4 ms·

> Do you know typing "torrent" in the start menu doesn't find "qbittorrent"? In 2022. It sums it all. It's even worse. I want to open Notepad++ and begin to ty

by foepys 4y ago

> Do you know typing "torrent" in the start menu doesn't find "qbittorrent"? In 2022. It sums it all. It's even worse. I want to open Notepad++ and begin to type N -> notepad.exe No -> notepad.exe Not -> Notepad++ Note -> notepad.exe Notep -> Notepad++ Notepa -> Notepad++ Notepad -> notepad.exe The times I actually wanted to open notepad.exe is exactly 0 but the stupid algorithm sees me mistakenly opening notepad.exe because of the aforementioned stupid algorithm and recommends it even more often. It's like it's designed to create the most annoying search experience possible.

aeharding 4y ago
Ugh, Apple is guilty of this too in spotlight search. Actually worse, because it randomly changes after maybe 500ms, randomly, after typing a character, sometimes. N -> OneNote.app -> Then (maybe) quickly changes to Notes No -> Notes.app -> Then (maybe) changes to OneNote Not -> OneNote.app Note -> Notes.app etc
- dmitriid 4y ago
  That one is at least malleable. Suffer through invalid suggestions, wait, select the one you need, and after 10 or so attempts it finally learns that you always want that particular app as your first choice. At least that's how it was before. I wouldn't be surprised if they broke it.
- climb_stealth 4y ago
  I'd say the way around it is to install Alfred [0] and be done with it. Just have to disable the web search option. Because no, I did not want to open a browser and search for "norepad", I just fat fingered it. Luckily once disabled it works just right. [0] https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/
- ayewo 4y ago
  There's also Raycast [1], which is a f-r-e-e VC-funded alternative to Alfred that was mentioned by a sibling comment. 1: https://www.raycast.com/ https://www.raycast.com/
rhdunn 4y ago
I think that's down to the way it has remembered/saved your search as I get a similar behaviour with "Camera" and "Turn off camera access systemwide" -- "c", "ca", and "came" suggest the Camera app and "cam", "camer", and "camera" suggest the system setting. I use both of these, and it looks like Windows has remembered I select one or the other at a given point, so is saving that suggestion. It also likely has built in associations for the default applications (notepad, camera, etc.) that you've overridden by selecting notepad++ at those points. If you select/locate notepad++ at the other positions, I wonder if it will start suggesting that instead.
thereisnospork 4y ago
It's also slow[0], or not properly cached. Half the time I bang out 'c-m-d-<enter>' to open a command prompt and I either get nothing or a program that doesn't contain any of 'c' 'm' or 'd' in its name. Which is aggravating because the 'Win then type the first 3ish letters of the program you want then hit enter to open it' workflow is so good[0] but MS makes it hard to be smooth and repeatable with it. [0]Honestly how? I have 32GB of ram, the name and directory of every program I've ever run probably fits in 100kB. You could even presort the list by the first two possible letters (26^2) at a tolerable memory usage. [1]To my tastes anyway.
- Akronymus 4y ago
  "everything" by voidtools could be to your liking.
jrockway 4y ago
At least you guys have software conflicts. I try to run "runemacs.exe" (I have no idea how you're supposed to run Emacs on Windows, but that's what I do), and it's: R -> "R, the project for statistical computing" (fair I suppose) Ru -> Run (what is "run"? It's that little dialog box from Windows 3.1 where you can type in an executable to run) Run -> Run Rune -> RuneScape (not something I have installed) Runem -> Some Hearthstone game file Runemac -> Search results for "run amok". Runemacs -> Hey the thing!
- ygra 4y ago
  It gets a lot better when you turn of web searches for the start menu search. Perhaps some people like having a single place to search for applications to run, documents on their PC, and things on the web. But I'm not one of them, and it slows down the search as well.
- alexvoda 4y ago
  Apparently Powertoys Run does all of this correctly. It's also made by MS and its a QuickSilver/Alfred/KRunnrr/etc. style launcer. This makes it even more inexcusable for the default Windows behaviour to be stupid.
- ringer 4y ago
  > Ru -> Run (what is "run"? It's that little dialog box from Windows 3.1 where you can type in an executable to run) This is the best. It opens immediately, no animations, ads, etc. I have a .bin folder in my home dir with full off shortcuts, this folder added to the $PATH so I just need to type my shortcuts to open any app.
  - moogly 4y ago
    Solid protip. Been doing the same since Windows 98.
    - Timwi 4y ago
      Same here, and it baffles me how people don't immediately want this when they see it on my screen.
graftak 4y ago
I had the same dance with Google search for a while with their top result for “tsplayground”.
pklo 4y ago
Can you just replace notepad.exe with a link to notepad++?
hyperman1 4y ago
The notepad++ wiki has a trick for replacing notepad with np++. It basically installs np++ as a debugger for np. I would be completely happy if my win10 stopped deciding I really want to search the word notepad on the internet with edge/bing

