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Command line "help"

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Ichneumon
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Command line "help"

When I invoke Toucan with the commandline and forget the possible options, I use "Toucan.exe -?" to ask what they are.

The good news is that Toucan helpfully lists the correct options for me.

The bad news is that it does this in a popup text window that lasts for about 50 milliseconds before it closes itself, making it impossible to read.

Could you please place a "press any key to continue" prompt at the end of that list? This would prevent the Toucan window from exiting until the user had a chance to read the "help text".

On the same topic, the Toucan "help" page in the "help.html" file in the Toucan install folder has no link to the actual "toucan manual", nor is there any obvious link to the "manual" from the main Toucan website page ( https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/toucan ) -- there's a "using Toucan" link there that doesn't go to any actual documentation. The only way I've found to reach the documentation is to launch Toucan itself, go to the last tab, and hit "Help" from there. It ought to be a lot easier to find/read the documentation, especially for users who have not yet installed Toucan or who are having trouble launching it.

Steve Lamerton
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Are

you running the toucan.exe in the root folder or in App\toucan? It should work fine in the latter case, I unfortunately cannot do much about the launcher not running it properly.

As for the help file I will update that for the next release as I completely forgot about it, thanks!

Ichneumon
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It makes no difference where

It makes no difference where I run it from. The following both produce a popup text window that very briefly displays the "command line help" and then vanishes because the app exits without pausing:

C:\Program Files\Toucan>cd \

C:\>"\Program Files\Toucan"\toucan -?

C:\>cd "Program Files\Toucan"

C:\Program Files\Toucan>toucan -?

C:\Program Files\Toucan>

If it matters I'm running Windows XP

On Windows at least, it needs to give a "press any key to continue" prompt after the "command line help text" display prior to exiting the program.

John T. Haller
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No Program Files

I don't think this is interfering here since you're on XP, but portable apps are not supported in the Program Files directory due to permissions issues and issues with some apps behaving special when located there.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Ph4n70m
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.

I can reproduce this "error" here too.
Even if you first open CMD window and then type "toucan.exe -?", Toucan opens another CMD window with the help and then close itself immediately. It's supposed that Toucan show help inside the same CMD window you used to type the command line, just like any other program based on command line.

Steve Lamerton
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As I

mentioned above are you running the Toucan.exe in the root of the installations or the one in the App\toucan folder inside the root? The latter works fine (I just tested it), the former doesn't and there is nothing I can do about it as far as I know.

Ph4n70m
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.

You are correct, Toucan.exe inside \App\toucan works fine with the command line. Guess the problem is with the launcher in the root.

Ichneumon
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What the...? Okay, I'm

What the...?

Okay, I'm confused -- why are there two different Toucan.exe apps in the install, what are the differences between them, and how was I supposed to know which was which?

Yes, now that I know it's there, the one down in the .\App\Toucan folder does nicely with "Toucan -?".

But again, why the two different "flavors"?

Which am I supposed to invoke when?

And if they're different, why are they named exactly the same thing in a manner that seems calculated to promote confusion?

If the one in the "top" folder is just a launcher for the other one, why not name it ToucanLauncher.exe?

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