Messages

326

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Customizable Unicode character paster

« on: August 30, 2008, 11:08 AM »

@Curt, I got your symbols working in the new version of Easy Unicode Paster (V1.3):

1
2

I have started a webpage for Easy Unicode Paster. The address is: http://easyunicodepaster.wikidot.com

You can download your Cards & Music version of EUP (1.3) off the website.

If anyone else has some character sets they want or they want to create some character sets for Easy Unicode Paster, just post here or PM me.

Eric Wong

327

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Customizable Unicode character paster

« on: August 30, 2008, 07:05 AM »

Can Easy Unicode Paster [EUP] be made support signs like  ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ ♤ ♡ ♢ ♧ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ ؟  please? Diacrit includes these signs but will not tell their NCR/XML numbers, and BabelMap will tell all names but does not contain these, so I have not been able to make EUP show them.

" ؟ " is the Arabic Question Mark = 1567 ;  but EUP will not display it.

-Curt (August 30, 2008, 06:31 AM)

Your in luck, I've just been making improvements to Easy Unicode Paster and I want something to test it with. Changes I've made:

-Real time dragging and resizing with the mouse instead of having to unclick like in the previous versions.
-Remembers your last window size and location when exiting.
-Ability to change the font and size of the buttons.

I'll try and make a character set out of those you pasted. I'll be back in a few minutes.

328

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock 0.9.2 Alpha 7 Discussion

« on: August 29, 2008, 03:35 AM »

Just starting using CircleDock and I love it already. I use a laptop with an external screen attached, and being able to pop up CircleDock on whatever screen I happen to be looking at is very useful indeed.

It would be even more amazing for me if it always opened the window on the same screen as the CircleDock was on. Would that be possible?

-Calum (August 29, 2008, 03:27 AM)

I think it is doable and quite desirable, though I don't know of the code to do it off the top of my head.

I just started to use a multi-monitor setup last week and I can see how it would be useful for the opened application to be on the same screen as Circle Dock. I'll see if I can do it.

329

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock 0.9.2 Alpha 7 Discussion

« on: August 29, 2008, 03:22 AM »

One more thing I just figure out....
As you can see from the screenshot... two other program is running..
RocketDock and Elegant Clock..
After I close those two programs it is not happening anymore... 

-rittwik (August 29, 2008, 01:57 AM)

With all three programs running all your computer, maybe it is over taxing the GPU with all the alpha blended graphics? Is there a way to see how much the graphics card is being used? I haven't heard of a way to do this but would probably be useful.

330

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock 0.9.2 Alpha 7 Discussion

« on: August 29, 2008, 03:21 AM »

It says “Organize the dock items using dock folders”, but I can not see, how it is supposed to be done. When I drop something on a folder, they both rearrange, as expected. Right click on folder shows only two options, “Remove” and “Change icon”, and those are of no use.

Heeeeelp, I’m stuck

-Pirim (August 29, 2008, 02:59 AM)

Hello. Right now, the current way to use dock folders right now is to add a dock folder and then left-click on it to open it. Then you can drag and drop icons from your computer into that dock folder. Click on the middle button to move back out of the dock folder.

331

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock 0.9.2 Alpha 7 Discussion

« on: August 28, 2008, 11:40 PM »

Hi,
I am using Circle Dock from yesterday. It is an excellent dock but the only problem I am facing is that when the Circle Dock is running, it taking almost 100% CPU for 1-2 second whenever
1> I open a window
2> I close a window
3> I navigate to a folder
in that time I dont even able to move the mouse cursor. 
I am using WinXP SP2 with 512RAM.
Thanks
rittwik

-rittwik (August 28, 2008, 11:33 PM)

Are these actions when you click on the dock to execute a program or is it when you are just casually using other programs in Windows and you are getting CPU spikes? I have Circle Dock running in a virtual machine with WinXP SP2 with 128 megs of ram and it runs pretty spiffy. I don't get any 100% CPU spikes or lag with it. Perhaps provide a screenshot of your task manager when this happens?

What are your CPU specs?

332

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Customizable Unicode character paster

« on: August 28, 2008, 11:18 PM »

There was a little bug is version 1.1 of Easy Unicode Paster. There was a hidden panel in the program that was interfering with the flow layout of the buttons. I was wondering why the buttons moved around like they did.

