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DonationCoder.com Software => Older DC Contests and Challenges => N.A.N.Y. 2013 => Topic started by: mouser on December 02, 2012, 01:01 AM

Title: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: mouser on December 02, 2012, 01:01 AM
Progress Bars of Life lets you create a set of custom progress bars that will graphically show the progress towards different events in your life.

You can create as many progress bars as you like, and display them in various ways -- for example, docked to the edge of a screen and always visible, or invisible and shown on command.

Create progress bars that show things like how close you are to the weekend, to your birthday, to your graduation, to your due date, until your death, till the end of the current hour, etc.

Some screenshots:
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Early alpha for those who want to experiment.

v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012

v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012

DOWNLOAD:
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: superboyac on December 02, 2012, 01:19 AM
Seriously excited.
I don't know why i like to watch progress bars, but I do.  I just hope it's not a form of mind control  :(.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: mouser on December 02, 2012, 01:21 AM
I don't know why i like to watch progress bars, but I do.


well then this tool is for you.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: superboyac on December 02, 2012, 02:05 AM
If you do include some sort of mind control, can it have something to do with hot exotic chicks?
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: cranioscopical on December 02, 2012, 07:31 PM
can it have something to do with hot exotic chicks?

here you go
[attach thumb][/attach]

Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: superboyac on December 03, 2012, 12:20 AM
 ;D cranio...well, I suppose that is literally what I asked for!
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: Target on December 03, 2012, 01:06 AM
here you go...

of course it's beta so there might be a few bugs...

Spoiler
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apologies to mouser for hijacking his thread...
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: mouser on December 03, 2012, 03:45 AM
Teaser screenshot, of the display window docked to the top of my screen:
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Colors and looks will eventually be adjustable.

Obviously you can add as many bars as you want -- that's the whole point.  You can show the bars in a window or docked to the side of a screen.

The most common kind of bar is one where you set a start and end date and it tracks progress; you can also set a manual range and position for things that aren't date based.

You can also tell the bar how to repeat when it reaches the end -- so you can use progress bars for each minute/hour/day/month/year, and they will reset and cycle as they complete.



Potential future features:
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: Jibz on December 03, 2012, 04:14 AM
Nice :Thmbsup:

The lifespan bar is perhaps a bit ominous? :o

Also, there is perhaps some ambiguity in percentages "until" something -- like the Until Christmas bar, if there is 94% until Christmas doesn't that sound more like only 6% of the time has passed so far?

Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: mouser on December 03, 2012, 04:25 AM
Yeah thats just me picking bad labels -- but you assign your own labels so call them what you will.
And of course the progress value depends on what the start date is..  Presumably you would set the start date to something useful.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: app103 on December 03, 2012, 04:30 AM
You can also tell the bar how to repeat when it reaches the end

Cool! An app that provides immortality through reincarnation!  ;D

The lifespan bar is perhaps a bit ominous? :o

Not if mouser is making it possible to repeat it.  ;)
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: Jibz on December 03, 2012, 04:45 AM
If they are all based on time, maybe let the user optionally specify a time formatting string to use instead of the percentage as text on the bar? I mean, so you could make it say "21 days" instead of "94%" on the Christmas bar, or "41 min" instead of "69%" on the Left in Current Hour bar.

The lifespan bar is perhaps a bit ominous? :o

Not if mouser is making it possible to repeat it.  ;)
;D
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: mouser on December 03, 2012, 05:06 AM
could make it say "21 days" instead of "94%" on the Christmas bar, or "41 min" instead of "69%" on the Left in Current Hour bar.

that is a very good idea, putting it on todo list.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: anandcoral on December 03, 2012, 10:28 AM
Very good idea and app.

Can think of using it as 'countdown' for my projects, which I generally miss.

Regards,

Anand
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: tomos on December 03, 2012, 11:33 AM
Can think of using it as 'countdown' for my projects, which I generally miss.

I was thinking along these lines as well.
With that in mind, would it be possible to make it like a resizeable toolbar that you could drag the corner and end up e.g. with 1x2 or 2x4 or 1x4 format

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you could even have it like the new docking auto-hide SC "Quick Capture Bar" (could you reuse the code?)

Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: mouser on December 03, 2012, 03:42 PM
you could even have it like the new docking auto-hide SC "Quick Capture Bar" (could you reuse the code?)

already done -- you can configure it as an auto-hiding dock.

however it is a good idea to let the user set the width and let it flow multiple bars on one line -- that's something i didn't think of and will add.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: mouser on December 03, 2012, 05:19 PM
ok here's horizontal band style, dock to top of screen:
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Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: TaoPhoenix on December 03, 2012, 07:22 PM
If they are all based on time, maybe let the user optionally specify a time formatting string to use instead of the percentage as text on the bar? I mean, so you could make it say "21 days" instead of "94%" on the Christmas bar, or "41 min" instead of "69%" on the Left in Current Hour bar.

