JoeSchmoe's tutorial

From RedStone

[edit] Installation

There are two ways of installing Redstone.

1. Download an installer from the link in the RedStone AutoHotkey forum thread. This will
   1. make you accept a standard Creative Commons license
   2. install a compiled version of the script to a location of your choice
   3. optionally put a shortcut to the program in the start menu
   4. put a shortcut to the executable in your startup folder (for example, C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Start Menu\Programs\Startup on WinXP). The installation folder is 1.5 megs, most of which is resources and plugins.
2. Download the source from the link in the RedStone AutoHotkey forum thread. To run the program, first uncompress the .zip archive (one way is to right click on the file you downloaded and choose "Extract All..." from Windows XP or Vista) and then open RedStone.ahk using Autohotkey. (If you haven't done this yet, you will need to install Autohotkey from http://www.autohotkey.com/download/.) RedStone is designed to be running all of the time in the background, so you probably want to put a shortcut to RedStone.ahk in your startup folder.

The first time you open RedStone, it may take a minute or so to start up. Don't worry. It is downloading icons for your Internet Explorer and Firefox favorites and indexing several directories (such as your start menu folder and the desktop) so that it can find files quickly later on.

When you first open Redstone, you will see a screen something like the following: (NOTE: the program is evolving rapidly, so chances are what you see will look quite different than what follows.)

If you want the window to go away, just hit the Esc key. (If that doesn't work, look for the paragraph beginning with the words, "You might wonder what the "v" is" near the bottom of this page.) If you want to bring the window back, just press Alt-{space}.

[edit] Basic Usage

The simplest way to use RedStone as a launcher is simply to bring up the main window by pressing Alt-{space} and then type a short snippet of text that uniquely identifies the file that you are looking for. Once you've typed two characters, it begins searching incrementally, with an implicit AND between the search terms. (Below I describe exactly where it searches.) Once it has started displaying results, you can then use the {up}, {down}, and {Enter} keys to launch the specific program that you are most interested in.

For example, if AutoHotkey is installed and I want to bring up the help file for it (i.e. "AutoHotkey Help"), all I need to do is type: Alt-{space} "aut hel" {Enter} For me, at least, this is much faster than using the mouse. (It may be a little slow the first time you run it because it may have to reindex.)

If you type something, and RedStone can't find anything to match those search terms, when you press Enter, it will either open it as a URL (if it looks like a URL) or will do a Google search on it (if it doesn't look like a URL)

Where exactly does RedStone search? Basically, it does a keyword search on the following lists:

  1. History (A list of everything you've opened using RedStone)
  2. Favorites (A list of your favorite things to open using RedStone. To add something to this list, just find it in RedStone, right click on it, and choose "Add to List > Favorites")
  3. Skins (RedStone is skinnable. If you want to explore, just type "skin" and all of the skins will be found.)
  4. Miro (Miro is an open source media player that RedStone can control. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miro_(software). You can control it using a RedStone plugin.)
  5. Configuration (Don't worry about this.)
  6. Filters (This opens any of RedStone's filters. These are explained below.)
  7. System (This is a shortcut to the following commands: Drive C; Drive D; Control Panel; Printers and Faxes; Network Connections; Recycle Bin; System Logoff; System Reboot; System Shutdown; Start Menu; My Computer; My Music; My Pictures; My Documents; My Videos; and My Network Places.)
  8. Scanned Items (See below.)

(Redstone will display results in the order given above. This order can be modifiied as described in a forum post, but the technique for doing so is not simple.)

#8, the Scanned Items list, is the most important. By default, when you first open RedStone, it scans certain locations on your hard drive for files with certain extensions. It then stores a list of the files that it finds in a file, called Default.lst. When you start typing, the last thing that it searches is this file.

By default, the places on your hard disk that it scans are:

  1. The "All Users" Start Menu
  2. Firefox's favorites file
  3. A list of RSS feeds
  4. Your Skype address book
  5. Your own Start Menu
  6. "System Folders." (I don't know what all of these mean)

You may want to add other locations for it to index, such as a folder where you keep all of your AutoHotkey scripts, a folder of portable applications, a network share, or a media drive you have. It's easy to do so. Just open RedStone, type "Items to Scan," and press enter. RedStone's main window will show you its "Items to Scan" list, with the 6 items I've shown above. To add a new location to scan, just right click somewhere on the list and choose "New." Fill in the fields using the other entries in the "Items to Scan" list as models. Two settings are worth noting:

  1. "Recurse" determines whether RedStone will recursively search directories under the given directory.
  2. "IncludeDirs" determines whether RedStone will index the actual directories rather than just their contents.

If you have RedStone index directories, when you find a directory in RedStone, you can open the directory in Windows Explorer by holding the control key down and double-clicking on the directory. (Technical note: The above information was gathered using information from a forum post. I just put a "msgbox, %lists%" right after "list_Sort(lists, "SearchOrder")" in the RedStone code and ran the program to get started. I wouldn't suggest doing this until you are quite comfortable with the program, though.)

[edit] Filters and user interface

The RedStone UI is organized around a collection of filters. To see the most commonly used filters, click on the ">" symbol in the upper left of the window. (Look for and click on the right-hand icon.) The filters are called the "User Filters." At this point, why don't you take a moment to explore each of the User Filters. If you ever get into the wrong filter, you can always go back to the previous filter by pressing Alt-{leftarrow}. Like all hotkeys, this hotkey is configurable using the "configuration" filter. There is a larger list of filters that you can access by right clicking on the ">." These filters (i.e. the filters that aren't User filters) might not be worth exploring unless you are curious, though.

You may want to pay special attention to the following filters:

   * Configuration
   * Favorites -- I find this filter very helpul. If there is a file that you open frequently, find the file using the "System" filter, then right click on it and choose "Add to List > Favorites." The file will now be added to your favorites list, which you can manage through this filter. As a result, it will show up near the top of any RedStone search results.
   * Skype and RSS documents -- if you use this program or protocol.
   * Slash Commands -- Note that it is quite easy to add your own slash commands by right clicking.
   * System -- On my computer, the first screen of the system filter doesn't look very good. It works fine, though, and you can find any file on your computer using it, with either the keyboard or mouse.

You might wonder what the "v" is in the control. It controls what the window does when it loses focus. 1.) if it displays a "v," the window will disappear when it loses focus. (Typical for a launcher program.) 2.) if it displays a "^," the window will always stay on top of other windows. 3.) if it is empty it will behave like a normal window.

Note that you can resize the window if you have a large monitor or just need to read long path names.

At this point, we have only covered about a third of what the program can do. The best way to learn about the rest of what the program can do is probably by just exploring it, but let me know if you want me to extend the tutorial and I will ("I" means JoeSchmoe, not joebodo.). Likewise, if you have any feedback about this tutorial, please let me know, so I can improve it for future readers (again, "I" means JoeSchmoe). Alternatively, now that the tutorial is on a Wiki, feel free to make any corrections that you think might be helpful to other readers.

While you explore, keep in mind that Redstone is extremely customizable and that much of the functionality is accessed through right-click context sensitive menus, so right-click on everything and see what is available.