Tool "Textify" - Summary (english)

[Fla$her]

I don't see whats wrong with my post ?

You wrote the following after my list:

its fine to get screen OCR without the need for addional tools.

I take this as a remark regarding the supposedly better alternative from your point of view.

[tuska]

2Horst.Epp
2Fla$her

Thanks for your inputs - they are well received!
I have added the tools mentioned here by Fla$her to the first post.

I think at this point we can continue with Textify again.

[Fla$her]

2tuska
Good. But, with permission, then add GetWindowText as a direct alternative to Textify itself.

[tuska]

2tuska
Good. But, with permission, then add GetWindowText as a direct alternative to Textify itself.

OK, thanks, I added the tool in the first post.

[Fla$her]

2tuska
Just didn't have to put it in the list of OCR programs, it's from a different category, just like Textify.

[tuska]

2tuska
Just didn't have to put it in the list of OCR programs, it's from a different category, just like Textify.

2Fla$her
That is no problem at all.

I started to create a "general" collection of links in the first post and among them there is also a link for a clipboard manager.
There is no categorisation in this link collection. This collection does not claim to completeness.

It is only intended to show alternative tools with which you can possibly increase your chances of extracting texts.
I don't want to make a science out of this topic...

The main topic is and should remain Textify.

However, if someone announces an interesting tool in this context,
I am willing to expand the collection of links in the first post.

[Fla$her]

That is no problem at all.

IMHO, instead of such a detailed answer, it is easier to make the link at least the first in the list and separate it with a line break, which, too, I believe, is not a problem.

[tuska]

That is no problem at all.

IMHO, instead of such a detailed answer, it is easier to make the link at least the first in the list and separate it with a line break,
which, too, I believe, is not a problem.

Unfortunately, not all of my detailed answer seems to have reached you yet (... I don't want to make a science ...).

It is not clear to me how you arrived at the view that the tool "GetWindowText"
should have a unique feature "DE: Alleinstehungsmerkmal".

I have tried it and know now that it will remain with this single attempt.
The tools I have used so far are more suitable for my purposes.

However, I am currently leaving everything as it is in the first post.
Every user can pick a tool out of the list if he wants.

No offence, but the discussion on this topic is over for me at this point,
because I don't want to discuss such points endlessly.

PS:
QTranslate had yesterday and today a "500 Server Error".

[Fla$her]

It is not clear to me how you arrived at the view that the tool "GetWindowText" should have a unique feature

I did not write that it's unique (I wrote that it's of the same class as Textify) and I did not impose its use on you anywhere as opposed to thematic.
You write too much on a theme that could be devoted to a minimum of actions and text. I didn't think it would touch you so much.
Leave everything as it is, it's not critical for me at all.

P. S. I know about the problems of the QTranslate site. I hope this is temporary. Replace it with this link for now.

[tuska]

Textify v1.10.4 (September 1, 2023)
Download

[HalbschuhTouri]

@tuska
Thanks for pointing that useful tool out. Just installed it. I have one question though as a newbie. At the bottom of the shift-right-click mask (on my laptop-touchpad there is no middle button) there are 4 button-icons like "Google Translate" and "Wikipedia".

Question to the expert: can one of them be re-configured to just trigger the copy-to-clipboard-process by mouse-click? Or is that only possible via the customary <Ctrl>C keyboard-shortcut (or any other re-defined keyboard-shortcut)? Given the close vicinity of those buttons directly below the mask it would IMHO be more convenient to trigger the copy-to-clipboard-process directly from there by mouse instead of having to switch to the keyboard from there.

[tuska]

2HalbschuhTouri
I am not quite sure if I have understood you correctly.

When you call up Textify, you have the possibility to select the option boxes or the drop-down field with entries
according to your preferences.

If, according to your settings, you press a key combination OR, for example, only the middle mouse button,
then a window opens and in this window a text is marked (hopefully, because not all texts can be extracted).

At this point the text is already in the clipboard!
After repeating the previous key combination (e.g. Ctrl+right mouse button) or e.g. clicking the middle mouse button again,
Textify is sent back to the systray.

[Option: You can also select only a part and click the window away with the ESC key.
In this case, only the marked part is in the clipboard.
You can also edit this text or press ENTER at the end to add more text].