Do you really want it counting down the days left in your life?!  :o
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: 4wd on December 03, 2012, 07:41 PM
Do you really want it counting down the days left in your life?!  :o

Since there's only 17 days left until Global Armageddon, why not?
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: mouser on December 03, 2012, 08:32 PM
With Jibz suggestion of showing times remaining in bars (it's an option):
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Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: mouser on December 03, 2012, 09:13 PM
Another view, docked again to top of screen:

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And another:

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Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: tomos on December 04, 2012, 03:45 AM
Great :Thmbsup:

another request -
the ability to show how long since something happened
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: mouser on December 04, 2012, 06:06 AM
done.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: tomos on December 04, 2012, 06:42 AM
I see the bars are different lengths - is that user-modifiable or automatic some way?
Also see different text on different bars - same query for that.

e.g.
15 wks, 5 days, 29 mins, 12 secs to go
would take up a lot less space than the same info using the full words with 'remaining' at the end.

(I know that you wouldnt have all that info on one line - but the point still valid)
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: mouser on December 04, 2012, 06:44 AM
I see the bars are different lengths - is that user-modifiable or automatic some way?
yes, there are various options for that.

e.g. 15 wks, 5 days, 29 mins, 12 secs to go
i'll have to add some settings for that; perhaps just simply a choice of long and short text modes.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: Jibz on December 04, 2012, 08:06 AM
e.g. 15 wks, 5 days, 29 mins, 12 secs to go
i'll have to add some settings for that; perhaps just simply a choice of long and short text modes.

Perhaps allow the user to supply a string compatible with strftime (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fe06s4ak(v=vs.110).aspx)?.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: Josh on December 04, 2012, 08:07 AM
What a great idea mouser! I am especially fond of some of the screenshots and agree that the new dock could be useful with a tool like this.

These screenshots in particular, intrigue me: Source Post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=33116.msg309075#msg309075)

Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: tomos on December 04, 2012, 08:16 AM
Love the Cody icon!
And, wow, all those settings -
apart from the fun element, this could be a very useful app :up:

Early alpha for those who want to experiment:
  • https://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/pbol/downloads/ProgressBarsOfLifeSetup.exe
  • https://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/pbol/downloads/ProgressBarsOfLifePortable.zip

Okay, this is on the fly - apologies if confusing at times but I think it's helpful to give first impressions:

1) Where is the bar though :-\
I created one but dont see it - selected not to auto-hide but still cant see it.

Ah, okay - what I thought was a dialogue is a bar. I dock it and resize it (snap to bar height when resizing would be nice).

2) Would this be possible - install with an example bar e.g. Installed since

3) I turned on the full screen width bar - turning off requires restart (no problem, just saying in case it different there).

4) When I restart it, it doesnt automatically show the saved bar.

5) Here, it doesnt really auto-hide - it fades but reserves the screenspace for itself and doesnt allow windows to maximise fully (I changed that option but maybe it requires a restart - hang on - okay, that's resolved after restart. (Can elaborate if not clear).

Win7 64bit
in action:

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Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: mouser on December 04, 2012, 03:50 PM
2) Would this be possible - install with an example bar e.g. Installed since

Yes, eventually i think i will include a default bar with a variety of items.

Regarding 3,4,5, there are still some bugs regarding docking and OnTop behavior that I need to work out.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: tomos on December 04, 2012, 05:06 PM

It didnt start with windows with the option selected.

The different bars merge visually I find:

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related settings (I think I changed them)

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Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: barney on December 04, 2012, 07:30 PM
Error window - "'1/1/2012 5:00:00' is not a valid date and time."  Tried to set starting date/time to "First day of year" in the dropdown while creating a new item.  Tried saving, coming back to edit - same error  However, manually setting to the same value worked just fine.

Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life
Post by: mouser on December 04, 2012, 09:35 PM
Minor update posted to fix some docking bugs.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012
Post by: mouser on December 05, 2012, 04:58 PM
v1.03.01 posted.

I tweaked the gauge text a bit, so now it will drop down to the finer grain as you get close.  For example, if you have it set to display only 1 level of details, where before it would report "2 days remaining", now it will drop from days to hours if it's under 72 hours remaining; ditto for dropping down from weeks to days, hours to minutes.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012
Post by: mouser on December 05, 2012, 05:10 PM
ps I suggest if anyone has the "auto size main form" option enabled, that you turn it off.  it doesnt work very well and it will cause docked bars to be undocked and redocked when options are changed.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012
Post by: mouser on December 06, 2012, 04:31 AM
I'm thinking of adding a bar type that will dynamically generate its value from occasionally running a specified (invisible) commandline tool.  That could be used to fetch progress info from a website, or system process, etc.

