Shortcut Assistant ReadMe

Ver. 2.0 / Oct 1996

Preston Werntz
pwerntz@vais.net
http://www.vais.net/~pwerntz


About
What's New
Coming Soon


About

I wrote Shortcut Assistant to help me quickly get my multitude of links into an HTML file. It's written in MS Visual Basic 4, and is freeware... I hope you can find a use for it. Be aware that since it is written in Visual Basic, Microsoft has been kind enough to require a ton of supporting files. They are NOT included in the Setup program! I've removed them to make the download time quicker; you may or may not have them on your system. If the program generates an error when you try to run it, that's a subtle clue that you do not. Hop back to Windows95.com to ftp the Visual Basic runtime files.

Basically, it will take the directory you specify, look for the ".url" files with [Internet Shortcut] headers and parse them out, creating an HTML file.

I also tried to include some options to help you in formatting your HTML file-- you can specify title, background graphic, and colors for: text, background, links and visited links. This program was written using MS IExplorer, and while I assume everything will look fine on other browsers I make no promises.

If you use , you may have noticed that opening a link doesn't open it "outside" the frame, but within the frame. The tag Target="_top" will do just that, so if you use frames, I suggest you check that option.

Shortcut Assistant can also build a two-column table of your links, or create a list of topics at the top of the page and let you jump directly to that section. (Much like the About, What's New and Coming Soon sections above)

Shortcut Assistant stores your settings in the Windows registry so you won't have to rekey in your stuff every time. (What can I say, I'm lazy)

What's New

* 2.0 -- First a new numbering scheme. Why? All those zeros were confusing me. Shortcut Assistant now builds a table, and/or a list of shortcut topics at the top of the page to help reduce on browsing. I also did some user interface changes.

* 1.00.0007 -- Can you say "bug fixes?" I knew you could. The program had a nasty habit of cutting off the last character in a shortcut, and would mess up on https shortcuts.

* 1.00.0006 -- Shortcut Assistant will now grab gopher and ftp shortcuts. Originally it had just used http shortcuts. Shortcut Assistant now correctly parses Internet Shortcuts made when MS Internet Explorer converts Netscape bookmarks. On a technical note I've switched from the ssTab to the TabStrip -- this results in one less custom control to ship, and the program will run a bit faster and take up less memory.

* 1.00.003 -- Instead of defaulting to the "c:\windows\favorites" directory, the program will just default to the Windows directory. Originally, if Shortcut Assistant couldn't find a c:\windows, it would cause an error.

Coming Soon

Like I said I'm lazy.. tell me what you want, and I'll try to add it.