However, if you absolutely want a "Copy" button to copy the content to the clipboard AGAIN,
then you can adapt the [web_button_11] in the Textify.ini.
The web button sends Textify back to the systray as well.

Textify.ini - 1.9.2023 - Textify v1.10.4

Code: Select all

; After editing this configuration file,
; Textify must be restarted to apply the changes.

; Mouse and keyboard key numbers can be found here:
; https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/inputdev/virtual-key-codes

[mouse]
key=2
ctrl=1
alt=0
shift=0

[keyboard]
key=84
ctrl=1
alt=1
shift=1

[config]
check_for_updates=1
auto_copy_selection=1
hide_tray_icon=0
hide_wnd_on_startup=1
;hide_wnd_on_startup=1 https://ramensoftware.com/textify/comment-page-5#comment-13697 Ziel: Textify.exe OHNE Parameter starten (aber mit diesem .ini Eintrag): Textify wird im Systray abgelegt und von Textify ist KEIN Task angelegt worden mit Fokus auf "Textify"! | Alternative: %COMMANDER_PATH%\Tools\Textify\Textify.exe -hidewnd (dieser Parameter stört auch nicht wenn man ihn drinnen läßt, obwohl hide_wnd_on_startup=1 in der Textify.ini vorhanden ist)
;Alternativ zu hide_wnd_on_startup=1 kann auch die Kommandozeile verwendet werden:  %COMMANDER_PATH%\Tools\Textify\Textify.exe -hidewnd (-> Textify wird gestartet und im Systray abgelegt)
;use_legacy_msaa_api=1
;use_legacy_msaa_api=1 -> Traditional MAAS (M$ Active Accessibility), vs “Automation UI” since Textify v1.9. https://ramensoftware.com/textify/comment-page-5#comment-13676 June 3, 2022
;use_legacy_msaa_api=1 -> Erst seit 3.6.2022 eingepflegt u. wieder auskommentiert, uzw. aufgrund des Forumsbeitrages vom 3.6.2022 - Auswirkung: Noch zu prüfen, da unklar...
;
;text_retrieval_method=msaa
; text_retrieval_method=msaa -> https://imgur.com/jWzDvcS, https://ramensoftware.com/textify/comment-page-5#comment-13675 June 3, 2022
; Set to msaa to make Textify rely on the old Microsoft Active Accessibility API. https://ramensoftware.com/textify/comment-page-5#comment-13676 June 3, 2022; ...
; --> ACHTUNG: Hier werden zB FALSCHE UNTERMENÜPUNKTE in die Zwischenablage kopiert! <--
; Set to uia to make Textify rely on the newer UI Automation API.
; If not set, Textify relies on both API’s to retrieve text in the best way.

; The following option causes empty Unicode symbol to be removed
; and various space symbols to be replaced with a regular space.
unicode_spaces_to_ascii=0

; Web buttons can be used with the keyboard shortcuts: Alt+1, Alt+2, etc.
; More web buttons can be added, and existing buttons can be removed.
; If desired, all of the web buttons can be removed.
;
; A command can be a URL or a program. It can contain the following:
; %s - will be replaced by the selected text, URL encoded.
; %cs - will be replaced by the selected text, with quote characters stripped.
; %rs - will be replaced by the selected text as is (use carefully).
;
; A command can start with popup-web!, followed by a URL.
; In this case, the page will be opened in a browser popup (browser auto-detected).
; You can be more specific by starting a command with one of the following:
; popup-chrome!, popup-edge!, popup-firefox!, popup-ie-control!.

[web_buttons]
icon_size=16
buttons_per_row=11

[web_button_1]
name=Everything
icon=icons\Everything.ico
command=es:%s
width=800
height=800

[web_button_2]
name=Google
icon=icons\google.ico
command=https://www.google.com/search?q=%s
;command=popup-web!https://www.google.com/search?q=%s
width=1200
height=900

[web_button_3]
name=DuckDuckGo
icon=icons\duckduckgo.ico
command=https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s
;command=popup-web!https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s
width=1200
height=900

[web_button_4]
name=Deutsch - Englisch
icon=icons\google_translate.ico
command=https://translate.google.de/translate#auto/en/%s
;command=popup-web!https://translate.google.com/m/translate#auto/en/%s
width=1200
height=900

