  1. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    I don't anticipate the fork to wander very far from Notepad2-mod. Mainly I was looking into making it a ppApp for myself so I can use some other settings and maybe get away with it :) but I didn't want it to be less practical hence the font question. Notepad3 takes the Notepad2-mod .ini file for settings (when renamed). I found this out some months ago but hadn't gotten around to ppAppafying it yet. Also, I think it requires at least VC Runtime 2015/17 to be installed but I think the .dll's can be included in the program dir. Notepad2-mod is definitely the mainstay here, this one is just extra (and prettier) :D Too bad Notepad won't allow you to set .5 font points because the sweet spot for most (system) fonts I like lies right between 10 and 11. Also, when applying fonts, you have to either apply it twice or restart the app for it to go into effect.
     
  2. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    I think we still have the MSO 2003 portable in the repo (25mb :D ) as well as 2007. I have to agree with you about that for the most part. Plus the insane install size even if you only want to install Word (1.5gb or something because of all the extra crap). However, the formats did get upgraded since 2007 and beyond, with OpenXML as the basis. They are basically zipped files with more error/corruption protection. SoftMaker has been working on getting OpenXML (and older formats) down for many years now and they are the best at that in my opinion. Atlantis' .docx support is also good but feature-limited -- but if you make simpler documents it doesn't matter.
     
  3. The Freezer

    The Freezer Just this guy, you know Staff Member

    Yeah, I've been using Glenn's repack for years now (but about 10 times that size, 256MB). Strange, I've not had any issues with MSO docs and spreadsheets being sent to me (or downloaded) from others using later editions (2013ish, I think). Either they had the foresight to save it in the older format, or Glenn had included a converter/addon from Microsoft that could open those newer formats. A service pack, maybe? The one I have is SP3 so I'm not sure.

    In any case, most output their "work" to PDF these days, which is easily readable by just about any device. Plus, they're read-only (no altering or messing up the document). For editable collaboration documents/spreadsheets, I think most use Google Docs now which MSO2003 has no trouble with either (in downloading or uploading) -- do those convert on-the-fly, or something? Again, I'm not sure.

    MSO2003 just works.
     
  4. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    Yes, there's a conversion filter they offered later on that allows opening openxml documents so that is probably part of the repack you have. I remember the 256mb one and a 120mb one that were ssApps, and then the portables came later.

    I'll always have a soft spot for MSO 2003 because it and Office XP were the main programs I used when I started amassing documents. When tablets came on the scene the shift toward PDF really happened in me, especially because most books I would get were PDF already and a properly configured PDF is much easier to read than a doc. Converting PDF to a doc is still as painful as always (break in each line) so they usually just stay PDFs :) Between Nitro PDF and ABBYY Finereader I can get most things done to PDFs if required. I mostly have actual book-scans to PDF (not doc to pdf) so it is a bit more challenging to do anything to those if something is not right.

    My wife had a student who was having trouble saving her Google Docs document to a doc/docx and submitting it. The student has a Chromebook and in Google Docs there isn't even a "save" I don't think. Anyway, she ended up having to "download" the file, which is like export and then you can choose the format in which you want to save it to a drive. Can be confusing to some, especially perhaps when using Chromebooks. When you're on a PC that has Office installed and you use Google Docs it can open directly in Office, but I think it does the same thing as the download option but behind the scenes, so yes, it converts automatically and opens in Office.
     
