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PromptPalfor PC

Command Line Power, Windows Ease-of-Use

$22.49

$29.99

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Platforms: Windows 2003, XP, Vista, 7, 8

No matter how advanced graphical user interfaces become, there are still going to be those times when you want to drop out to a Windows command prompt to get something done. But in exchange for the simplicity of the command prompt, you also give up a lot of functionality. Today's discount software promotion offers the perfect balance between the power of the command prompt and the functionality of Windows programs - it's all possible with PromptPal!

PromptPal replaces the Windows command prompt and PowerShell consoles with an application that offers astounding benefits. With PromptPal, you'll still be using the dependable command processors that power Windows, but you'll also be able to take advantage of a tabbed interface, command syntax help, autocomplete, Windows-style editing, and the ability to search the console like any regular text document. You can even launch the Windows PowerShell, standard command prompts, and other command shells, all within PromptPal. It's all of the command prompt action you'll ever need, all at your fingertips.

Imagine being able to copy and paste, or drag and drop, files between folders while still enjoying command line prompt power! Imagine, still, having all of your command history available to you, always, even if you close a console session. And with tight integration with Windows Explorer, you'll be able to start experiencing the benefits of PromptPal immediately after installation!

Review Written by Roger Thomasson

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Email Updates Load 9 Older Comments

Genie au Travail No licence policy ?

Apr 15 at 11:57pm

Mike B According to the product's website, http://www.promptpal.com/terms.shtml, the policy includes:

- licensed for a single computer
- free minor updates
- free major updates within 90 days of purchase

Apr 16 at 12:19am

NC Buyer Bought this years ago and it was well worth it. Will purchase this again today!

Apr 16 at 3:50am

Kimmo Lahtinen I downloaded the trial version and installed it to my Win8, but I am wondering two little things.

Up/Down arrows does not seem to do anything. This is very strange, but I did not find any settings for it.

I clicked a tab and selected "New Admin Tab" and it opened it to the PromptPal directory in C:, not the one I hoped.

Powershell window did not seemed to understand the powershell commands in the command completition. I know the PS can do it quite well, so this is not a big issue.

Apr 18 at 1:26am

Susan Westlake Hi Kimmo,

The effect of the up/down arrow depends on the setting "Up/Down arrow keys navigate PromptPal cmd history" in File - Configure - Preferences. If that is set, then the arrow keys are intercepted and walk you through PromptPal's private (and persistent) command history, which will be empty if you haven't yet executed any commands. If you turn that setting off, then the arrow keys do whatever they would normally do in your chosen command shell.

Regarding directories, PromptPal always tries to open a tab in your chosen directory, but sometimes it isn't possible, e.g. if the directory no longer exists, is inaccessible because it belongs to a different user account, or if you've just made a typo in the directory path. In these cases, it defaults to its own directory. Remember that you can set a default directory in File - Configure - Startup, and you can also specify a directory for a new tab via File - New Tab Advanced.

Finally, it's true that so far we haven't covered the powershell specific commands in the command completion assistance. PPAL will still help with regular DOS-style commands, but not the new stuff. We hope to add command completion for syntactically more complex Powershell commands in due course, however if you have a command that you're always having to look up, you may be able to define it manually via Commands - Add Command Information.

Hope all that helps!

Technology Lighthouse - Apr 18 at 3:58am

judi bunner Does this include dos commands? True dos is not available from Windows 98 and up and I have been looking for a way to change file attributes. Thanks

Apr 18 at 6:48am

NC Buyer I purchased v2 today. Got my license information. Why is my "name" a string of 11 characters with no meaning to me when my "name" for v1 was my actual name? I can not register the product with my actual name for this version.

Apr 18 at 6:58am

David Morris @judi bunner: Not sure what you're referring to by lack of DOS commands in Windows. Almost all DOS commands were carried over into the standard Windows command shell. The attrib command is there and works exactly as it did in the DOS days to change file attributes, with additional support for Windows-specific things like symbolic links.

PromptPal is just a new UI around the standard shell, I don't believe it's going to be adding any new commands.

Apr 18 at 7:33am

bvssunnydale No portable version?

Apr 18 at 8:33am

Susan Westlake @judi bunner: I'm not quite sure what you're looking for but as David said PromptPal gives you whatever the command processor(s) on your PC have. I'd have thought that the ATTRIB command would do what you need?

Technology Lighthouse - Apr 18 at 9:15am

Susan Westlake @NC Buyer: The uncustomized name field is just a side effect of the payment processor we're using for this promotion; you've got a normal full license, and it's associated with your name and details at our end. Once you've entered the license details they're not shown anywhere in PromptPal except for the About screen, so it shouldn't be problem, any more than the string of chars in the license key?

Technology Lighthouse - Apr 18 at 9:23am

Susan Westlake @bvssunnydale: We don't have a portable version at the moment, but that is definitely on the cards in the future. Workload permitting we'd like to make a portable version available to licensed customers within the year.