Question is, would anyone actually use such a feature?
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012
Post by: Jibz on December 06, 2012, 05:53 AM
Ok, here are some first thoughts from playing around with it:

First thing I noticed is how difficult it is to read the black text on the red bars, and to some extent the brown ones as well.

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I still think it would be a good idea to give the user the option of full controll via strftime. I can imagine there could be bars where you would prefer to always have the time left in say days instead of the smart setting. Would also make it easier to "localize" the bars for people outside US/GB.

Perhaps an option to add a little spacing between the bars?

Is there an option somewhere to have it not always on top when windowed?

Would be nice if the right-click menu of the individual bars would let you open the properties for that bar.

The textual progress appears to only work for the modern visual theme.

The smooth visual theme has the "update glow" effect on it every time the bar is updated, which is slightly annoying.

I am guessing the visual themes are a new addition, since the colors are wrong as well.

It might be an idea to truncate percentages instead of rounding to avoid having bars show at 100% before the entire time has elapsed.

Some events are "full day", I am a little confused about what I should set the time at. Like my birthday, should is tart at 00:00:00 and end at 23:59:59 the same day next year?

Maybe the option to create bars that just count an amount of time with the ability to start/stop/reset? .. I am thinking along the lines of a "Take a 5 min break" bar that you could reset and start whenever you needed a break.

It's quite fun to play around with, good idea :Thmbsup:.


Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012
Post by: mouser on December 06, 2012, 07:55 AM
New version is up which now supports bar "theme" files; two are included that are very basic.
If you want to add more themes, make copies of the .bartheme files in the Themes directory and edit with text editor.

You can adjust lots of settings from those files, though it's decidedly manual labor.  You can even make the bars larger than default.

You can configure the default bar theme to use from main options Appearance tab, and then override the theme on each bar if you want.

I'll comment on jibz suggestions next.



Please share any good theme files you come up with -- i'd love to include them in the official release!
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012
Post by: mouser on December 06, 2012, 08:00 AM
Some events are "full day", I am a little confused about what I should set the time at. Like my birthday, should is tart at 00:00:00 and end at 23:59:59 the same day next year?

I can understand the confusion but the START date is not the date at which the event starts.

It's the date at which TRACKING for the event starts.

So the two common choices for start date are the CURRENT date, or the first day of the year.

The END date for a bar is going to be what you set to the event.

So for your brithday, you would set the end date to the morning of your birthday, and the start date to the first of the year (or the current date).

That way the bar tells you how close you are to your birthday starting from the starting date.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012
Post by: mouser on December 06, 2012, 08:04 AM
First thing I noticed is how difficult it is to read the black text on the red bars, and to some extent the brown ones as well.
choose the new Smooth theme -- without those boxes with white backgrounds it's a lot easier to read.  once we decide on the best theme i'll make that one the default.

The textual progress appears to only work for the modern visual theme.
The smooth visual theme has the "update glow" effect on it every time the bar is updated, which is slightly annoying.
I am guessing the visual themes are a new addition, since the colors are wrong as well.

i've done away with all but modern type bars for now, but added theme files for them so you can customize the looks.

Maybe the option to create bars that just count an amount of time with the ability to start/stop/reset? .. I am thinking along the lines of a "Take a 5 min break" bar that you could reset and start whenever you needed a break.

good idea.. i was also thinking for manual bars a simple "right click to increment" option.

Is there an option somewhere to have it not always on top when windowed?
Would be nice if the right-click menu of the individual bars would let you open the properties for that bar.

good ideas.. the ontop behavior is slightly buggy and annoying.

I still think it would be a good idea to give the user the option of full controll via strftime. I can imagine there could be bars where you would prefer to always have the time left in say days instead of the smart setting. Would also make it easier to "localize" the bars for people outside US/GB.

i don't think it's as simple as you are suggesting -- remember this isn't a date/time that's being formatted -- it's an "elapsed time" or time "difference" ..  is there a strftime like function for that?
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012
Post by: superboyac on December 06, 2012, 01:02 PM
Thanks mousey!  I've been meaning to keep better track of my schedule:
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Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012
Post by: KynloStephen66515 on December 06, 2012, 05:04 PM
Thanks mousey!  I've been meaning to keep better track of my schedule: (see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=33116.msg309410#msg309410))

LMFAO!
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012
Post by: superboyac on December 06, 2012, 09:04 PM


Looks like option #3 was right all along.
(check post times)
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012
Post by: Jibz on December 08, 2012, 06:11 AM
I still think it would be a good idea to give the user the option of full controll via strftime. I can imagine there could be bars where you would prefer to always have the time left in say days instead of the smart setting. Would also make it easier to "localize" the bars for people outside US/GB.

i don't think it's as simple as you are suggesting -- remember this isn't a date/time that's being formatted -- it's an "elapsed time" or time "difference" ..  is there a strftime like function for that?