  5. The Freezer

    The Freezer Just this guy, you know Staff Member

    My biggest hassle with PDF is copying text to the clipboard. There's usually intermittent breaks (spaces) scattered between letters which one has to remove manually in Notepad before pasting elsewhere -- I mean, you might as well just retype the damn thing (if you're a fast enough typist). :what:

    For Android, I've been using Xodo. It's like Foxit (it has tabs!). Plus, it can edit them -- limited to annotations, notes, highlighting/underlining, even signatures -- and save those edits. It's especially useful when I'm out in the field. No more printing out paperwork like instructions, specs, diagrams, etc. And using Bittorrent Sync (Resilio now) those'll be updated on my desktop/notebook by the time I get home including any pictures I take. BT Sync is the only app I can find right now that works on both Android & Windows -- even on my XP/2003 machines (those have to use an older version, but so far, still "recognized" & syncing with the newer versions)
     
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  6. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    I don't think I tried Xodo. For readers I tend to go between Adobe Reader and Moon Reader (I have a license for the latter). Moon reader allows you to set the background to black so if you're reading at night and you invert a PDF and it won't fit the screen exactly, it is pretty easy on the eyes. Otherwise it has a lot of features, probably too many :) Adobe Reader won't allow you to set the background color and its default background is grey, meaning you may have grey borders on the sides or top/bottom. One thing I did find is that Adobe Reader is very fast doing word-searches inside PDF's (as long as the PDF is OCR'd already). I found this 2 volume book online that I also have physically and it totals over 1200 pages. Even then, AR searches inside very quickly so I thought that was impressive for use on a tablet/phone. Kind of cool, even the best book index may miss some mentions of a word, but with direct word search in digital documents you can now be sure to get every hit (provided the OCR scan is accurate).

    One thing I know for sure: there are a lot of bad PDF and/or eBook readers on the Android platform.
     
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  7. Glenn

    Glenn Administrator Staff Member

    - Response to Trouba's Notepad3 font question -

    Ok the reason I went with Consolas is it is a mono spaced font (meaning all letters/number and symbols are the same width), this lets me see Ascii Art, work on hex easily and other things like that, it also allows me to follow if/then and loop statements in AutoIt, Basic and other coding languages . As Notepad 2 is more about working with code and ini's than reading large amounts of text, I felt it was more important to have a fixed width font. Consolas isn't really very different to Tahoma. Trebuchet is very bold looking for me, but if you really need a change, I can see if I can find a more suitable fixed width font we both like?
     
  8. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    Sure, as I often use Notepad for text rather than code :D I was trying to keep it with system-included fonts for better compatibility, but then again a font could be installed along with the pp/ssApp, so I guess there are a lot of options, then. You don't have to spend time on this unless you want to (of course) though I do wonder what you would come up with :)
     
  9. Glenn

    Glenn Administrator Staff Member

    I reduced down from 8 choices to this one, I have attached the other 7 so you can see what I am after, the close 2nd was "Hack" but it seamed a little taller than I wanted - although it has the lined 0 instead of the dotted one, so was very close.

    These are just suggestions, but please consider using a semi crisp (not sharp tho so can scale down still) font with an above average darkness (doesn't go washed out at size 12 or 10), fixed width of coarse and able to differentiate 1 I i L l o O 0 Q and other hard to read letters/numbers.

    -EDIT-

    All the fonts I picked apart from "Hack" and "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono"were washed out at size 10 in notepad2. in my tests, so it is hard to find the perfect font.

    I still like Consolas but I can see how you may like a fuller font as it is quite condensed, funny thing is "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono" is more readable at size 5 than Consolas was :)
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Dec 14, 2017
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  10. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    It's tough, isn't it? I like the Vera font, though at 11 it is a bit too big, and at 10 a bit compressed. I like the Anonymous Pro font a lot, but it's too thin... Same with Camingo.

    I see what you mean with Hack at 10.

    It's like, WTF (what the font).
     
  11. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    I think I'll abandon Notepad3 for now. It seems like it won't hold on to set font sizes. For example: I open Notepad3 (from ppApp install) and it opens on 10pt Hack font. I save a short text file with it. I then open the txt file and the font in there is suddenly 12 pt. So I think it has a ways to go.
     
