Paul’s jabber

As most people that spend the majority of their lives staring at a windows box, I’ve gotten quite irritated by the repetitive tasks that I have to perform on a daily basis. Among others, the most prominent of these tasks is probably the browsing of files in both Windows Explorer and command prompt. So it got me thinking (and I’m sure I’m not the first – to think that is).

The easiest way to shorten the time you spend navigating, is to simply litter your desktop with shortcuts to various locations on your file system. However, the problem I have with this solution is that I’m not really a fan of the mouse or Britney Spears for that matter. Instead I’ve opted for the next best alternative, which I’m sure I’m not the first to think of, but it is a quick, easy and temporary solution that just works.

Basically, I’ve simply created a whole bunch of batch files, each with a popular command, such as to open Windows Explorer in a specific directory. These batch files, I’ve then grouped into one directory and added the directory to my path environment variable. Let me take you through an example:

If you’re a developer like I am, the most popular location on your file system is probably where you checkout your code from the repository. Chances are that the path to this repository check out is something like:

C:\some_useless_folder\another_useless_folder\repos\my_useless_app\

So instead of navigating to this folder every time in Windows Explorer, you could just do the following (I know this seems like a lot of work but that’s only because you don’t yet know what I’m talking about – that’s why you’re still reading after already having read the third paragraph):

1. Create a folder where you’ll keep all your batch files e.g.
C:\shortcuts\

2. In this folder create an empty batch file (just an empty text file with a .bat file extension) e.g.

C:\shortcuts\my_useless_app_e.bat

3. Open the above created “my_useless_app_e.bat” file and inside it enter the command to open Windows Explorer to the directory where you’ve got your app checked out e.g.
explorer “C:\some_useless_folder\another_useless_folder\repos\my_useless_app\”

4. You now have to add the directory containing your batch file to the path environment variable. I’m using Windows Vista (it’s not my fault, they gave it to me without asking), but in Windows XP it’s done in an almost identical way, so try and follow along:

4.1. Click the Start button, then right click “Computer” and then click “Properties”.

4.2. Click “Advanced system settings” (you see now we’re getting advanced).

4.3. On the dialog that opens up, click on the “Advanced” tab (now we’re getting even more advanced, hold on to your seat).

4.4. Click the “Environment Variables” button.

4.5. Under “System Variables” click the “New…” button. For “Variable name” enter “shortcuts” (can be an arbitrary name) and under “Variable value” enter the path to the directory where you created the batch file i.e. “C:\shortcuts\”. Click “OK”.

4.6. Under the list of “System variables” look for a variable called “Path”. Select it and click the “Edit” button.

4.7. Scroll to the end of the variable’s value and append the variable that we just created above i.e. just add “;%shortcuts%” (without the quotes) to the end of the value. WARNING: What ever you do, don’t remove any of the existing text in this variable’s value as you may find that many/most of your applications will no longer function correctly. Click OK to close this dialog box, then click OK again to close the “Environment Variables” dialog box and click OK one more time (last time I promise) to close the “System Properties” dialog box.

5. Lastly to test that your shortcut (command in batch file) works just open command prompt and type the name of the batch file that you created earlier e.g.

5.1. Hit the windows and the R keys together to open the “Run” dialog box.

5.2. Type “cmd” (without the quotes) to open command prompt.

5.3. Type the name of the batch file i.e. my_useless_app_e

The batch file should now run which should open Windows Explorer to the path:

C:\some_useless_folder\another_useless_folder\repos\my_useless_app\

If for some strange (or not so strange) reason this does not work, simply restart your computer – you see now I’ve even given you a Tech Support 101. Anyway, from now on, it’s smooth sailing every time you have a frequently used command, simply create a batch file containing the command in the “C:\shortcuts” directory and when ever you want to run the command, just open command prompt and type the name of the batch file … easy!.

But like I said earlier, this is only a temporary solution. The cleanest way would probably be to write my own app that holds popular commands. If someone knows of any apps that do this or other ways to improve your Windows navigation, please let me know.

I just found a nice quick way of creating and writing to a text file straight from command prompt. This will save you the agony of having to open Windows Explorer, create a txt file, open it with notepad, write your story and save it … whew (wipe forehead). So this is how we’ll do it:

The first command creates a txt file “MyCoolTextFile.txt” containing the text “Hello world!!”. The second command however, I’m sure you’ll find even more exciting as it displays the contents of the file we’ve just created. And what do you know, the contents is “Hello world!!!” just as we typed it in the first command. There are of course other ways of doing it, but I won’t be telling you how … uhm … because quite frankly I don’t have the energy nor the time to type up and test all the various methods.