CD-ROM Magazin 1995 December/CD_12_95.BIN/share95/trackit/trackit.txt

Text File | 1995-05-20 | 12KB | 290 lines

TrackIt 2.01
(c) '95 by Dietmar Bos (CIS:70007,5261)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

                               WHAT'S NEW?
                               -----------

TrackIt now has a display option for the number of TopAppWindows and Cildwindows.
The values represent the total number of Top- and Child-windows currently open.
Also added is a Processes/Threads display. Both values give information of all
currently running processes and all running threads.


Note: I was asked several times now 'if the displayed values can be true' (to but it that
easy <g>). Yes they are all correct. In most cases you can control them with the help
of several other programs. For instance, the number of open windows can be controlled
with tools like SPY, which is part of MSVC. For the number of threads it is even easier,
use SysMon.exe from your Windows directory. To be honest, those question were more related
to the memory conditions, especially the 'physical available mem.' and if it can be
so low. It can <g>. But that is nothing to get worried about. That is part of
the (IMO) excellent memory and caching mechanisms build in W95. If you have a fairly
good amount of ram, what do you want to do with it? You want to get use of it and W95
exactly does so in the most positive way.


                               QUICKSTART
                               ----------

Copy the files
TRACKIT.EXE
DLL32.DLL
DLL16.DLL
to a newly created directory, or one that you feel compfortable with. If in
doubt, or having access problems, copy the two dlls into your W95 System32
directory. Use the explorer then to drag the Trackit Icon to your desktop, or
add the file to your autostart group. Another way to autostart the program
is to add an entry to the 'load'-line into the win.ini file. This entry
consists of the full path plus the name of the executable you want to start
e.g:
[windows]
load=c:\w95\trackit\trackit.exe

Once the program runs, you can change the size by draging the borders.
To configure TrackIt, you have to move the mouse over the TrackIt area
and there you press the right mouse button. The dialog there allows you
to select colors, fonts and items to display and so forth. Change to your
requested needs and press the OK button. If you changed the size and
the position then, you don't have to take care of anything in the future,
because TrackIt remembers any change you once did. Have fun!

---------------------------------------------------------------------

                           GENERAL
                           -------

Trackit gives you access to any vital system resource information.
It also provides access to the remaining diskspace of any of your drives.
TrackIt is designed to be as small as possible, using the least possible
space on your desktop.

TrackIt is Freeware!

..and now the usual:
I am not responsible for any damage in any form that might happen
due to the use of this program! (not, that I expect this to
happen...this is just in case!)
Even if this software is freeware, the permission to copy it and/or
spread it to second persons or to a BBS is allowed only, if both the
program itself and this text file are copied together. No changes in
any form, to this document or the program, are allowed. So, finally,
what you should get is:
TRACKIT.EXE
TRACKIT.TXT
DLL32.DLL
DLL16.DLL


!!!!!!!!
Note: In the Setup dialog you will find an option 'calc. task slice'.
Use this with caution and only if needed, because it uses pretty much
CPU cycles. It is just a tool to provide you with time consumption
information of your environment on demand. The same applies to the
'use timer' option. Try to use the timer of possible. Deselecting this,
causes Trackit to consume lots of CPU cycles. In the best case, you have
'calc. task slice' deselected and 'use timer' selected. This is the healthiest
possible setting. In the latter scenario, CPU utilization is
approximatly 1-3 percent, depending on the timer delay.
!!!!!!!!

Sidenote: Resizing is done only vertically after you chose the settings
in the setup dialog. This is due to the fact, that trackit does not limit
the use of fonts. You can use any font you like, even proportional font.
For the latter it is almost impossible to calculate the fitting width. But
is shouldn't be to much work, to adjust the width by dragging the window border
once setup is done. Remember, you only have to do this once, or better, any time,
you changed the font.

popup-window display.
You can choose between popup window for display, or an
ordinary window. The popup requires less space on the desktop and
it also looks nicer, but, the drawback is, that you only can end
the program now in the Settings dialog. The advantage of the usual
window is, that you can put Trackit in Iconized mode. In W95 it will
then show the memory utilization in the taskbar. In Popup mode, you
can change the size with the border around the popup frame. To move the
window, klick on the client area, hold button and drag the window to the
new location. Remember: To enter setup-mode still requires to press
the right mouse button while the cursor is over the TrackIt client area.
This is both true for popup display and ordinary window display.

..and finally: English is not my native language, as you might have
found out on your own now <g>. Forgive me bad vocabulary. I hope the
text is redundant enough to make out the meaning <g>. If you have
questions left, conntact me on CIS:70007,5261

---------------------------------------------------------------------

                         SETUP DIALOG
                         ------------
What follows now, is a description of the available options in the
setup dialog and some useful hints and notes. Remember, that you can
access the dialog, if you move the mouse over the TrackIt area and
then press the right mouse button.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The OK button:
    confirm all settings in the dialog and continue with the
    program. (Remember, click-right to get into the dialog)

The FONT button:
    Select a font of your choice. All attributes are supported.
    I would recommend to use a fixed-pitched font for a cleaner
    look.