  12. bphlpt

    bphlpt A lowly staff member Staff Member

    Hey T,

    In addition to a couple of comments of my own about preferring the Notepad2-mod visual style and believing that it might be better if Notepad3 could maintain XP compatability, I mentioned over at MSFN that you had the following comments/issues with Notepad3: (paraphrased from above)

    and it was suggested that you open a new "issue" here to see if they might be able to be addressed. I'll do the same regarding my own comments. If nothing else, Notepad3 seems to be being actively developed with frequent updates. Who knows? It might end up to be a worthy successor to Notepad2 and Notepad2-mod after all. :)
     
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  13. zdevilinside

    zdevilinside Active Member

    I just wanted to thank you all for the hard work you have put into making this a reality. I have found this site to more informative than SiTP. The only thing I miss from SiTP now is Sop's builds but they hadn't done one in quite some time.
     
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  14. The Freezer

    The Freezer Just this guy, you know Staff Member

    Actually, I tested it on Windows 2003 and Notepad3 doesn't run on it either. So I'm guessing it's NT6 compatible only. :(

    Though I am seeing a lot of Vista compatibility drop-offs lately.
     
  15. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    Thanks, BP, I'll check the app out again one of these days. I have so many irons in the fire right now that the idea of opening an issue is overwhelming me :D

    I had been running Win10 on my main PC for a good 4 or more months but I started yearning for a real OS so I am currently updating my saved sysprep VM of Win7 that was mostly updated already from January. This build will include the CPU-related patches which might prove interesting. I mention this because this is why I thought I'd check on LastOS.org, doing some PC stuff and all..

    EDIT: Wow, I cannot believe this. Microsoft is not offering 1 update since I last updated the VM on January 24th. I'm both glad and worried :confused: I will say I have a knack for updating my images the very day before Patch Tuesday so that is probably the case again...
     
  16. The Freezer

    The Freezer Just this guy, you know Staff Member

    Microsoft doesn't want you to use a real OS... They'd rather you stick with their "Fisher-Price" OS ;)
     
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  17. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    True dat... I was reading up on the Spectra and Meltdown patches and problems. Some time in January MS came out with some statements about performance impacts on various types of hardware and OS combinations. Of course, in classic MS style they disparaged the terribly old Win7 as probably getting the biggest performance hit of all, therefore it would be best to upgrade to Win10 :) It would be even better to upgrade your hardware AND install Win10 (not that you would have much choice on newer hardware) -- so they didn't forget about their hardware partners..

    Anyway, remember when Microsoft pushed Win10 upgrade reminders onto us? Someone created the "Never10" utility in response to that, so you could disable Win10 update reminders and such. That same person now has made a utility, InSpectre, that allows you to disable/enable the Spectre and Meltdown patches (if you've installed them) or otherwise can check a system for the presence of those patches (or firmware updates, whatever the case may be). The utility is here: https://www.grc.com/inspectre.htm

    MS further stated that the Win7 era OS's would probably get affected by performance hits especially where it comes to server-related things, recommending that in those cases a company or organization would have to weigh the performance loss of running the patches vs the security risk of not running them. Which to me, a consumer, sounds a bit like you might as well disable those patches on PC's run by power users that know what they're doing.

    In the VM for sysprep I had installed the patches but ran InSpectre to disable them (only one was not greyed out). I may have to disable the other patch on a live install because running it in VM would only be relative to the VM 'hardware" but then the registry disable that the utility effects would/should hold after sysprep. In fact, I might set all to disabled via manual reg tweaks just in case before capture. This way they can always be enabled on any resulting live install simply by running InSpectre (or a reg tweak). I think I like that idea better than having those patches slow everything down for a questionable risk.

