Idea: let’s use F4 key to open file in Visual Studio.

Here’s how to achieve it:

* Open Commands menu, select File associations.
* Add new association, enter *.htm;*.html as a mask. Enter this command for F4:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe" /edit "!.!"

Change path to devenv.exe if you have different version of Visual Studio.

Note the /edit parameter. It makes Visual Studio to re-use existing window if it is alredy running. Visual Studio is not exactly a lightweight editor so let’s be efficient here.

What if you want to open HTML file in internal Far editor? Simple: press Alft+F4.

Reference:

Devenv Command Line Switches

If a long-running process (for example, archiving) was run in a FAR console, and for some reasons this very instance of FAR is needed (an editor in the background) or it is undesirable to run a new instance ofFAR, pressing this key combination will create a new console for FAR where it will continue running as if the process has already ended, and the process will continue working in the old console.

Unfortunately this doesn’t work on Windows 7. Instead of detaching you get Windows task switcher:

Interestingly the switcher is in “sticky” mode. It doesn’t disappear when you release keys. You can use arrow keys to select a window.

The fix is easy:

1. Start regedit, open HKCU\Software\far2\System key.
2. Create ConsoleDetachKey string value, set it to some keyboard shortcut. I use CtrlAltX.
3. Restart Far Manager

To test it try executing this command from Far:

ping google.com -t

Press Ctrl+Alt+X to get back to Far without stopping pings.

public static class DateTimeJavaScript
{
   private static readonly long DatetimeMinTimeTicks =
      (new DateTime(1970, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, DateTimeKind.Utc)).Ticks;

   public static long ToJavaScriptMilliseconds(this DateTime dt)
   {
      return (long)((dt.ToUniversalTime().Ticks - DatetimeMinTimeTicks) / 10000);
   }
}

Usage:

var dt = new Date(<%= DateTime.Today.ToJavaScriptMilliseconds() %>);
alert(dt);

Reference

Java System.currentTimeMillis() equivalent in C#

You can do the same with Far Manager. Open drive menu (Alt+F1 or Alt+F2), select your flash drive and press Shift+Del. You should get this confirmation:

Select “Remove” and you’re done. Note that the key combo (Shift+Del) is different from ejecting CD/DVD (Del).

1. You can’t pass arguments to the script, and
2. You can’t launch script in a separate window

Here’s how to fix this:

1. Start regedit, open HKCR\Microsoft.PowerShellScript.1\shell\Open\command key
2. Set it to
   "C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" "-file" "%1" %*

Now you can press Shift+Enter to start PowerShell script in a new window.

As a bonus, you can now double-click .ps1 files in Windows Explorer to launch them. Why is this not a default behaviour? Most likely Microsoft decided to be extra cautious here.

Make sure you have Powershell version 2.0 or higher for this to work. How to check Powershell version.

I decided to use PowerShell. It’s new, it’s powerful, it comes pre-installed with Windows Server 2008. PowerShell is very popular among system administrators.

Also, I got an idea to save output of backup application to log file so that I could see results later. And this is where things didn’t work as I expected. Here’s how to redirect console program output to a file:

s3.exe > log.txt

If you run this you will be surprised to find that log.txt is empty. As it turns out s3.exe, being a good Windows citizen, writes errors to STDERR stream. To redirect error output to the same file you need to add magic string 2>&1:

s3.exe 2>&1 > log.txt

Two new problems appear. First, errors appear as exceptions in log file:

s3.exe : s3.exe version 1.6 - check for updates at http://s3.codeplex.com
At PS Logging.ps1:4 char:43
+ s3.exe <<<<  2>&1 > log.txt
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (s3.exe version ...s3.codeplex.com
   :String) [], RemoteException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : NativeCommandError

PowerShell helpfully wraps STDERR output into exceptions. This is nice but I don’t need it! All I want is to see how a program worked by examining log file. Do this to unwrap exceptions and show plain text:

s3.exe 2>&1 | foreach-object {$_.ToString()} | Out-File log.txt

And second, errors are out of order with normal output. They could appear before or after normal lines emitted by a program, making it hard to diagnose problem. To confirm that, I created a simple console program:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
   for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
   {
      Console.WriteLine("Hello");
   }
   Console.Error.WriteLine("Bah bah");
   for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
   {
      Console.WriteLine("2");
   }
}

If you run this program from PowerShell and redirect output to a file, error message (bah bah) could appear anywhere in the log file:

Hello
Bah bah
Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2

The solution I came up with is to let old reliable cmd.exe to do the work:

cmd /c s3.exe `>log.txt 2`>`&1

Note backsticks – I use them to prevent PowerShell from parsing redirect operators.

Links

PowerShell ABC's - O is for Output
How to capture exe output to a PowerShell variable
Another approach to unwrap exceptions: use add-content cmdlet.

1. Go to Commands › File association.
2. Create a new association by pressing Ins.
3. Enter *.doc;*.docx;*.xlsx;*.pptx as a mask.
4. Enter @"!.!" as Execute command (used for Enter).

You can still open docx file as an archive by pressing Ctrl+PgDn.

Select CD-ROM and press Delete. CD/DVD will get ejected.

You can also press Del key on network drives to unmap them.

Fortunately it’s very easy to restore this functionality:

1. Launch [C:\Program Files\Far2\Addons\Macros\MiddleClickAsEnter.reg]. If you don’t have this folder re-install Far and add Addons » Macros feature.
2. Restart Far Manager.

Here’s how to make its window bigger:

1. Right-click on the window title, select Properties
2. Switch to Font tab
3. Select a bigger font. I prefer raster font 10 x 18.
4. (optional) Switch to Layout tab and change window size there. I leave it as 80 x 25.