Technology Lighthouse - Apr 18 at 9:25am

Mark Johnson I'm doing a trial of PromptPal, just downloaded it a few minutes ago.
After running a few commands, I tried searching for some text within the prompt window.
Sometimes it works fine, sometimes it gives "The operation timed out before the buffer was filled."

I have closed PromptPal, reopened it, but still very frequently get this error. I have also noticed that when I search on text that appears in the window more than once it will never find the text more than once, then gives this error on each attempt at 'Find Next' after that.

Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit.

Apr 18 at 10:07am

NC Buyer Thanks Susan!

Apr 18 at 10:53am

Michael S. Why do I want to pay $14.70 for a similar function/program there is on the PC with the installed OS ?

Apr 18 at 11:06am

Danny This software is from the time, it seems to me.

Apr 18 at 11:34am

NC Buyer @Michael - have you downloaded the program and tested it out? Its nothing like the one that comes installed with the PC. The one feature that sold me is the ability to copy / past a directory after a CD command instead of going thru hoops to get it typed in. Then there are tabs. If you do even a little bit of batch script automating, the $14.70 will be realized in a matter of minutes just in time savings alone. I am not affiliated with this company at all. I've just used their product since about 2007.

Apr 18 at 12:22pm

Susan Westlake @Mark Johnson: Sorry to hear that Mark. That error could be caused by a number of things, but mostly it suggests a breakdown in comms between PromptPal and the underlying shell - could you answer a few questions to help us troubleshoot?

- What antivirus suite are you using?
- Are the tabs otherwise responding normally and quickly?
- Have you taken any special steps to tighten security on your PC that wouldn't be present on a regular Windows install?
- Do you have a particularly large monitor and/or are you running with PromptPal maximized?

Technology Lighthouse - Apr 18 at 1:52pm

Susan Westlake @Michael S.: As NC Buyer said, PromptPal basically wraps the standard command shell, adding a lot of configurability and time-saving features that don't exist in the original. And it's not just the standard command shell that benefits; you can use PromptPal with the Powershell, and we also have a number of customers using it with Cygwin.

Whether you need this depends on how much you use command shells. Some people can live entirely within the Windows GUI, but for the rest of us, the command line is an unfortunate necessity.

Technology Lighthouse - Apr 18 at 1:59pm

Michael S. @NC Buyer - I have just installed the trail and you´re right about the different GUI, but there is not new commands or any commands that Windows7 dont have below the WinGUI, (DOS), so I just wish to know what Im paying fore... :)
I havent used the command shells more than a few times now and then since Win95, before that... a lot of my time was used with the DOS enviroment. Thanks for the answer !

Apr 18 at 3:01pm

David Morris @Michael S. -- I'm guessing you don't see the benefit because as you say, you don't use the command shell much. Some of us live the in the command shell. Did you read the feature set? The standard Windows UI around the command shell is extremely limited. Products like PromptPal enhance the shell experience by adding things like tabs, drag & drop, command completion, improved copy/paste, etc. etc. For a mere $15 I would jump at this if I didn't already use another command-prompt enhancement tool with similar features that I'm happy with.

Apr 18 at 3:46pm

Michael S. Davis Morris - I don´t live in the command shell anymore as I wrote... But I do like to know why I should pay those money, because at the end of the day I don´t save much time by using an old UI like DOS. Windows have more to offer to me and is faster too when it come to using the RAM as an extra HDD.
But never mind I use the trail for now and see if there is anything that I can use, but I do doubt, because there is not any new or renewed commands in the command shell world...

Apr 18 at 5:36pm

Stephen Warkentien More licensing questions. Can the software be moved to other computers? Is online activation required? If so does it take a hardware footprint?

Apr 18 at 6:57pm

Kimmo Lahtinen Thank you for the reply I got earlier. I got back the "normal" up/down arrow behavior and I figured out an explanation for the problem. The command history stays empty, I wonder why.

Apr 18 at 9:44pm

Silat David Morris which shell are you now using?

Apr 19 at 12:21am

Lupke Brother @ bvssunnydale,

If you need a portable tool, you can compare another Bits deal here.
You can run this tool from a usb stick:
http://www.bitsdujour.com...e/powercmd

Apr 19 at 1:02am

Susan Westlake @Stephen Warkentien: The license is not hardware-locked, so yes you can move it to another machine, just so long as you remove it from the old machine or purchase sufficient licenses to cover all the installations.

And yep, the deal is on for another day.

Technology Lighthouse - Apr 19 at 2:25am

David Morris @Silat: I'm using Console. It's an open-source project hosted on SourceForge. Don't think it would be appropriate to link to here, but it's easy enough to find. Has a number of the same features, not all, but sufficient for my needs. If I weren't already satisfied with it though, I'd happily spend $15 for something like it.

Apr 19 at 5:32am

Bertie Brummel I was interested to buy 2 copies. However, PayPal is not offered as payment method (though they offer it on the vendor's web site). Reason enough to pass the deal for me.

Apr 19 at 1:25pm

Brian De Bragança No PayPal option to pay?

This is a deal breaker I'm afraid. I would have bought this, otherwise.

Apr 19 at 10:20pm