Blanch 1.9 Copyright © 1996, One Guy Coding WWW http://www.cam.org/~oneguy eMail oneguy@cam.org << Button Launcher for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 >> * Installation -------------- Blanch comes with a small setup program and two install files (.inf) that will copy blanch to the directory \Program Files\One Guy Coding and create a program group in the Start Menu. You can also uninstall blanch using the Control Panel Add/Remove software applet. Run the Blanch17.exe distribution and unzip the files into a temporary folder (eg. c:\temp\blanch). - change to the temporary folder - run setup.exe - a folder is opened with the shortcuts to blanch, readme, changes, etc. Run Blanch. You can delete the files in the temporary folder. That's it! You will, undoubtedly, want to create a shortcut in the StartUp menu to have blanch run when you start windows. This can be done directly in the blanch context menu - right click anywhere on blanch and check "Startup shortcut" to have blanch create a shortcut in the start menu. * Description ------------- Blanch is a simple, yet powerful, drag-n-drop button bar for Window 95 and Windows NT 4.0. Drag executable files or associated documents, folders and shortcuts (links) and drop them on blanch to create a new button. Drag blanch buttons between pages to duplicate the button. Drag a button off the page to delete the button (you can still paste it back to the button bar at this point). Cut/Copy and Paste buttons from the Context menus. Blanch buttons now have Cron capabilities, that is, they can be configured to launch automatically. See the Cron options described below. Right click on Blanch (or the title bar) to open the context menu. From here you can set various options (see Blanch Options below) open the Blanch Properties dialog or change "Pages". The first 10 Blanch pages can be accessed via the keyboard accelerators Ctrl-1, Ctrl-2, ... Ctrl-0 or by Ctrl-left and Ctrl-right to cycle through the pages. Blanch will auto hide if you move the bar to one of the edges of the screen. For example, if you have a horizontal blanch bar and you drag the blanch window to the top of the screen the caption will disappear and blanch will hide if you run a program or select another window. Double click on one of the page tabs to restore the caption. Right click on a Blanch Button to open the button context menu. From here you can delete or open the button properties dialog. Change the executable, default directory, icon file or icon index and specify whether blanch should minimise, maximise or run the program normally. Clicking on the first menu entry will open an explorer window in the directory where that particular program lives. You can also cut/copy/paste buttons as well as drag them around on the blanch page. Move them to another page by dragging and dropping a button onto a page tab. You can also drop files onto blanches that contain executables. If the executable has been designed to accept command line options the executable will run and load the file or files dropped onto it. (Note: some program will not load more than one file at a time). * Cron Options -------------- Any blanch button can now be configured to launch itself automatically. Click the "Cron ..." button in any button properties dialog box to change or install cron settings for any given button. Programs can be scheduled to launch based on the following criteria, in order of increasing priority, Minute - One or more 2 minute intervals (required) Hour - One or more hours during the course of the day Day - One or more month days (1-31) Week Day - One or more week days (Sunday, Monday, ..., Saturday) Month - One or more month days *** NOTE *** Only the minute setting is required. All other criteria are enabled by default. For example. If you setup a cron with 0 and 30 minutes selected the Blanch will launch every month, every week day, every day and every hour at 0 and 30 minutes. If you turned on a given hour, say 8, the program would only be launched at 8:00 and 8:30 (every day for all eternity or until 2038, which ever comes first). Note that Week Day settings take priority over Month Day settings, that is if you select Monday but deselect Monday the 1st, 8th and 22nd the program would still launch on those days. To destroy settings for a button click the Destroy button. To clear settings, click Clear. To disable the current settings, click Disable on. To launch the button only one time, click One Time on. * Blanch Options ---------------- Pages - popup menu for managing button pages Buttons - add buttons to blanch ------------- Paste - paste a button onto the current page (right click on a button to copy or paste it into the button clipboard) ------------- Options On Top - blanch stays on top of all other applications Auto Hide - blanch can be auto hidden on the edge of the screen Caption - show or hide the window caption Tab snap - mouse cursor 'snaps' to page tabs when turned on Big Icons - choose big icons or smaller ones Show Flyouts - if clicked the description field is displayed in a small flyout menu Show Systray - display an icon in the system tray Flat style - buttons are displayed without borders when selected Show horizontal Show vertical - blanch can be displayed horizontally or vertically Save to registry - save the current button setup to the registry Export registry - save the current registry for blanch to the specified file -------------- About - display the about dialog box Help - display the help file (coming soon) Close - exit blanch Properties - Blanch Properties dialog box * Blanch Button Options ----------------------- Explore ... - opens windows explorer and selects the button's executable Desktop shortcut - creates a desktop shortcut for the current button settings ---------------- Cut - cuts the selected button to the clipboard Copy - copies the selected button to the clipboard Paste - pastes the clipboard onto the current page ---------------- Delete - delete the selected blanch button Properties - Blanch Button Properties dialog box * Keyboard ---------- Ctrl+1 - Open Page 1 Ctrl+2 - Open Page 2 ... Ctrl+9 - Open Page 9 Ctrl+0 - Open Page 10 Ctrl-left - Switch to the previous page Ctrl-right - Switch to the next page Ctrl+F11 - Blanch hotkey (will be configurable in Properties dialog) Ctrl-H - toggle auto hide setting Ctrl-S - save to registry Ctrl-V - Paste Ctrl-X - Exit blanch * Notes ------- - the following string, as an option to explorer.exe, will load dial-up networking, ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\::{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD010CCC48} - Blanch data is stored in the registry under the key, HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\One Guy Coding\Blanch * Author -------- Steeve McCauley One Guy Coding oneguy@cam.org http://www.cam.org