I cleaned up command creation so there’s no need to prepend scripts and macros with a protocol-like keyword. Now to create a macro you can simply type:

new macro [macroname] [commands]

The same goes for script. Making “macro” and “script” sub-commands of new seemed like the most natural way to think of it.

I also added cascading parameters so a command can fall back on multiple forms of input when one doesn’t exist. For example:

new g http://www.google.com/search?q={$0|clip|prompt}

This will first look for a additional parameters after typing “g” and if none are found will check the clipboard for text data before straight out prompting for a search term. Using the pipe “|” you can string together these keywords in any order.

Lastly I added a special cliptext command ” {SLEEP n}” to pause the sending of keys for a set amount of milliseconds.

On the list so far for 0.4 is multi-tweeting, regular expression search & replacing, simple reminders & timers and extra help/command reference screens.

Runny 0.2 adds a new custom command type “macro” that lets you string together multiple runny commands with or without parameters into one single command. Why you could even string together macros! And then string those to macros and on and on ad infinitum!

Check out the new download at the labs site… http://pivotlabs.com/opensource/runny

For about six years now I’ve used a kind of poor-man’s unix by running commands straight from my Window’s Run box. I would make shortcuts to commonly used programs rename them to something small and simple and put them into a directory that’s referenced in my environment PATH. It worked really well and I never really thought much about it.

It wasn’t until Launchy and Gnome Do (both are amazing) and others started getting big that I thought this might be a “thing”. So I cleaned up my scripts, added supporting functions for clipboard management, twitter posting and text clips and packaged them into an easy installer.

It’s definitely limited but gives complete control over what the commands are and what they do and can even be run side-by-side with other launchers.

Check it out at my labs site!

KitcheNET 0.1 Beta 2 with Software Keyboard

Over the past week since my KitcheNET project got posted on LifeHacker, I’ve been busy tweaking the software adding new features and fixing bugs I’ve found in the process of testing it out.

Once I get it packaged up I’ll post the new version to download on our PivotLabs Open Source section.

Some new features include:

• Software keyboard for VERY simple textual input
• Added page buffering so dialing through configured web sites seems quicker
• Added right-click reset to automatically go back to home page when navigating away
• Added snazzy splash screen
• Switched from <browser> to <iframe> elements.
• Fixed links that would otherwise open in a new browser to open in current one
• Fixed up styles

The online response from readers has been very supportive and inspiring.

One reader, James Tandy, sent me a picture of an inspired setup sporting Windows Media Center and a wireless mouse.

Another reader pointed out another similar project on TechRepublic and others had great ideas for other methods of input such as the Wiimote.

I also learned about the Linux From Scratch project which might be my ticket to finally diving head first into the barebones mechanics of Linux instead of letting Ubuntu take care of everything for me.

Either way i definitely have a list of new ideas to take from this whole experience and plan to keep going with it.

There’s a new Native in the plugins section named “Unit” when  takes the work out of dealing with standard units of measurement such as time, weight, mass, etc.

Got some nice Fs updates and other interesting ideas for dealing with 2-dimensional arrays and the elusive “Thread” in xul.

Stay tuned!