[web_button_5]
name=Englisch - Deutsch
icon=icons\google_translate.ico
command=https://translate.google.de/translate#auto/de/%s
width=1200
height=900

[web_button_6]
name=Wikipedia (englisch)
icon=icons\wikipedia.ico
command=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%s
;command=popup-web!https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%s
width=1200
height=900

[web_button_7]
name=Wikipedia (deutsch)
icon=icons\wikipedia.ico
command=https://de.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%s
width=1200
height=900

[web_button_8]
name=EmEditor
icon=icons\EmEditor.ico
command=EmEditor.exe /i
width=1200
height=900

[web_button_9]
name=Notepad3
icon=icons\Notepad3.ico
command=Notepad3.exe /c
width=1200
height=900

[web_button_10]
name=Notepad++ (Strg+V)
icon=icons\notepad++.ico
command=notepad++.exe -nosession
width=1200
height=900

[web_button_11]
;https://ramensoftware.com/a-new-website-name-ramen-software#comment-13283
name=Copy
command=""D:\Daten\Programme\Totalcmd\Tools\winapiexec\winapiexec.exe" lstrcpyW ( GlobalLock ( GlobalAlloc 0x0042 8192 ) ) "$u:%cs" , GlobalUnlock $$:5 , u@OpenClipboard 0 , u@SetClipboardData 13 $$:5 , u@CloseClipboard"
icon=icons\Copy.ico

;[web_button_15]
;https://ramensoftware.com/textify/comment-page-4#comment-13236 Customizable button trigger key
;icon=!
;name=string
;command=%rs
;key=i

[HalbschuhTouri]

When you call up Textify, you have the possibility to select the option boxes or the drop-down field with entries
according to your preferences.

If, according to your settings, you press a key combination OR, for example, only the middle mouse button,
then a window opens and in this window a text is marked (hopefully, because not all texts can be extracted).

At this point the text is already in the clipboard!

Interesting! Then some other utilities I already use enhancing the clipboard seem to interfere with Textify. Because just opening Textify by the preferred method (in my case <Shift>Right_Click) will open the Textify-mask with the expression under the cursor when calling highlighted in the text-field of the mask - BUT at that time nothing gets copied to the clipboard automatically. That has been my first assumption, too, and I've tried that out multiple times. But the clipboard did remain empty.

So I guess I'll need some additional, explicit method to trigger copying of the highlited extracted text actually to the clipboard. For that purpose a button to enact with a mouse-click would come in handy.


Addendum:
Ok, thanks for your elaborate advice anyway. And so I started looking deeper into the auto_copy-issue now knowing that this is the way it should be - and: Voilà! I had soon found the culprit! The main [config]-option "auto_copy_selection=" had been set to "=0" by default upon installation. Changed that to "auto_copy_selection=1" - and now the highlighted content is already in the clipboard before I can count 2 (let alone the proverbial "10"). So thanks again for that recommendation.

[HalbschuhTouri]

@tuska
2 more questions about Textify:
1. Any idea as to why under a Chromium-browser (like Opera etc.) all you'll get from Textify will be the message "Chrome Legacy Window" and if that could be circumvented somehow? ‘Global accessibility Mode’ doesn't seem to help either or how exactly would that have to be declared in Settings to be successful.
2. Thanks for pointing out that [web_button_11]-syntax-example. Any idea about how to modify that syntax correctly with the goal of creating a "Copy-Again-web-button" that would only copy the highlighted text to the clipboard again - without at the same time closing that Textify-mask in order to enable making use of that button even multiple times?

[tuska]

@tuska
2 more questions about Textify: ...

I'm sorry, I can't help you here.

ad 1.
The browsers I use are
- Microsoft Edge Version 116.0.1938.69 (Official Build) (64-Bit) and
- Mozilla Firefox Version 117.0 (32-Bit) - portable
and there I do not get this message.

ad 2.
I am only a hobby user and cannot do anything with the programme code in section [web_button_11].

Please ask your questions directly on the Textify website -
at the bottom "Leave a Reply"...

On this website you will probably receive an answer [after some time] from the author of Textify.