This new version has a much more logical button flow layout. Please delete the old one and use this (version 1.2).

Eric Wong

333

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Customizable Unicode character paster

« on: August 28, 2008, 09:01 PM »

......everything works but four - 110, 120, 170, and 180. these are the four unicode characters in Hungarian. they are the four that give me the most trouble. all the rest i can make in Word using the built-in hotkeys - but not these. Skrommel's Accents makes all the rest except for these. gosh, i hate those four vowels 

should i be using a different font? do i have something set wrong? i would love for this to work, the app you made is just ideal for my purposes!

by the way, did you look up some hungarian words for your screenshots? i see a few in there
.....

-garbanzo (August 28, 2008, 01:32 PM)

1
2

Looks like there is either a bug somewhere in one of the implementations of unicode in either Windows or some programming libraries. Either way, I've fixed the problem of those special unicode characters in EasyUnicodePaster V1.1. I've made it so that you can specify the unicode XML number of the character you want in the new Config.ini file as well as just pasting the plain characters when those work. The screenshots above should show you how it's working now. I just took the part of the Config.ini file you pasted and added the last 6 buttons in their with the double accent characters.

I've also changed the font of the buttons in the source code to be a regular typeface for easier reading of some of the more complex characters.

And yes, I looked up all those hungarian words and characters on Wikipedia just to see what I was dealing with. I think I'll do a bit more refinement on the interface of this program and how you change the settings and set up a Wikidot website for it since I think this is quite useful and easy to use. I think there are lots of people who would just like a simple program like this when they are working with weird unicode characters since it is much faster than going through lots of menus and the large buttons make it easy to use.

Executable and source code (C#) included in the zip file.

Eric Wong


Edit: Use the newer version 1.2 of Easy Unicode Paster below.

334

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Customizable Unicode character paster

« on: August 28, 2008, 12:30 PM »

1
Edit: Grab a newer version of Easy Unicode Paster in the messages below.

For what it's worth, here is a version of the easy unicode paster program you want in .Net since that is what I'm using primarily at the moment and I have the components to build it from other projects. I think the screenshots do good job of illustrating what it can do but I'll point out some of them to make it clear:

(1) You can paste either single unicode characters or a string of them at a time.
(2) You can change the number of buttons, the order of the buttons, the unicode characters pasted, the size of the buttons, and the default size of the window in the Config.ini file. The buttons are automatically layed out by the program.
(3) You can select a hotkey from the drop downlist (try the hotkeys out, some may not work on your system) that hides the program. Pressing the hotkey again shows the program.
(4) There is a tray icon (not shown) that makes the program visible.
(5) You can make the program topmost/not topmost.
(6) Click the "Reload Buttons" button to reload the settings from the Config.ini file.
(7) The source code is pretty simple and readable since all the hard things are done by the .Net Framework and a couple of dll files.
(8) The program does not take focus even when you click on it. It will send the unicode keys to which ever window has focus.

The executable and the source code are included (written in my favorite language, C#). I think that this program is pretty handy since I could use it for other things like pasting addresses in programs or registration forms.

You can get the latest version of .Net from http://www.microsoft.com/net/Download.aspx and it won't slow down your computer since it doesn't run when it's not used. I think the new version of the .Net Framework has a pretty small download size from what I've been hearing.

Eric Wong

335

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock 0.9.2 Alpha 7 Discussion

« on: August 28, 2008, 07:05 AM »

Circle Dock 0.9.2 Alpha 7.4 is released with these changes as noted in the new Change Log page:

• Added the ability to use the default high-resolution icons for Windows Vista users so they don't have to change all the icons. Windows XP users won't see a difference because they don't have high resolution icons.
  
• Thumbnails of files are now displayed in the correct aspect ratio instead of being stretched.
  
• Settings Panel can now be minimized like a normal window.
  
• Added the ability for Circle Dock to self repair and upgrade the Config.ini file which means that from now on, users can upgrade by just copying the newest CircleDock.exe file into their current Circle Dock directory.
  
• Includes a French language file courtesy of Thomas Favre.

336

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock 0.9.2 Alpha 7 Discussion

« on: August 28, 2008, 04:13 AM »

I've tried out this great software on Windows XP SP3, and there were no icons in the dock, is it normal?

