PC Users 1999 April

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Text File | 1999-02-24 | 22.9 KB | 475 lines

Blanch 1.9 Copyright (c) 1997, 1998 One Guy Coding Changes ======= Ver 1.9e : Feb 24/99 - If Blanch were pushed to the edge of the screen and Autohide was NOT enabled Blanch would hide and never come back. Fixed. - Added "Win" key to the blanch hotkey procedure. Ironed out a couple of other hotkey issues. Ver 1.9d : Feb 23/99 - Added some more tweaks to fix auto hide compatibility between Win95, Win98 and WinNT4. - A severe problem for older versions of Win95 and WinNT was fixed. This problem involves the commctl32.dll file version which changes according to the whim of Bill Gates et al and the need to add new features to the Common Controls Library. If you are running the original version of Win95 you may have problems opening the blanch properties dialog. It will be pretty obvious if your windows version is not compatible with this version of blanch the Properties dialog may not open and if it does it may be horribly elongated or simply crash without warning. This problem shouldn't affect too many users. If this does affect you I strongly recommend that you go to the Microsoft web site and get the patch required to bring your version to Win95a. If you right click on "My Computer" and select Properties you will see the version number there. The same applies to the earliest version of WinNT. In this case you should get the SP4 system patch (the latest at the time I wrote this sentence). - The hideDelay default was changed to 2000 ms (milliseconds) - Added a multiple button bar hack. You can now run more than one blanch button bar if you feel so inclined. The easiest way to do this is to create a button on the main blanch button bar and type in a "name" for the new button bar in the options. For example, the button properties for a button bar with the "name" melanie would look something like, Description: Melanie's Own Button Bar Executable: c:\Program Files\One Guy Coding\blanch.exe Options: melanie Settings for this button bar would be stored in, HKCU\Software\One Guy Coding\blanch\melanie - Added autoSaveProperties hack to registry settings. After running this version a new registry entry will be created in HKCU\Software\One Guy Coding\blanch\global called autoSaveProperties. Set this value to TRUE to have blanch automatically save registry settings every time the main Properties dialog box is closed. This saves all options as well as button settings. - Added autoExportOnExit hack to registry settings. After running this version a new registry entry will be created in HKCU\Software\One Guy Coding\blanch\global called autoExportOnExit. Set this value to be a full path name to the directory where you want the registry exported. For example, set the value to c:\temp\blanch.reg to automatically export the registry settings to this file every time blanch exits. Ver 1.9b : July 27/98 - Fixed autohide issues with Win98. Blanch was using the SetForegroundWindow() function to notify itself that it was to be put in the foreground but Microsoft changed the behaviour of this function in Win98. Blanch now uses a different method for autohide. - Fixed autohide problems introduced in Win95 and NT4 while trying to fix the autohide problems for Win98. - added lock size parameter to prevent Blanch from sizing (either automagically or manually) - added 'Run ...' dialog to Blanch context menu. You can also open this dialog by double clicking any blank part of a blanch page (that is, not on a button). - If blanch started up with buttons that existed beyond the screen limits, some strange things would happen. These buttons are now put on a 'Blanch Trash' page. Ver 1.9 : Jun 30/98 - Added Exit Prompt option in Properties/Options - Fixed Calendar in the Cron settings dialog (months and years were not advancing properly). - Autohide works under Win95 and NT4. Under Win98 it works although occasionally will not hide. I'm working on it. - Rewrote code responsible for creating and displaying context menus Ver 1.8c : Jun 25/98 - refixed the problems introduced in 1.8a and 1.8b. The autohide problem is still broken in Win98. #@%$^*!* Microsoft. My apologies for the delay in fixing this. Ver 1.8b : May 30/98 - Show Caption, among other options were horribly broken by the "fixes" that I implemented yesterday. Except for some annoying repainting issues this is largely fixed. Sorry to those affected. Ver 1.8a : May 29/98 - A button for Blanch was appearing in the taskbar when none should have been. This has been fixed. - Blanch doesn't autohide when the Properties dialog is displayed. - Can drop multiple files on blanch when autohiding. The buttons will be created on the current page. Caveat: if you select 30,000 files blanch will attempt to create a whole bunch of buttons (sarcasm intended) - Tooltips are now created using the Windows Tooltip Class rather than my old homemade Tooltip class. This means that tooltips look more standard than in previous versions. - The Blanch autoHide Delay was not working properly. The timeout value is reset each time the mouse is moved on top of blanch, so that a timeout of 500ms will always be 500ms and not some fraction of 500ms. - Autohide is not working properly under Win98. This appears to be a problem with Win98 beta 3 or at least a different sequence of messages. The WM_ACTIVATE message has always been a little different than its description. Ver 