WinButtons v3.2.0

2011-06-13 by Ath

Display (large) buttons on screen to send keyboard actions or start an application.

• Built in response to a Coding Snack request from the DonationCoder.com forum at http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=25167.0
• There it is to be used on a touch-screen, so large buttons would be useful.
• Can switch the set of available buttons when an application gets focus, see the [Groups] section documentation.
• Can enable/disable buttons, based on conditions like existence of files, an exe being loaded, and some logical operations (and, or, not)
• Handles Files dropped on top of a button (configurable per button)
• Display 1 or more buttons in a rectangle form, with or without a border, and when with border, optionally show a (Windows) close button and/or a caption. <Esc> closes the window, when exitonesc is not disabled.
• Buttons can display a text, an icon or a bitmap (bmp), be colored, a fontsize set, differ in size, have a hotkey when displaying text, be separated in rows, and ordered either horizontally or vertically.

Revision history can be found in the source: WinButtons.au3

Commandline parameters

Any commandline option overrides the corresponding setting from the inifile.

inifile settings

The [Settings] section

This is a sample [Settings] section of the inifile, all settings are shown with their default value. It applies to the current instance of WinButtons.

None of the values need to be present to have a working configuration, the defaults will then be used.

[Settings]
debug=0
caption=
runexit=0
left=-1
top=-1
buttonwidth=128
buttonheight=128
buttonmargin=2
vertical=0
border=0
closebutton=0
taskbar=0
movable=0
buttonrows=1
ontop=1
winsendkeys=
exitonesc=1
fontsize=9
backcolor=
excludeexes=
althide=
cmdseparator=

If a setting is not found for: debug, buttonwidth, buttonheight, buttonmargin, closebutton, border, taskbar, ontop, exitonesc, winsendkeys, fontsize, excludeexes, althide or cmdseparator in the current ini file, and we are not reading WinButtons.ini, then the setting is also searched in WinButtons.ini as a global configuration. Local override or command-line option always 'wins'.

The [Groups] section of the configuration.

Groups can be defined to switch the set of available buttons, based on the current application having focus. The selection is made based on the name of the exe file (no path) that is running.

This information can be obtained by enabling debug mode or -a commandline parameter, starting WinButtons, giving the required application focus, closing WinButtons and reading the last lines of the log file.

There's a list of the executable names that had focus during the lifetime of that WinButtons session.

Groups have 2 parameters:

group1=scite
exename1=scite.exe

If a group is used, some parameters from [Settings] can be overridden by setting them in that [<group>-buttons] section.

These overridable settings are: left, top, buttonwidth, buttonheight, buttonmargin, buttonrows, vertical, fontsize, color, textcolor and backcolor.

The [Variables] section of the configuration.

Variables can be defined in a [Variables] section, to be later used by other [Variables], [Settings] or [Buttons]/[<group>-Buttons] parameters or commands.

A variable could be defined like:

[Variables]
Hello=Hello World!
stdheight=60
stdwidth=2*:varStdHeight:

This variable can then be used in a command or caption, etc., by using a ":var" prefix and a ":" suffix, for example: :varhello: or :varStdWidth:

The :var prefix is required to be lowercase, variablenames are not case-sensitive.

The variables can be used in all configuration items that do _not_ resolve to an on/off value, like vertical or movable. Only numeric and string values get variables replaced.

An example configuration is included as copymenu.ini

Nested variables can be used, the replacement happens from inside out, like this example:

[Variables]
stdheight=100
stdwidth=:varMultiply:varStdHeight:::varStdHeight:
multiply40=4*
multiply60=3*
multiply100=2*

The use of :varStdWidth: resolves to: ":varMultiply:varStdHeight:::varStdHeight:"

The second iteration resolves to: ":varMultiply100:100"

The third iteration resolves to: "2*100"

Assigning this variable to buttonwidth in the [Settings] section, like below, will resolve to 200, as any calculation is also executed when reading numeric values from the configuration.

Example:

[Settings]
buttonwidth=:varStdWidth:

Changing the value of stdheight to 60 will resolve in a buttonwidth of 180, and a stdheight of 40 results in buttonwidth=160.

Variables can also process parameters. An example:

[Variables]
root=F:\Projecten\AutoIt\WinButtons\copytest
rootx=.
source1=:varRoot?1:\client\import
dest1=:varRoot?1:\server\import
filespec1=*.*
source2=:varRoot:\server\import
dest2=:varRoot:\client\import
filespec2=
source3=:varRoot:\client\export
dest3=:varRoot:\server\export
filespec3=
source4=:varRoot:\server\export
dest4=:varRoot:\client\export
filespec4=
command=:varCmd: :varSource?1=?2: :varDest?1=?2: :varFileSpec?1: :varParams:
params=/E /MOV ?1
cmd=robocopy

; (Part of the Variables with parameters demo)
[Buttons]
button1=Copy IMPORT from &Client to Server  i >>
command1=-asc"Please confirm|:varCommand=1=x:":varCommand=1=x:

Parameter values are passed by using =<value> in the variable: :varCommand=1=x: passes values "1" and "x" when parsing variable Command. These parameters can be applied in the result by using ?<parameter number>, like: ?1 or ?2.

These passed values can again be used as parameter value by preceding them with "=", like: :varSource?1=?2: This results in variable Source1 being fetched (the first parameter to that variable), and passing x to Source1 (the second parameter passed from the command1 button).

In Source1 this value "x" is used to determine the requested Root variable, either Root or Rootx. If parameter 2 is not passed to Command, it defaults to an empty string.

The [Buttons] section of the configuration.

Each button is required to have at least a, sequentially numbered, non-empty button<n>= value. If the text on a button should be empty, an empty caption<n>= value should be supplied.

[Buttons]
button1=
caption1=
tooltip1=
image1=
command1=
color1=
textcolor1=
buttonwidth1=
buttonheight1=
buttonarrangement1=
fontsize1=
condition1=
conditionmode1=
dropcommand1=