When I have a folder on the dock and click on it, it replaces the "main dock screen", leaving my mouse in one edge of the dock. It would be nice to have the option to center the dock on the clicked folder, this way you'll be at the same distance from all the folder's shortcuts (maintaining the pie-menu philosophy).

Thanks

-bmsilva (August 28, 2008, 04:04 AM)

When you first load Circle Dock, there will be no icons on it because you have to drag and drop the files/folders on your computer onto it so that the links are created. See my video: http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=9ko36ebOg9U for a demonstration and for how to change the images shown.

For the second part of your message, you have created a dock folder and I think that it's a good option to have for the dock to recenter itself around your mouse when you click on the dock folder. I'll try and implement this for Alpha 8, which should come out in a week or two.

I will be uploading a new Alpha 7.4 release tonight but you as a Windows XP user (it's mainly for Vista users), you won't see much difference. However, Circle Dock will now display thumbnail previews that maintain their aspect ratio for picture files.

337

Circle Dock / Re: Windows Start Menu Shadow Residue Bug

« on: August 28, 2008, 03:57 AM »

Dormouse, are you using Vista or XP? I'm going to be uploading Alpha 7.4 in a few minutes that has a few new features. One of them is the ability to use the default high resolution icons in Vista so you don't have to swap everything icon out.

338

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Customizable Unicode character paster

« on: August 28, 2008, 03:10 AM »

The only freeware app I have found that comes close is QuickKey. It requires .NET, however, which I do not use....

-garbanzo (August 28, 2008, 02:54 AM)

Would you be willing to install .Net? Or is there some reason you are against it? It's a good technology.

339

Developer's Corner / Re: How to choose programming language?

« on: August 27, 2008, 09:06 PM »

Hmm, Mono appears to have come quite a ways since I last checked it out. Not much of a fan of the fact that Microsoft maintains the languages and compilers, but it would indeed be a good choice. Also, Mono maintains their own C# compiler if you're also put off by the Microsoft-ness.

Ehtyar.

-Ehtyar (August 27, 2008, 08:39 PM)

Microsoft is a good company. 

340

Developer's Corner / Re: How to choose programming language?

« on: August 27, 2008, 07:12 PM »

You can run both VB.net and C# programs on Windows and Linux if you don't use any Pinvoke calls and stay within the .Net Framework 2.0 instruction set. On Windows, you would use the .Net Framework and on Linux, you would use the open source Mono framework to run the program. I don't know about Mac's though. I don't think the open source community is that strong for Mac's.

You could quickly and easily create the interface you want and program it using the free Microsoft Visual Stuido Express. It comes with many graphical elements built into the interface layout designer and there is a strong community of programmers that thoroughly explain their VB.net and C# code at www.codeproject.com

I can use C++/VB.net/C#, and let me tell you, plain C++ is a nightmare compared to VB.net or C# and I doubt you would see much difference if you use any of these languages for a stock trading program. Maybe if you were render video you would go with C++ but for a stock trading program, I would definitely recommend against it.

341

Circle Dock / Re: Windows Start Menu Shadow Residue Bug

« on: August 27, 2008, 06:30 PM »

I'm at 120 top level icons now, and have only just started playing with the dock folders (about another 8 in there). Not sure what I'll end up putting in them yet, as it is most efficient having everything at top level. Not sure what the top number for that is, but it would be even bigger if the outer circles could contain more icons than the inner one (and I'm sure this is planned  ). Still can't get it over 50% CPU however much I move it; seems pretty reasonable on resource use.

If I try the start menu now, it does come up even having reactivated the Vista Start Menu, but I have a problem in that if I move my mouse towards it, it disappears again before my mouse gets there. Maybe a TLB/VSM conflict.

-Dormouse (August 27, 2008, 06:19 PM)

I can't believe how many icons you guys are putting on a single level!!! I'll be improving the speed of loading the dock folders in Alpha 8 so there will be less lag. And yes, I will be adding more shape options.

The Start Menu is disappearing in your case because the dock is grabbing focus when you hover over part of it. Have you tried setting the option to hide the dock after it executes something in Settings Panel -> Dock Items -> Hide Dock? This will prevent the dock from grabbing focus because it will fade away.

