Messages

51

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock runs perfectly fine, but shutting down/closing dock results in crash

« on: June 21, 2010, 05:40 PM »

I think it's reasonable to assume that Circle Dock is not the guilty party, otherwise this board would be full of complaining messages.

Is your's a notebook PC? The reason I ask is that one of my testers has a HP laptop with Vista-64 and encountered exactly the same problem as you described. Based on previous experience I always check to see if there are any updates for device drivers - video drivers are the usual suspects. We updated his and that fixed the problem. Whether it will fix yours, I don't know.

The other thing you can try is defragment your hard drive and change the default swap file from "System Managed" to a fixed size based on 2.5 times the amount of physical RAM. So if yours is a 2 GiB PC, your swap file should be 5 GiB. That should ensure that the swap file is contiguous on disk.

If yours is an older PC with a Pentium IV or Xeon CPU, try disabling "Multi-Threading" in the BIOS settings.

Ok if I return to my deckchair in the sun now, Sarge?



Mark

52

Circle Dock / Circle Dock and Dexpot Virtual Desktop Manager

« on: June 18, 2010, 07:05 PM »

A Virtual Desktop Manager is a natural complementary application for Circle Dock and we have been looking at them. The best that we have come across is "Dexpot" which is free for personal use and is produced by a couple of guys in Germany. In a separate topic, the Sarge explains how you can use Circle Dock to switch between Dexpot's virtual desktops and summon Dexpot's settings and ancillary windows.

However, that is not the end of the story. Following discussions with Dexpot's authors, we have decided to support Dexpot natively within Circle Dock by means of additional menu options for Circle Dock's Background, Centre Button and its optional Toggle Button. These menus, in case you've not discovered them, can be summoned by placing the mouse pointer over a "point of interest" and pressing the right mouse button.

The Background's and Toggle Button menus will contain options for switching between the virtual desktops whilst the Centre Button's menu will contain options for summoning Dexpot's dialogs and ancillary windows. Circle Dock's main settings dialog will contain a few specific options concerning Circle Dock's behaviour when Dexpot is active.

If you prefer to use Dock Items to control Dexpot, you can of course continue to do so, however the menu commands will be marginally faster and more convenient.

Regardless of how you use Dexpot, it is and will remain a completely separate product with its own support forum to which you should use to post messages regarding that program.



Mark

53

Circle Dock / Re: Middle Mouse

« on: May 29, 2010, 12:08 PM »

Whilst I appreciate you may have been feeling a bit frustrated when you posted your message, it would be appreciated if you'd be a bit more temperate next time.

The answer to your question, how to change the mouse toggle button, will be found in the Visibility tab of Dock Settings and is fully explained in the Help Browser.

However, the premise of your first paragraph is entirely false. When Circle Dock is made visible, it will be the "active window" and all mouse input will be directed at it. To get the mouse to work with a different application on-screen at the same time, simply move your mouse to that application and click the left button to make that application the "active window" - and yes, your scroll-wheel will work as expected. Basic Windows stuff.


Mark

54

Circle Dock / Re: CircleDock Hotkeys with 2 non-toggle keys

« on: May 28, 2010, 01:13 AM »

I have investigated this and found there to be an intermittent problem caused by some sloppy coding by my predecessor. I have fixed it for the next release.


Mark

55

Circle Dock / Re: "CleanDesktop" - The Sarge's latest challenge to the developers!

« on: May 25, 2010, 05:34 AM »

CLI applications are the preserve of C++, I believe, and CleanDesktop is written in C#.

Just to screw the Sarge's Tutorial  , I've altered it so that there's no ugly "Dos Box" (which displayed the command-line parameters if there were none) but it will provide help in the absence of any valid command-line parameters.



Mark

56

Circle Dock / Re: "CleanDesktop" - The Sarge's latest challenge to the developers!

« on: May 24, 2010, 08:39 PM »

Is that the guy with the really, really small signature line? 

-cranioscopical (May 24, 2010, 08:03 AM)

Yup, that is he. As he's in charge around here, you'd think he'd have a signature that makes a bold and impressive statement, wouldn't you?   

Nothing like doing this blind, eh?

Ah you've noticed I'm using VB, then, Visual Braille!

-toggle not working at all

Now that's very strange because I'm using the same algorithm that someone developed for AutoIt which apparently does work. Oh well, back to the drawing board ...