1.8 : Apr 02/98 - Pages could become corrupted on startup. This was caused by the background load of pages. It was possible that a page could be loaded more than once. This multiple load could then be compounded so that multiples of each button on the page were created. Not a good thing. This has been tweaked to avoid this situation. Pages are still loaded in the background but more cautiously. To control the time between successive page loads on startup you can fiddle with the registry variable "loadDelay" under, HKCU\Software\One Guy Coding\Blanch\Global This is a DWORD value and defaults to 2000 milliseconds. This means that pages are loaded at startup one after the other at 2 second intervals, by default. If you have 10 pages it would take about 20 seconds to load in all the buttons, but you will be able to use the blanch pages that have already loaded. I will experiment with other values but have opted for the more conservative value of 2s. Play with this value if you wish. The basic rule of thumb is 'the higher this value the more responsive blanch will be on startup.' - Certain file associations would not load properly. This only happened if the associated file did not have a verb of type "open". Blanch now lets the system decide on the type of Verb to use for associated files. - Explore now explores the file in which a file resides if it is a document rather than the directory in which its associated executable lives. - The 'Action' flyout on the button menu contains the available 'verbs' for launching an associated document. For example, if you dropped a WAV file on blanch the Actions would be 'open' and 'play', the former opens the file and the later plays the sound. Of course your setup could display WAV files differently depending on the software that you have loaded. - The default verb for executables is always "open" - The Explore menu item on the button context menu has been moved to the top of the Action flyout menu. Similarly, the Startup Shortcut item has been moved to the bottom of this menu. - The hotkey tab was replaced with a shiny new version - Help file updates will be coming soon Ver 1.7 : Mar 11/98 - included setup program - Blanch now listens to Vern 2.0a and above. If you have a Vern cell with the same label as a Blanch page, Blanch will switch to that page when Vern enters said named cell. - fixed nag screen problem (it's supposed to come up only 1 in 10 runs but it was appearing almost every time.) - Buttons menu now has a flyout menu listing available dialup sessions. Select one of the sessions from the flyout and blanch will create a button for that session. This is available only in Win95. I've not figured out how to create a similar list in WinNT. Ver 1.6c : Mar 03/98 - Fixed problem with the Startup page icons overwriting the current page (only occurred if the Process Startup option was being used.) - Fixed problem with new key refresh (F5) not selecting the proper icon after a remote or removable disk were reattached. Ver 1.6b : Feb 25/98 - If the Hide delay value was set to other than 0, and one had opened a context menu for one of the buttons, Blanch would hide according to the delay value that was set and the context menu would disappear. Fixed! Ver 1.6a : Feb 23/98 - New Autohide behaviour. The "More ..." tab of the Properties dialog now has a "Show delay" option and a "Hide delay" option. These values are in milliseconds. Show delay is the delay before blanch activates on a mouse-over. Hide delay is the time before blanch autohides - if this value is 0 the behaviour defaults to the behaviour in prior versions. - Changed page activation from F1, F2, F3, ... to 1, 2, 3. I decided that the function keys are better served for other purposes. You can also activate pages with Ctrl-1, Ctrl-2, etc. - Fixed a problem with resizing blanch after the size of the buttons had been changed from large to small. - You can now change the size of the small blanch buttons in the registry. The values are cxSmall and cySmall (representing the width and height of the buttons). - On Startup, if blanch finds a file in the Startup folder, it always replaces it with a link to the current file. So if you change the path to blanch the Startup shortcut will reflect the change. - F5 can be used to refresh a page. All icons will be reloaded and the page redrawn. This is necessary to refresh any Blanch refering to files on removable media. Ver 1.6 : Feb 21/98 - Fixed cron. There was a bug in the cron code that would cause unpredictable results if more than one program were scheduled to be loaded at any given time. Cron is working much better now! - Added a cronlog option in the Cron settings dialog. This option is global so all logging will go to that file. There's no browse button provided but it's pretty easy to type in a full path like c:\temp\cronlog.txt - The nag screen will now appear only 1 in 10 times, on average. - The Tooltips have more information if you hold down the control key while mousing over top of a button. The Exe and Options, as well as a flag for cron settings, are now displayed as well as the Description. - If blanch is auto hiding (ie., docked) it will not be activated if the left mouse button is depressed. This helps prevent accidental activation if scrolling, or dragging in the vicinity of Blanch. - All pages are now loaded at startup. Note that the loads are delayed between subsequent pages, so it doesn't seem to be too intense