by foepys 4y ago

aeharding 4y ago

Ugh, Apple is guilty of this too in spotlight search. Actually worse, because it randomly changes after maybe 500ms, randomly, after typing a character, sometimes. N -> OneNote.app -> Then (maybe) quickly changes to Notes No -> Notes.app -> Then (maybe) changes to OneNote Not -> OneNote.app Note -> Notes.app etc

dmitriid 4y ago
That one is at least malleable. Suffer through invalid suggestions, wait, select the one you need, and after 10 or so attempts it finally learns that you always want that particular app as your first choice. At least that's how it was before. I wouldn't be surprised if they broke it.
climb_stealth 4y ago
I'd say the way around it is to install Alfred [0] and be done with it. Just have to disable the web search option. Because no, I did not want to open a browser and search for "norepad", I just fat fingered it. Luckily once disabled it works just right. [0] https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/
ayewo 4y ago
There's also Raycast [1], which is a f-r-e-e VC-funded alternative to Alfred that was mentioned by a sibling comment. 1: https://www.raycast.com/ https://www.raycast.com/

rhdunn 4y ago

I think that's down to the way it has remembered/saved your search as I get a similar behaviour with "Camera" and "Turn off camera access systemwide" -- "c", "ca", and "came" suggest the Camera app and "cam", "camer", and "camera" suggest the system setting. I use both of these, and it looks like Windows has remembered I select one or the other at a given point, so is saving that suggestion. It also likely has built in associations for the default applications (notepad, camera, etc.) that you've overridden by selecting notepad++ at those points. If you select/locate notepad++ at the other positions, I wonder if it will start suggesting that instead.

thereisnospork 4y ago

It's also slow[0], or not properly cached. Half the time I bang out 'c-m-d-<enter>' to open a command prompt and I either get nothing or a program that doesn't contain any of 'c' 'm' or 'd' in its name. Which is aggravating because the 'Win then type the first 3ish letters of the program you want then hit enter to open it' workflow is so good[0] but MS makes it hard to be smooth and repeatable with it. [0]Honestly how? I have 32GB of ram, the name and directory of every program I've ever run probably fits in 100kB. You could even presort the list by the first two possible letters (26^2) at a tolerable memory usage. [1]To my tastes anyway.

Akronymus 4y ago
"everything" by voidtools could be to your liking.

jrockway 4y ago

At least you guys have software conflicts. I try to run "runemacs.exe" (I have no idea how you're supposed to run Emacs on Windows, but that's what I do), and it's: R -> "R, the project for statistical computing" (fair I suppose) Ru -> Run (what is "run"? It's that little dialog box from Windows 3.1 where you can type in an executable to run) Run -> Run Rune -> RuneScape (not something I have installed) Runem -> Some Hearthstone game file Runemac -> Search results for "run amok". Runemacs -> Hey the thing!

ygra 4y ago
It gets a lot better when you turn of web searches for the start menu search. Perhaps some people like having a single place to search for applications to run, documents on their PC, and things on the web. But I'm not one of them, and it slows down the search as well.
alexvoda 4y ago
Apparently Powertoys Run does all of this correctly. It's also made by MS and its a QuickSilver/Alfred/KRunnrr/etc. style launcer. This makes it even more inexcusable for the default Windows behaviour to be stupid.
ringer 4y ago
> Ru -> Run (what is "run"? It's that little dialog box from Windows 3.1 where you can type in an executable to run) This is the best. It opens immediately, no animations, ads, etc. I have a .bin folder in my home dir with full off shortcuts, this folder added to the $PATH so I just need to type my shortcuts to open any app.
- moogly 4y ago
  Solid protip. Been doing the same since Windows 98.
  - Timwi 4y ago
    Same here, and it baffles me how people don't immediately want this when they see it on my screen.

graftak 4y ago

I had the same dance with Google search for a while with their top result for “tsplayground”.

pklo 4y ago

Can you just replace notepad.exe with a link to notepad++?

hyperman1 4y ago

The notepad++ wiki has a trick for replacing notepad with np++. It basically installs np++ as a debugger for np. I would be completely happy if my win10 stopped deciding I really want to search the word notepad on the internet with edge/bing