Mark

57

Circle Dock / Re: "CleanDesktop" - The Sarge's latest challenge to the developers!

« on: May 24, 2010, 11:50 AM »

Did you read the text file that was also in the ZIP you downloaded?



Mark

58

Circle Dock / Re: Icons not on background after start up PC

« on: May 24, 2010, 02:00 AM »

Yours is a very rare case and not one experienced by the majority of users. I will look into this but in the mean time there are two possible workarounds:

(1) Unlock the Dock's Position, or,
(2) Have the Dock hidden on start up.



Mark

59

Circle Dock / Re: "CleanDesktop" - The Sarge's latest challenge to the developers!

« on: May 24, 2010, 01:24 AM »

Okay, let's try this approach ...

Oh and I'm used to troublemakers - ask the Sarge!  

60

Circle Dock / Re: "CleanDesktop" - The Sarge's latest challenge to the developers!

« on: May 23, 2010, 10:16 PM »

Thanks for the reply and explanation.
My comment was not intended as a complaint, merely a report.

-cranioscopical (May 23, 2010, 03:49 PM)

Chris,

Thank you for reporting it - which made me go back, look at the problem more carefully and make changes to the program's documentation.

Under XP, Desktop Icons are painted in a (n unnamed) child window whose parent is "Program Manager". For experimental purposes, I've recoded the "-ToggleIcons" code for XP to briefly show the parent window long enough to determine if its child is visible or hidden.

Perhaps you'd care to test it?


Mark

61

Circle Dock / Re: "CleanDesktop" - The Sarge's latest challenge to the developers!

« on: May 23, 2010, 12:07 PM »

Thank you for making this available!

FWIW, on my XP SP3 32-bit:
 -HideIcons and -ShowIcons work but -ToggleIcons has no effect.
 -HideAll and -ShowAll work but -ToggleAll has no effect.

-cranioscopical (May 23, 2010, 07:28 AM)

Unfortunately I don't have access to PC with XP loaded right now - but will have in ten days' time when I'm back in the UK for a few weeks.

The problem with XP is that the Desktop Icons are contained within a child window of a hidden window. This means that IsWindowVisible() will always return false because even if the child window is visible, the function returns false because its parent is hidden. If a parent window is itself hidden, you can not determine whether any of its child windows are visible or hidden.



Mark


Mark

62

Circle Dock / "CleanDesktop" - The Sarge's latest challenge to the developers!

« on: May 23, 2010, 05:37 AM »

Very late last night (Cebu time), the Sarge was musing about some of the newer additions to Circle Dock and wondered if it would be possible to have a small command-line utility that would hide or show the icons on the Windows Desktop. He, being a marketing type, believes that such a program would be rather popular and basically "threw-down the gauntlet" challenging me to come up with such a program.

Well, Sarge, I have risen to your challenge and released "CleanDesktop" which does precisely what you asked for - and then some! Not only can it hide, show or toggle the visibility of the Windows Desktop Icons but also it can do the same for the Sidebar and its gadgets. Both items can be controlled independently or together using its command-line options.

The download zip file contains both the executable program and a "read-me" file that explains the various options.

The download is here - CleanDesktopV1.1.Zip


Enjoy!


Mark

63

Circle Dock / Re: CircleDock Hotkeys with 2 non-toggle keys

« on: May 22, 2010, 11:58 AM »

Then you haven't heard of "WordStar" - a highly popular word processor from the early days of PC computing. It was one of the best examples of a raft of programs that used multiple-key hotkeys to perform commands; so popular was it that WordStar command sequences became an quasi- industry standard.

To send the hotkey sequence Alt+Space+N, simply press and hold the Alt key, then press the space bar followed by the N key. You can release the Alt key either immediately before or after pressing the N key.



Mark

64

Circle Dock / Re: Start Menu Shadow Residue Bug

« on: May 18, 2010, 09:42 PM »

Please read this topic.


Mark

65

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock Online Help has stopped working...

« on: May 18, 2010, 09:41 PM »

Please read this topic.


Mark

66

Circle Dock / 64-bit Version: Fix to Help Browser

« on: May 18, 2010, 09:40 PM »

There was an unfortunate problem with the 64-bit version of the Help Browser which caused it to display an error message when it was loaded. This was due to a module not being linked correctly and has now been fixed.

I have uploaded a refresh release for this (64-bit) platform and you should download and install this over your existing installation - you will not lose any settings by so doing.