The COLOR buttons:
    Select a color of your choice for the foreground, background
    and the percentbar.

THE SYSINFO BOX:
----------------
memory usage in %:
    If this is checked, you will be displayed the current memory
    utilisation of the system. The information is so important
    (I think), that it is not displayed in the window (if popup is
    not choosen). Instead it goes to the windows caption. This
    has the advantage, that under Windows95 you can see the
    memory usage in the taskbar,even if the program is minimized.

total physical mem:
    Displays the total amount of available physical memory.
    Interestingly enough, the values differ under W95 and NT.
    I got 29MB under W95, 32MB under NT.

avail.physical mem:
    displays the current available physical memory. Since
    this amount is seldom more than 5MB, the information is always
    displayed in KB. All other memory info is displayed in MB and
    will change to KB, if the value drops to less than 1024.

total pages:
    The total number of memory pages.

avail. pages:
    The number of available pages

total virtual mem:
    The total number of virtual memory.

avail. virtual mem:
    The amount of available MB in swapspace.

pagesize:
    The size of a memorypage.

min.appl.address:
    The lowest possible startaddress for an application.

max.appl.address:
    The highest possible endadress for an application.

processor type:
    displays the typename of the processor. Interestingly
    enough, it always reports wrong on my machine. The reason is,
    the defines are different from the real results of the involved
    SDK function call. Since I do not know, if this is a mistake in the
    function itself, or a mistake in the (MS) headerfile, I could
    not do anything about it. Once the final version of W95 is out,
    I will supply an update to TrackIt1.1 which fixes this then.

SystemDate:
    shows the current local date. Dateformat differences is taken
    care of.


The DRIVES box:
---------------

There is nothing much to say here. Choose the drives you wish to get
displayed. A and B are always displayed in KB, all the others in MB.
This will change to KB also, if the free space drops to less than
1024KB.
NOTE: The availability of the checked drive is not checked. If you
choose a not valid drive, the main window will display a 'not available'.


The MISC box:
-------------

processes/threads:
    If selected, you will be displayed the number of all threads and processes
    currently running.

top/child windows:
    If checked the number of all TopAppWindows and all the childwindows
    currently beeing used is displayed.

always top:
    If checked, the TrackIt window will reside on top of the desktop
    all the time.

calc. task slice:
    This is sort of tricky. What is displayed here, is _not_ the
    current CPU utilisation. Measured here is the the speed
    of overall message throughput. I think, this value gives
    a fairly good idea of what 'is currently going on' in your system
    regarding time consumption. The higher the value, the better.
    To give you a better idea: Try to copy a big file to drive A:
    and see, how drastically the value drops. This is due to some
    DMA access to that drive, which requires most attention of the
    system. At that point, all running applications cannot receive
    as much msgs as they could do in idle state. That's why the value
    drops. Experiment with some applications, especially time
    consuming ones, and you will see, that the value presented is
    unfortunately 'pretty possible'.
    Average values in idlestate, I could check on my own are:
    P90: 80-92
    P60: 61

    NOTE:
        calc. task slice does ONLY work, if 'use timer' is
        disabled.

use timer:
    Installs a timer for triggering some actions (like repainting)
    after the sample delay has passed. Usually such an application
    would always use a timer to trigger acurate measurement of the
    sample delay. Since the program does not rely on such critical
    timing, I have embedded the option to disable the timer usage.
    There could be two advantages if you disable this option. First,
    timers are _very_ limited and if you run some more applications,
    you might fall into a situation, where an application does not
    start anymore due to a 'can not allocate timer' error. Disableing
    the timer in TrackIt would free a timer, that then can be used by
    another application. The second advantage is, 'calc. time
    slice' works ONLY, if 'use timer' is disabled, so once you want
    this calculation, you need to disable the timer anyway.

smp.delay:
    The sample delay is the time in milliseconds that has to pass,
    before an information collection and the repaint of the new
    information is triggered. The larger this value, the fewer
    system time is wasted. But if the value is to large, the
    information might get 'out of date' when it is next displayed.
    A value between 1000-5000 is good enough for every day usage.
    A value below 100, or an incorrect value (e.g: mixed with
    characters) will be set to 100 automatically.

percentbar under text:
    If an information returns percent values, you will have a
    colored bar under the text, that represents the value
    displayed in this line.

percentvalue in string:
    Instead of displaying the percentbar, you can have all
    the percent information displayed int the info string
    itself:


The THUNK box:
-------------

GDI,System,User:
    All three checkboxes reflect the values you all might know
    of the old W3.1 environment. It represents the free User, GDI
    and System Resources of W.3.1. However, this function now does
    reflect the status of W95 too, so it is a pretty usefull information.


HAVE FUN!