You are right, it turns out to not be as simple as I suggested. Mainly because the naive solution does not take into accound that years and months have a varying size -- what for instance is the difference between Jan 31st and Mar 1st? sometimes 29 days, sometimes 30 days, but always a month and a day. What about Jul 2nd to Aug 1st? 30 days, but not a month ;D.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012
Post by: mouser on December 12, 2012, 10:04 PM
Any feature requests?

Anyone willing to try to create some nice looking bar themes?
I probably need to make a visual theme editor if i expect people to make custom bar themes huh?


I MIGHT make a visual theme editor/tester, so maybe don't bother working on visual theme until I decide?
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.03.01 - December 5, 2012
Post by: TaoPhoenix on December 12, 2012, 11:45 PM
Thanks mousey!  I've been meaning to keep better track of my schedule: (see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=33116.msg309410#msg309410))

That post is just terrifying Superboy!  ;D
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: mouser on December 31, 2012, 09:57 AM
v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: Jibz on December 31, 2012, 10:23 AM
Great update :Thmbsup:.

I can't seem to get Autofit Form to Bars to do anything (running the portable version as a window) -- I expected it to scale the window so it fit the bars? Also, the default size it opens with cuts off the right side of the bars here.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: mouser on December 31, 2012, 10:52 AM
Autofit does not really work (yet?) -- it only sort of works for floating window, and then only sometimes.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: thomthowolf on January 14, 2013, 08:05 AM
Another great app.  The one thing I wish for is the ability to pin it to my desktop.  Sometimes I just want to use it for reference between items I am working on, to help me hang on to urgency.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: mouser on January 14, 2013, 11:36 AM
The one thing I wish for is the ability to pin it to my desktop.

can you explain what you mean?  If you drag it to an edge it will dock there (with an additional option to auto-slide out of the way).
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: thomthowolf on January 14, 2013, 03:06 PM
I would like to have it not docked, but not in front of (or on top of) all the other windows I have open. Most other software offers me a choice of on top, on bottom, on desktop, normal etc.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: bliss on February 22, 2013, 05:00 AM
Well I've been using it for a couple of months counting down important birthdays. I set it up in a corner of the screen where it autohides until activated as a strip across the screen. Simple and effective.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: Peppins on April 07, 2013, 02:04 PM
This program is very good, but isn't possible to disable the "always on top" state?

Also will be amazing in gadget for the windows 7 sidebar  :-*
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: mouser on April 12, 2013, 11:20 AM
isn't possible to disable the "always on top" state?

i can add that easily -- i've put it on my todo list.

-jesse
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: Peppins on April 12, 2013, 12:11 PM
great ;-)

ps. and about to convert it as a sidebar's gadget?  :-*
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: mouser on April 12, 2013, 12:20 PM
that may be more difficult.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: Peppins on April 12, 2013, 02:12 PM
btw if you disable the "always on top state" it can stay opened forever below other gadgets without problem :-)
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: mouser on April 12, 2013, 02:34 PM
Can you try this new beta:
DOWNLOAD:

You should see a new option on General tab to turn off OnTop behavior.  Uncheck that and see if it works ok.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: Peppins on April 12, 2013, 02:56 PM
don't work :/
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: mouser on April 12, 2013, 03:40 PM
Can you elaborate? You found the new checkbox option and turned it off?  How are you testing it?
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: Peppins on April 12, 2013, 03:41 PM
yes, tested on windows 7, don't work  :(
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: mouser on April 12, 2013, 04:18 PM
yes but can you be more specific -- what exactly doesn't work? What happens vs what you expect to happen?
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: Peppins on April 12, 2013, 04:18 PM
the window always stay on top  :-[
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: mouser on April 12, 2013, 05:47 PM
ok i see the problem, give me a bit to post a new upload.
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: mouser on April 12, 2013, 08:01 PM
Can you redownload from beta url i recently posted and try the new version?
Title: Re: NANY 2013 Pledge - Progress Bars of Life - v1.06.01 - December 31, 2012
Post by: mouser on April 12, 2013, 08:31 PM
This thread is being locked. future discussion of Progress Bars of Life will take place in this section: https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?board=316.0