Giraffe+ Manual

This document describs concisely easy usage of Giraffe+ with default settings.
The input string is represented as String, and the keyboard shortcuts are represented as Key.

To view the list of scripts which are available in the Settings Dialog, refer to settings_en.xml.
To know basic software information which contains the working environment or requirements, refer to the readme.

When you want to ask anything about Giraffe+, feel free to email me.

Tutorial

You will understand the basic functions and operations through this tutorial.

Registering Internet Explorer and use the registerd item

You learn how to input a file path and to deal the registered items.

Making a Google-search hotkey with the Settings Dialog

You learn the Settings Dialog, the hotkey and polymorphism of Giraffe+.

Showing the readme in the Listbox of Giraffe+

You learn how to read a text file with Giraffe+.

Converting hexadecimal to decimal, decimal to binary and binary to hexadecimal back

You learn the base number conversion of the main menu.

Creating a file and a folder, and copying and deleting them

You learn how to manipulate files.

Keyboard Shortcut

Those are the basic keyboard shortcuts. You can find more keys in the settings_en.xml.

Drag and Drop

You can use the both Drang and Drop from and to Giraffe+.

Settings Dialog

About the dialog which is shown by F5.

Unsorted Information

Information in old documents which is, though worth noting, hard to explain concisely and to get across easily is left here.

List Item Marking

It is possible to execute multiple items with marking Listbox items.

Alt+M marks/unmarks the selected Listbox item, and Alt+Shift+M marks/unmarks all items. Shfit+Up/Down can mark and Ctrl+Shfit+Up/Down can unmark as selecting.

For example, marking with Alt+Shift+M and executing properties with Alt+Enter, the same effect as Alt+Enter with multiple selecting in the Windows Explroer occurs.

When multiple items are marked, Ctrl+P copies the marked files separated by a new line into the clipboard, and Alt+A acts as dropping multiple files.

ShellExecute

In Windows, the file execution consists of five elements.

  1. File which is executed
  2. Parameter
  3. Working Directory
  4. Verb
  5. Window State

In Giraffe+, the string separated by ';' (semicolon) is used to specify those elements. Specify the elements in the above order as file;parameter;working directory;verb;show window.

When the file which is executed is the registered item, the parameter is added to the parameter of the registered item with space. Except parameter, elements are simply overwritten if specified.

What is the verb? It is menu items which shows when right clicking a file in the Windows Explroer. There are standard ones which are provided by Windows and associations which are registered in the registory. The copy, paste, properties etc. are the Windows standard. The open, edit, print etc. are the associations by the Windows default. The verb names are key names listed in "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\[file extention]\shell".

The windows state is specified as number: 1 is normal, 3 is maximized and 7 is minimized.

Shell Namespace

The virtual space of Windows whose root is the desktop you can see in Explorer or file dialogs is the Shell Namespace. There are some folders which don't exist in the file system such as My Computer and Control Panel.

In Giraffe+, strings which start with "::\" is called as Display ITEMIDLIST, and strings start with "::-" is called as Numeric ITEMIDLIST. Addresses of the Shell Namespace item are represented by them.

Display ITEMIDLIST doesn't works completely when a file or folder name contains '\', which is used as the separator, or the same name items exist in the same foler. Numeric ITEMIDLIST works completely because it represents ITEMIDLISTs, which are arrays of bytes, as numbers separated by '-'.

For example, say you want to access Control Panel. Inputting '::\', items in the desktop are autocompleted, so you can access Control Panel as with Windows Explorer. You can also access Control Panel with only typing some characters of "Control Panel" and '\' if you register the Control Panel with Alt+A.

SES

When registering an item, an registered shortcut will be a SES file, which is a shortcut file represented as a INI file, if you make Type ".ses". When you want to specify the verb in a shortcut file or feel that it is slow to read LNK files, using SES files is worth trying.

Adding the string CreateShortcut.Type="ses" to [Shell] section in Giraffe.ini, the default value of Type in the dialog which is shown by Alt+A is ".ses".

Script in Data

You can put scripts in the registered items directory. For example, make a script which searchs the parameter with Google. Save the below four lines as Google.giraffe in .\Data.

      (Search with Google)
      (google.ico)
      include((www))
      Shell.Execute(cat((http://www.google.com/search?q=)www:url-encode(param(0))))

The first line is the description of the script. The second line is the name of an icon which shows as a registered item. The third line is the include to use www:url-encode in the forth line. The forth line does shell-execution (Shell.Execute) the URL which are made by concatenating (cat) the URL of Google and the first argument (pram(0)) which is url-encoded (www:url-encode.)

Though you have to put the icon in .\Icon as google.ico with downloading from http://www.google.com/favicon.ico, you can accomplish this work automatically with the script included in Giraffe+. Input @download-google-icon and type F1 to use the script.

Because it is possible to specify an icon as URL, such a work isn't necessary if you do so.

Settings and Settings Dialog


Website: http://www.ric.hi-ho.ne.jp/giraffe/index_en.shtml
Blog (Japanese): http://d.hatena.ne.jp/ijuhs/
Mail: shu@freemail.lt