    EDIT: This seems like a pretty comprehensive article about Spectre & Meltdown: https://blog.barkly.com/meltdown-spectre-patches-list-windows-update-help
     
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  18. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    So I decided not to integrate MS' patches/fixes into my image because they were only intended to fix Intel's initial, faulty microcode (causing black screens and inability to boot, etc.). The latter got out first so MS had to fix it through patches. I installed the patches manually at first but in reality the available patches currently offered are from Skylake CPU's on only and wouldn't affect my hardware anyway -- plus it is probably early and more developments may come. This means that Broadwell, Haswell, Sandy, etc., are completely unprotected now. Unacceptable, really. Do you think Intel will make good on their screw up? Or will they merely recommend "upgrading" your platform and OS? Asking untold-billions-Intel to make good on this is like asking the GOP to look into Russian election meddling. MS now has a gift from the gods to get even more people away from Windows 7 and Server. Coincidence? Not so sure. Rex Tillerson called out Russia in a tweet about performing a nerve-gas attack in England (in 2018...) and hours later Trump fired him. Yeah. Why bring up Russia in a CPU post? Think about where the exploits will be manufactured. I'll wait :)
     
  19. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    OK, this is not prejudice, there is *something* about the Win7 UI that is much more fluid than Win10's. I literally breeze through windows and menus, I don't miss-click, it is smooth. It is not like watching Pinocchio dance.

    BP, I went back to the standard Win7 boot.wim and is all is working well. No install.esd but it's fine.

    I got back to Win7 a bit earlier than I intended. I was organizing my desktop stuff first, but my drive order was a bit messed up so I wanted to change drive letters. Microsoft in its infinite wisdom put the context menu for "Set partition as active" right above the "Change drive letter" entry -- of like 10 other menu items that are much less lethal. I miss-clicked (telling you, Win10 is off) and set another drive to active. However, MS' tool doesn't have the ability to undo this. This was last night, so in the morning I booted up to nothing. Even though both drives were set to active, the one with boot files would not boot (because that is cool). So I ended up dragging files in a LivePE from my Win7 build folder to USB so I could even install... Now peace has settled over the land and seven suns gladden my countenance... :D

    Freezer, your sig, today
     
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  20. billybob62

    billybob62 Member

    Yea after repeated tries of installing a few versions of windows 10 and having the unstable IU i have decided to stay with windows 7 so much smoother.
     
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  21. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    No doubt! Microsoft put a lot of study and effort into creating the Vista/Win7 UI, and I'm afraid much of it got lost with Win10.
     
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  22. The Freezer

    The Freezer Just this guy, you know Staff Member

    Yeah, I was really bummed and saddened yesterday; but almost how poetic that not only was it Pi-day too but also Einstein's birthday. :cool:

    einstein-pi.jpg
     
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  23. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    I am leaving PicPick v4.2.8 in the repo, alongside the revamped v5.x version. The reason is, v4 is better and better for Win7. As always, everything infected with the Win10 crap programming virus runs worse and slower, the UI is slower, etc. Perhaps I should rename it to "PicPick_v4.2.8_Win7_ppApp.apz" or something, to avoid it disappearing into the archive folder.
     
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  24. The Freezer

    The Freezer Just this guy, you know Staff Member

    And perhaps "PicPIck_v5_Win10_ppApp.apz"?

    Regarding our naming conventions (and with ssEditor somewhat), I was never too sure myself how we should deal with situations like that where the older version was better or superior to the newer version(s). For example, AIMP or uTorrent, etc. It's not exactly like setting the SetupS flags to run only on newer versions of Windows or an x64 Arch. For example, any Firefox after v52 should be marked Win7 or greater (which can easily be done with ssEditor).

    But PicPick v5 arguably still works okay in Win7 ... :emoji_thinking:

    --EDIT: Surprisingly it works on all Windows versions (Microsoft Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista and XP including both 32-bit and 64-bit versions).

    This is not exactly the trend lately with developers dropping both XP AND Vista. I understand XP -- it's NT5 -- but Vista is NT6 just like Win7 (which are very much similar to each other).
     
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  25. Trouba

    Trouba Administrator Staff Member

    I propose the naming convention "oldisgood" and "newisbad" :D

    Yes, v5 does work on Win7, but XP really surprises me. I agree about the Vista thing; in fact I think they artificially exclude it.
     

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