when starting blanch. The delay is hard coded as 500 ms between page loads, if you would like this variable to be stored in the registry please let me know. This also solves the problem that if crons were located on an unloaded page then they wouldn't be loaded as expected until the page were manually loaded. Note also that page switches are instantaneous the first time now. This is really a very nice change, IMHO. Ver 1.5a : Feb 9/98 - first time setups now get an Accessories and System Tools page created as well as the first few blanches (Explorer, Control Panel, Printers and Dialup Networking) - added a Quick Scan option (to Page menu) that allows one to easily scan new Program Folders in the start menu. This is a quick way to recreate a lot of functionality if you've neglected to export the registry before reinstalling Windows, etc. This option is accessible via the Ctrl-Q keyboard accelerator. - the previous two features were added since I have to reinstall Win95 about 50 times per year (based on the number of machines that I administer to) and these options make it easy to recreate the vast majority of blanches with very little effort. - changed the lock button so that the thumb tack is "stuck in" when blanch is locked and "unstuck" when not locked. - decreased the startup "Nag" screen from once every four runs to once every 8 runs -- on average. That is, if you are running blanch unregistered you should only see the Nag screen once per week assuming you start Windows once per day. Your mileage may vary. - the *small* icons look better now. If a small icon is available it is used as is (rather than scaling down the large size icon as I was doing in previous versions.) - fixed a couple of minor bugs associated with switching from large to small icons, and vice versa. Ver 1.5 : Feb 5/98 - fixed a problem for new installations. Code that was inserted to control blanch positionning after resolution changes broke the positionning code for new setups, that is, the first time that blanch was run it was not being properly positionned on screen. Ver 1.5 : Feb 3/98 - added keyboard control interface CURSOR LEFT/RIGHT - move horizontally left/right CURSOR UP/DOWN - move vertically up/down TAB/SHIFT TAB - Next/Prev page ENTER - launch currently selected button SPACE - open current button properties dialog DEL - cut the current button to the blanch clipboard INS - paste the blanch clipboard to the current page - added a button menu entry to allow one to easily add a button to the Windows Startup folder - added a menu entry to the button menu to access the main Blanch menu - added a cron entry on the button menu - added a funky new bitmap to the about dialog and nag dialog - fixed problem with Startup checkmark in Main blanch menu - fixed a problem with the Export Registry menu entry involving long filenames - fixed a problem with autohiding after resolution changes - todo: update help file to reflect these changes Ver 1.4g : Jan 23/98 - duplicated "Programs ..." entry to main context menu so that the "Start Menu/Programs" folder is more accessible - added a "Startup shortcut" item to the main context menu so that a Blanch shortcut can easily be added/removed from the Start menu Startup folder - fixed a problem with the display of the font size on the "More" tab of the properties dialog box - updated the One Guy Coding snail mail address in the help file - updated the help file - the Nag dialog is back, I've made the concession that it is only displayed once every four times, on average Ver 1.4f : Oct 24/97 - Page Tab bar can be optionally hidden - added several keyboard accelerators Ctrl+O - Toggle horizontal/vertical display Ctrl+T - Toggle Page Tab option Ctrl+C - Toggle Caption option Ctrl+L - Toggle Lock position option - if the Ctrl key is down while displaying a tool tip the path to the executable is also displayed Ver 1.4e : Jun 22/97 - Ctrl+B to add a new button opens explorer in the Programs menu Ver 1.4d : Jun 8/ 97 - added "My Computer" entry to preset buttons menu - various little fixes and adjustments Ver 1.4c : Apr 22/97 - fixed problem with renaming or deleting pages that had no buttons - You can now specify whether you would like blanch to Prompt, Replace, Load File or Create New when dropping a file on another Blanch button. Holding down the Ctrl key will override the default setting and open the Prompt dialog. Ver 1.4b : Apr 10/97 - fixed recursive delete of Registry keys problem in Windows NT 4 that prevented the renaming or deleting of Blanch pages. Ver 1.4a : Apr 03/97 - Added Help file and incorporated context sensitive help in the Blanch Properties and Blanch Button Properties dialog boxes. - refixed the focus problem that was fixed last release. Button clicks now work first time when activating but Blanch won't activate on a mouse over. - fixed extra menu item problem in the Pages menu. Ver 1.4 : Mar 27/97 - Blanch would get focus if inactive, fixed - Clock was taking up space even if not used, fixed - Showing the caption could leave blanch 'On Top' in some instances, even if it wasn't meant to be, fixed - Added "Lock position" option to prevent accidental movement - Added "Freeze settings" accelerator to prevent settings from changing. This is especially useful for system administrators or in environments where NEWBIE's might be found. After setting up blanch to your specifications you can prevent changes from being saved by hitting the key combination