Window Groups Help
Name:Window Groups
Version:2.0
Last update:2019-02-18 17:51:10



Introduction

The Window Groups package is a feature for the text editor Alpha: it lets you create groups of items (documents, windows, web pages, etc) to be opened in a given application: currently Alpha, Safari, Skim and the Finder are supported. The items can thus be a set of Alpha document windows, or a set of Finder windows (corresponding to folders), etc.
The designated application is considered as the owner of the group: a window group with Alpha as the owner is typically a group of document files to open with Alpha, whereas a window group with the Finder as the owner is typically a group of folders to open in the Finder. In the case of Safari, the items are web pages (identified by their URL). In the case of Skim, the items are PDF files.
If you are working on a regular basis with a bunch of files and get bored of reopening all of them one by one everyday, then Window Groups is your saver. In a single command, you can have the owning application open or close all the windows belonging to the group.
At any time, you can modify the contents of a group. All your window groups are recorded by Alpha between sessions.
When this package is activated, there is a new submenu called Window Groups in the Open Windows menu.

Commands

Most of the commands in this menu are self explanatory: In particular, the commands New Window Group and Edit Window Group display a dialog in which you can specify the items belonging to the group. The paths or the URLs are displayed in a table view. You can add a new item by clicking on the + button and remove items by selecting them in the table and clicking on the - button.
Since it may be tedious to set all the items one by one, there is a handy command Create From Opened Windows which lets you automatically create a new window group containing all the documents or windows currently opened in the owning application.
The command Dump Window Groups lets you write a file on disk with the definition of all the currently defined window groups. This file is written in a tabulation separated format (one line by group). The format of the dump files is straightforward: empty lines and lines starting with a # symbol are ignored. The others contain three values separated by a tabulation: the group's name, the owner's name and the list of window names (paths of document files or folders, etc.).
This is a handy way of editing configurations or storing them for later reuse. A dump file of this type can be (re)loaded using the Load Window Groups command. When you load a dump file, you are asked whether you want the new window groups to be added to the existing ones or to replace them entirely.

Known problems

Please report any problem or bug you encounter to Alpha's Bug Tracker.

License and Disclaimer

Copyright (c) 2010-2019, Bernard Desgraupes.
All rights reserved.
The Windows Group package is free software and distributed under the terms of the new BSD license:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL BERNARD DESGRAUPES BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.