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QuickMonth Calendar 2.2 released

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 03:41:35 +0100

This version of QuickMonth Calendar adds improved user language auto-detection and new context menu commands to quickly copy the selected date to the clipboard. Chinese language support has also been added. If you are interested in translating QuickMonth Calendar into another language, please contact me.

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New Excel add-in: RegEx Find/Replace

Sat, 11 Dec 2010 18:21:51 +0100

If you're needing advanced search and replace capabilities in Microsoft Excel, this add-in is for you. RegEx Find/Replace is a freeware add-in for Microsoft Excel which combines Excel's own find and replace features with the power of regular expressions. It also includes regular expression worksheet functions you can use to extract, replace or compare data via cell formulas. To read more about it, visit the RegEx Find/Replace main page, or skip to the download page to try it out.

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Find All featured on Download Squad and Lifehacker

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 15:49:48 +0100

My Firefox add-on Find All was recently featured on tech blog sites Download Squad and Lifehacker. You can read what they have to say about it here:

Find All for Firefox somewhat alleviates crappy default Find functionality [downloadsquad.com]

Find All Enhances Text Search in Firefox [lifehacker.com]

I would like to thank Ken Saunders for his support of Find All. It was his comment on Download Squad which lead to the writing of the articles. Thanks Ken!

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A New QuickMonth Calendar

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:54:41 +0100

QuickMonth Calendar 2.1 is now available. This release offers a few noteworthy features:

The options dialog and context menu are now localizable. This means that QuickMonth Calendar can be easily translated into more languages.
Screen resolution change detection. This was requested many times by those who often switch between monitors and display settings.
A new option to start QuickMonth Calendar with the calendar visible.
Improved compatibility with Windows 7.
User configuration is now stored in an INI file, making QMC more portable-friendly than ever.

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Find All 3.0 released

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:41:46 +0100

This new release of Firefox add-on Find All brings a significant new feature. Not only can you find all occurrences of a particular word or phrase in one tab, you can switch to another tab and perform a separate Find All search. Find All keeps track of the search results for each tab until you close the find bar on that particular tab. Get more information about this add-on and download it here or on addons.mozilla.org.

7-Zip Icon Pack for Windows XP

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:08:35 +0100

7-Zip is an excellent file compression program, however if you use it, one of the first things you notice is that the toolbar icons look quite outdated. To help alleviate the problem, I'm making an icon pack available for you to freely download and install. It replaces 7-Zip's ugly toolbar icons with more tolerable black icons. It also updates the 7-Zip file type and program icons.

My wife and I have spent the last couple of months volunteering at an orphanage in Mexico. I assembled this icon pack to raise funds so we can return to the United States. If you would like to help us make the trip back home and get re-established, or if you want to just say 'thanks' for putting together this icon pack, please consider making a donation of $1 or more. You will have a chance to donate at the end of the installation, or visit PayPal.com.

The icon pack was designed for and tested on Windows XP (yes, I know it's an old OS, but many of us still use it--maybe I can make a version for Vista or Windows 7 in the future). It may be downloaded from the following locations:

File2.ws [Mirror 1]
Drop.io [Mirror 2]
MediaFire [Mirror 3]
CodeDawn.com

Add-on updates for Firefox 3.5

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:47:01 +0100

CookieMan Context, Find All and Menu Icons Plus have all been updated for Firefox 3.5 and are available for download. Please try them out and let me know if you find any bugs (or if you have any positive feedback, too!). I am very busy right now, but I plan on updating my CrystalFox Modern and Office themes for Firefox 3.5 when time permits.

What's new – brief update

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:16:14 +0100

I have been busy with a new project lately. It's going to take a while to polish and test, but I'll post an announcement when it's ready for the public. You may notice a few changes to codedawn.com—this is due to a change in hosting and I won't bore you with all the details. Also, I plan on updating my Firefox add-ons soon for the release of Firefox 3.1.

The anatomy of an XPCOM exception in Javascript

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:24:59 +0100

While I was in the midst of developing a new add-on for Firefox, I ran across the need to do some error handling while using an XPCOM interface. By using a try...catch block in my Javascript code, I was able to capture the exceptions thrown by the XPCOM component. If you have used Firefox's Error Console, you probably have already seen what one of these exceptions look like:

The exception produces a result code that begins with the letters NS, which is called an nsresult. I was able to find ample information on nsresults at MDC and elsewhere, but I couldn't find documentation anywhere about how to determine the result code from Javascript in order to effectively handle the error. By iterating over the properties and methods of the error object produced in Javascript, I was able to come up with the following information:

Methods

QueryInterface()

initialize()

Properties

message
[string] Full description of the error.

result
[integer] A number (always 10-digits?).

name
[string] The nsresult code (ex. NS_ERROR_FAILURE).

filename
[string] URI of the Javascript file in which the error occurred (chrome://...).

lineNumber
[integer] Line number of the Javascript file on which the error occurred.

columnNumber
[integer] Column number of the Javascript file on which the error occurred (usually 0?).

location
[string] Summary of where in chrome the error occurred (ex. JS frame :: chrome://... :: anonymous :: line 77).

inner
[null] ? Came up as null in my test; no idea what it might be used for.

data
[null] ? If it's not null, my guess is that it would contain extra information produced by the exception or passed to/from it.

Knowing this, we can now handle the exception in Javascript like so:

/* supposing that the variable "file" is an nsIFile object,
 this example uses the "remove" method of nsIFile */
try {
 file.remove(false);
} catch (e) {
 switch (e.name) { // use the "name" property to get the nsresult
 case 'NS_ERROR_FILE_TARGET_DOES_NOT_EXIST':
 // error handling code goes here
 break;
 case 'NS_ERROR_FILE_DIR_NOT_EMPTY':
 // error handling code goes here
 break;
 case 'NS_ERROR_FILE_ACCESS_DENIED':
 // error handling code goes here
 break;
 default:
 // if necessary, include handling of all other errors here
 }
}

I hope this information helps other add-on developers who are working with XPCOM.

Further information and reference: