THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THIS PROGRAM. Please check out the Disclaimer section of this document.
1. Introduction
2. Installation
3. Uninstallation
4. Running
5. Feedback
6. History
7. Disclaimer
1. Introduction
---------------
Originally designed just to run applications and add icons to the System Tray area representing their presence, Trayer has since been added some nice-to-have features. Just to name a few, "Application Launcher Mode", "Auto Update Tray Icon", "Auto Hide Tray Icon", and also the ability to remove the Taskbar button of the target application. Ideal for programs such as WinPopup, CD Player, or any background processing programs that you want to keep running without taking up any Taskbar space.
2. Installation
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If you have previous version of Trayer installed on your PC, please remove it first before you perform the following steps. To remove the previous version of Trayer, please refer to "Uninstallation" section below.
I) Create a temporary folder for the installation:
Right-click on the desktop and choose New:Folder from the pop-up menu. Name the folder "Temp".
II) Download the Trayer:
Click the link on the Trayer page to download the file "Trayer.zip". Save it in the Temp folder you just created.
III) De-compress the file "Trayer.zip":
Open the Temp folder and unzip the file "Trayer.zip". This will create several new files in your Temp folder.
IV) Install the Trayer:
Find the new file called "Trayer.inf". Right-click it, then choose Install.
This will copy the following files into the respective folders:
Trayer.exe & Trayer.dll -> Windows directory
Trayer.inf -> INF directory
Trayer.cnt & Trayer.hlp -> Help directory
Okay okay, I know you don't like the program to be copied into Windows directory, I don't like it either, but this is the easiest way so that it can be run from any directory.
V) Remove Temp folder:
Delete the Temp folder (and all the files) in it from the desktop.
3. Uninstallation
-----------------
Please make sure you do not have Trayer running before you perform the following steps:
I) Open the control panel:
On the Start Menu, choose Settings->Control Panel.
II) Open "Add/Remove Programs":
Find the Control Panel called Add/Remove Programs and double-click it.
III) Remove Trayer:
Select "Trayer (Remove Only)" on the list, then click the button marked "Add/Remove".
4. Running
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Run Trayer.exe to configure the target application. Then, click "Create Shortcut" button to save the configuration of the target application as a shortcut, so that the next you want to run it, you can just double-click on the shortcut and have the target application run in the tray without going through the configuration steps all over again.
After running the program, click the icon in the system tray to show or hide the window of the target application. It also can be configured to activate by double-click instead of single-click.
Right-click the icon to bring up the context menu, which allows you to change some parameters of the running instance of Trayer, or to configure Trayer with new programs and create shortcuts.
Context-sensitive help is supported in the dialog box, though it should be intuitive enough.
To re-configure a Trayer shortcut, double-click the shortcut while holding down the Shift key. The Trayer Properties dialog will be displayed. After making the changes, click "Create Shortcut" button and save the shortcut with the same filename to overwrite it.
The alternative of making changes to an existing Trayer shortcut is to run Trayer first, and then drag-and-drop the Trayer shortcut from Windows Explorer to the Trayer Properties dialog box. By doing this, the "Create Shortcut" button will then become "Save Shortcut", as such, you can click the "Save Shortcut" button to save and overwrite the shortcut that you have just dropped more easily.
As you may notice, drag-and-drop support is added to Trayer Properties dialog box. You can also drag-and-drop executables or document files to the Properties dialog box.
You can also create a shortcut to Trayer.exe and put the shortcut on the desktop, just that I personally think that it wouldn't be very much useful, as you don't normally run Trayer by itself. One way of using it is, you can actually drop an executable or a document to the shortcut from windows explorer to have it run right away.
5. Feedback
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Please send in your opinions, bug reports, suggestions, etc, to me. I can be reached at ngkf@pacific.net.sg
6. History
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04/08/1998 - 2.3.0
1) Fixed bug that doesn't show the menu and toolbars in Excel 97 when Excel 97 is minimized and then shown by Trayer.
2) Fixed bug that fails to interpret the command line correctly if the command line consists of hyphen "-" characters.
3) Fixed bug that fails to update the tray icon and tooltip under certain circumstance.
4) Fixed bug that overwrites the memory mapped file causing 2 or more Trayer programs running concurrently to be failed under a very rare circumstances.
5) Added "Remember Preference" option to remember user's preference. At this point, only the default folder for saving Trayer shortcuts is remembered. Any other suggestions?
6) Added "Force Target as Single Instance Application" option. Also the command line parameter "/single".
7) Added function to bring up the System Menu of the target application by holding down Shift key while right-clicking the tray icon.
8) Added option "Might be a Child Window itself" under "Target Window" in Properties dialog box. Also the command line parameter "/child".
9) Polished the Error Message dialog box to give suggestions what to do when error occurs.
10) Modified the About dialog box to include the link to the Trayer home page.
13/07/1998 - 2.2.1
1) Fixed bug that fails to update the tray icon and tooltip under certain circumstances.
12/07/1998 - 2.2.0
1) Fixed bug that removes double-quotes from the command line unnecessarily.
2) Fixed bug that overwrites the memory mapped file causing 2 or more Trayer programs running concurrently to be failed.
3) Fixed bug that overwrites the Timeout timer causing 2 or more Trayer programs running concurrently to be failed.
4) Fixed bug that causes "Hide On Minimize" function inoperative when 2 or more Trayer programs are launched concurrently. The same bug also prevents Trayer from removing the icon in the system tray when the target program is terminated.
5) Added "Application Launcher" feature. Also the command line parameter "/launcher".
6) Added new command line parameter "/run" that runs target application in normal window, minimized or maximized.
7) Added "Auto Update Tray Icon" feature. Also the command line parameter "/updateicon".
8) Command line parameter "/hidetrayer" should be replaced by "/hideicon" and is provided for backward compatibility only.
9) Modified Exit command in the context menu to send SC_CLOSE to target application only instead of closing down Trayer without knowing that the target application is actually terminated. To force Trayer to close down, press and hold SHIFT key while selecting Exit.
10) Modified the error message displayed when the target window (with the caption specified by the user) cannot be located.
11) Modified the show/hide toggle behaviour to bring the target window to top instead of hiding it if the target window is shown and inactivated (for "Taskbar Button Always Hide" only).
07/06/1998 - 2.1.0
1) Fixed bug that shuts down the system when the execution timeout occurs while more than one Trayer target is running.
2) Fixed bug that interprets double-quotes in the command line wrongly.
3) Fixed bug that posts WM_CLOSE to child windows and causes illegal operation fault.
4) Fixed bug that locates hidden window as target window.
5) Fixed bug that adds double-quotes to the command line unnecessarily.
6) Fixed bug that disallows execution of shortcuts when shortcuts are passed in as command line parameters.
7) Added code to determine whether target program is written as a single instance program, so that error message will not be displayed if the second instance of the target program is executed and subsequently terminated. Instead, Trayer will try to switch to the first instance of the target program.
8) Added code to display error message if Trayer.DLL cannot be loaded (eg. file not found). In this case, taskbar button "Always Hide" feature will not be functioning.
20/05/1998 - 2.0.0
1) Call SetMenuDefaultItem() to bold default menu item.
2) Added Hotkey support to context menu.
3) Added new "Auto Hide Trayer Icon" to Properties dialog box. This feature removes icon in the System Tray automatically when the target window is shown.
4) Replaced "Hide On Minimize" in Properties dialog box with "Hide Taskbar Button".
5) Added "Always Hide" to "Hide Taskbar Button" in Properties dialog box.
6) Added new command line parameter "/hidetrayer", "/hidebutton" and "/target".
7) Command line parameter "/hideonmin" should be replaced by "/hidebutton" and is provided for backward compatibility only.
8) Added CList to keep track the windows show mode, fixed bug that show hidden parent window of the target window unnecessarily.
9) Added radio buttons in Properties dialog box to select the Target Window type.
10) Added code to find alternative window in the same process of the target window when target window is destroyed. This behaviour is determined by the Target Window type.
11) Added code to show/hide the target window and all its child windows. This behaviour is determined by the Target Window type.
12) Added code to show/hide all the windows in the same process of the target window. This behaviour is determined by the Target Window type.
13) Added code to send WM_CLOSE to all the child windows of the target window then finally the target window.
14) Command line parameters which has default value will no longer be saved into the shortcut. This is to solve command line parameters too long problem.
15) Added dialog box icon for Properties dialog box and Target Program Info dialog box.
16) Added "Auto Refresh" to update Program Info dialog box automatically.
17) Added "Always On Top" to keep Program Info dialog box always on top of other windows.
18) Modified Properties dialog box into PropertySheet with "General" page and "Advanced Settings" page.
19) Separated hook functions from Trayer.exe to Trayer.dll for taskbar button "Always Hide" feature.
20) Added Drag & Drop support to accept files drop into Properties dialog box.
21) Changed default icon file to SHELL32.DLL instead of PIFMGR.DLL.
22) Redesign Trayer to run as single instance program.
23) Added awareness of environment strings in command line, e.g. %SystemRoot% for Windows NT.
24) Added awareness of Prefix "Shortcut to" setting in TWEAKUI.
25) Added "Browse" button to select folder for "Start in" parameter in Properties dialog box.
26) Added "Icon chooser" dialog box in Properties dialog box. Thanks Victor Vogelpoel from Netherlands for sending me the code, which is written by PJ Naughter.
27) Fixed bug of TrackPopupMenu(), whereby the context menu appears when clicked and immediately disappears by itself.
28) Fixed bug that terminates Trayer when the target program terminates itself after executing another program, even if "Window Name/Caption" is specified.
29) Fixed bug that changes icon in the Properties dialog unnecessarily.
30) Fixed bug that shows incorrect value of Process ID and Thread ID in Program Info dialog box.
31) Fixed bug that shows Properties dialog box as minimized or maximized when shift-double-clicking the shortcut (if the shortcut is configured to run as minimized or maximized).
32) Fixed bug that targeted wrongly on an existing window as the target window which caption happens to match the "Window Name/Caption" specified.
33) Fixed bug that interprets executable filename wrongly as a command line argument.
12/04/1998 - 1.0.0
Initial Release.
7. Disclaimer
-------------
This software can be used freely for any purpose. It can be distributed freely, as long as it is not sold commercially without permission from the Author.
This Software is provided on an "AS IS" basis, without warranty of any kind, neither express nor implied. The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the Software is borne by you. Should the Software prove to be defective, you and not the Author assume the entire cost of any service and repair.