Incidentally, the refresh does contain a slightly later (and enhanced) version of the Wallpaper Changer which contains a number of fixes.

Please refer to the download page for the correct link.


Mark

67

Circle Dock / Re: circle dock kiosk mode

« on: May 18, 2010, 11:08 AM »

First: your files haven't gone anywhere, they are still there. All that you deleted were the links to those files held in Circle Dock's dock items.

To turn-off Kiosk Mode you need to select Dock Settings from Circle Dock's System Tray Icon (near the system clock). You will be asked to re-enter the password you used to enter Kiosk Mode and, if entered correctly, Kiosk Mode will be turned-off and the main Settings dialog will be visible.


Mark

68

Circle Dock / Re: Start Menu Shadow Residue Bug

« on: May 18, 2010, 08:59 AM »

The problem with the Start Menu leaving an outline of its shadow is well-documented. This only affects Vista and the work around is to disable menu shadows in your Display Preferences (Control Panel).

For some inexplicable reason, neither the help browser nor any of the help files are being installed on 64-bit OSes. I need to investigate why this should be so.


Mark

69

Circle Dock / Re: Make rotation movement of icons more smoothly

« on: May 16, 2010, 12:50 PM »

Simply increase the number of key-presses/mouse-wheel-indents on the General->Rotation settings tab.



Mark

70

Circle Dock / Re: Greetings and a Tablet PC question. :)

« on: May 15, 2010, 12:20 PM »

I can see the obvious attraction of having the functionality of AHK within Circle Dock. You could then separate all your applications into Dock Folders and within each folder there'd be the icon to launch the application and other icons which are effectively AutoHotKey scripts. That'd mean having a good part of AHK within Circle Dock as well as a script editor/debugger. That I'm afraid is beyond Circle Dock's design remit.

But as you have said, you can create executable versions of your AHK scripts and place them on the Dock.



Mark

71

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 :: Announcement

« on: May 14, 2010, 10:29 PM »

I think I will run a page on the Circle Dock Wikidot page as well....Not certain how much longer it will be up, but with about 1500 Visits a day....you never know

-sgtevmckay (May 13, 2010, 04:12 PM)

What The Sarge means is that Circle Dock is moving away from wikidot.com within the next few weeks and will have its own spiffing new web site. For the time being, there's an entire page devoted to this competition on the current site here and we will have to consider the best way of promoting this event on our new site.

Just as DonationCoder supports - and is the support site for - Circle Dock, so Circle Dock supports DonationCoder.


Mark
Circle Dock

72

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock - Confirmaton before deleting icons

« on: May 08, 2010, 02:42 AM »

I will look into adding a confirmation dialog as an option. It is not until you release the left mouse button that Circle Dock decides on what action to take. If you have moved the mouse off the dock, you will have dragged a Dock Item off the Dock and it will be removed. Try to release the left button before moving the mouse!


Mark

73

Circle Dock / Re: Auto-Rotate

« on: May 05, 2010, 02:21 PM »

I have now investigated your request and, as I feared, automatic rotation of the Dock requires too much in the way of system resources - in fact memory usage rises by 500%.

Also to achieve a smooth scroll, the routine to calculate and move the Dock Items needs to be called ten times a second with an increment of half a degree: that produces a fairly slow scroll. To speed it up, say double the speed to 10 degrees/sec, that routine would have to be called twice as often - ie 20 times per second.

My initial tests were with 7 dock items in a single orbit. Two orbits of seven items in each orbit took twice as long.

My aim is to keep Circle Dock as 'lean and mean' as possible - meaning it should be meagre with system resources. Such an enhancement does not fit within that aim and won't be on-developed.


Mark

74

Circle Dock / Re: Requests / Suggestions thread

« on: May 05, 2010, 04:28 AM »

I see where the issue lies and the reason the Dock is not being restored is that its intended position was being checked to ensure that the background's bounding rectangle lay within the screen area. This check is legacy code I inherited and was to ensure that if users edited the original INI file and changed the position, that position would be legal. As you can no longer edit any of the configuration files, this check is unnecessary and I've removed it.

From the next release on, Circle Dock remembers its current position and will re-occupy that position when restarted. On new installations, Circle Dock will appear at the top-left of the screen.


Mark

75

Circle Dock / Re: stacks don't work when CD upgraded

« on: May 02, 2010, 01:17 PM »

Currently no. I will look into that for the future.



Mark