Alt+Ctrl+Shift+Z - Blanch now saves to the registry only values that have actually been saved. This change decreased the size of my settings from 30K to about 20K (7 pages containing about 90 buttons total, thus on average the reduction in storage is about 10K/90 = 113 bytes per blanch in this instance) Ver 1.3j : Mar 24/97 - I fixed bug that would cause an unregistered versions of blanch to crash when exiting blanch. - fixed background paint problem when 'Flat Style' not used Ver 1.3i : Mar 23/97 - fixed registration problem - added 'Resolve links' option to Blanch properties\Options. With resolve links selected links are resolved to the actual file being pointed to. This can be toggled while working by holding down the Ctrl key while dropping a file onto blanch. - Added 'Process StartUp page' to Blanch properties\Options. If this option is selected blanch will look for a page called StartUp (or whatever your windows StartUp folder is called) and launch all the buttons on that page when Blanch is launched. You should use resolved links to the StartUp buttons for quicker launches. Once you've created all your StartUp buttons, remove the programs from the Win StartUp folder (I've created a subdirectory in the StartUp folder and moved all the current startup links except Blanch into that folder to prevent them from running). Startups are *much* faster with blanch, even I'm amazed at the speedup. - The startup page name is case sensitive. Make sure it's the same as the Windows Folder name (pour example, je pense que le nom est 'Commencer' en Francais, mais je ne suis pas absolument certain) - Hold down Ctrl to prevent the StartUp action when starting. Ver 1.3h : Mar 18/97 - fixed problems with Delete and Rename Page on the page tab of the properties dialog box. Ver 1.3g : Mar 08/97 - Register online via the Register tab of the Properties dialog box. You must be connected to the net and have a WWW browser installed on your computer to use this option. - see Notes section of readme.txt for a description of how to add a dialup networking connection button, I will automate this in the near future. - Tabs are now proportional in width, rather than constant. - added "More ..." tab to the Properties dialog box - can set flyout font in More tab (try 11pt Arial Narrow) - can now set sounds for 15, 30 and 60 minutes on the hour - can toll sound events on the hour (eg. 5 times at 5 o'clock) - can show/hide the clock - fixed a problem with the 'Lock' button (if closing blanch while locked the auto hide and on top settings were not properly saved) Ver 1.3f : Mar 06/97 - if while dragging a blanch button one dropped it on another blanch it would be cut to the clipboard. Now it is just returned to its initial position - a couple more niggling little changes which affect only aesthetics Ver 1.3e : Mar 05/97 - code responsible for dealing with dropped files on blanch has be shored up. - added a 'Drop File' dialog box which is shown when a file is dropped on a Blanch button. This dialog offers one of four choices, Replace Blanch - dropped file replaces the current Blanch Load dropped files - current blanch exe is responsible for loading the blanch with the dropped files Create new blanch - puts a new blanch on the current page Cancel - ignore the dropped file - added the 'forget' option. When files are loaded a blanch button can forget the file names (default) or remember them (they are placed in the Options edit control of the button properties dialog box). - cleaned up flyouts - Hold down Ctrl to toggle the use of flyouts Ver 1.3d : Mar 04/97 - 'Explore blanch button' now selects the appropriate program - Save registry option added. You can save your current blanch setup to a file. Ver 1.3c : Mar 03/97 - added scheduling to button properties (see *Cron Options* in readme.txt) enabling timed launches for any of the Blanch buttons - added AutoHide delay in Blanch Options tab of main properties dialog box - added Save to registry to Options menu - added Flat Style to Options menu (affect the appearance of Blanch) - fixed flyout problem when blanch is auto hiding at the bottom of the screen Ver 1.3a : Feb 26/97 - added digital clock Ver 1.3 : Feb 25/97 - more aesthetic changes Ver 1.2g : Feb 20/97 - Added "Save to registry" in options menu. Settings are not saved until you exit blanch or select this menu entry or hit Ctrl-S - Added Register Dialog Tab and License dialog Tab - various other little fixes Ver 1.2g : Feb 14/97 - changed button tabs (Thanks to Eric H) Ver 1.2f : Feb 09/97 - mouse snaps between button tabs (you can turn this off in options menu) - moved Options menu - if buttons are outside of the current size of blanch she will expand to show all buttons - if a button somehow ends up beyond the maximum extents of blanch they will be moved to a new page called "Blanch trash" - can now change the order of the blanch pages in the Page Tab of the properties dialog box. - when dropping files on blanch, new buttons are added to the first available location or blanch is expanded to show the new button - scan page is much safer with the above mentioned expansion mechanism - pages are now saved only when exiting or from the Options tab of the properties dialog (Save to registry) - various other minor bug fixes here and there Ver 1.2e : Feb 06/97 - removed nag dialog - enabled 'Scan Page' dialog (be careful with this, since buttons are not really being added to blanch pages safely yet)