Circle Dock won't be able to open your special start menu because it is hardcoded to show the default Windows start menu, which has a class name of "DV2Host" and I don't think other start menus use this. I'll be adding an option for the middle button to execute other things beside opening up the default start menu, but I don't think I could move any of the other add-on start menus to where Circle Dock is located.

342

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock 0.9.2 Alpha 7 Discussion

« on: August 27, 2008, 05:17 PM »

does CDs homepage - http://circledock.wikidot.com/ - have RSS or something (SVN browser?), so we know that a new version was released without checking the site every day? You released Alpha version, could incoming versions have changelog, so we know what was improved, fixed, etc. thanks

-blahetal (August 27, 2008, 04:26 AM)

The Circle Dock homepage doesn't have RSS or any live updater service. I'm not sure if Wikidot supports that. I'll post back if I find anything.

As for the change log, I'll create a new webpage on the Circle Dock website for the change log and will update it with each build.

343

Circle Dock / Re: Windows Start Menu Shadow Residue Bug

« on: August 27, 2008, 05:15 PM »

I now consider the program operational.  I have 73 icons.  I would like to see an inner diameter adjustment as well as outer on the background so I could get it to cover all the icons.   Sometimes the icons are hard to see against a complicated desktop background, etc.   Thanks.

-fsieber (August 27, 2008, 03:35 PM)

73 icons!!!!!! I hope you are using the dock folders to organize them! 

As for the background size adjustments, you can adjust the overall size of it in the settings panel under the Background tab. However, you are not able to independently adjust both the inner diameter and the outer diameter due to how a picture scales mathematically. What you can do is try searching on Google for a PNG image of a solid circle and uses that as your background. Then, you can size the background to cover all your icons.

I may improve how the background is rendered later on and I'm planning on adding code that allows you to add a background that is drawn mathematically instead of using a PNG image. But that is just a plan for now.

344

Circle Dock / Re: Windows 7's Taskbar....Err.....Circle Dock for the DC Programming Contest

« on: August 26, 2008, 11:04 PM »

Yes I can second that to. Eric you need to fix this if you have not already. When you click the middle (you know the big circle) it shows the start menu. When you click away it shows the outline. I have been meaning to ask about this but since this person here beat me to it, it looks like I am not the only one with this problem.

-ma5t3rw1tt (August 26, 2008, 10:48 PM)

The problem is know: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=14478.0 and you can solve it by turning off the "Show shadows under menus" option in your Windows visual styles settings. By default, all the new Circle Dock builds come with the start menu option disabled and there is a warning message under the option to enable it.

I haven't been able to find a solution yet and have asked others but they don't know either. I know that the Object Dock docklets can open up the start menu without problems but none of them are open source so I'm not getting much luck. 

345

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock 0.9.2 Alpha 7 Discussion

« on: August 26, 2008, 09:15 PM »

Hi, can CD be used for browsing the file system? The current version supports directories that can contain only shortcuts or other directories, right? But is it possible to have a CD directory that points somewhere to file system and when you click on it, to expand it, it will display all files and directories that are inside that directory. And again, when you click on some directory, CD will show its content. And when you click on some file, CD will open it. So my question is, can CD be used as a fast file browser and if not, could you add this feature

just something like Stack docklet (http://www.aqua-soft...owthread.php?t=46859), if you know it

-blahetal (August 26, 2008, 04:29 PM)

Yes, this is possible and desirable. However, I'll implement it after I get Circle Dock 0.9.2 Final. The way I'm seeing it is that clicking on a folder link in Circle Dock will load all the files in the folder into Circle Dock. Clicking on the centre button moves you back out of the folder. I'll be doing some optimization and implementing caching for some of the dock item structures so that this file browsing can be fast. This is primarily why I'm implementing it after 0.9.2 Final.

346

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock 0.9.2 Alpha 7 Discussion

« on: August 26, 2008, 09:10 PM »

Yesterday I open the circle dock and just ran few hours, I doesn't do anything at circle dock but the dock automatically ran the CPU at 50%

Here is the Circle Dock running CPU 50% om my PC.
......

-Boba-Fett (August 26, 2008, 03:57 PM)

Try downloading the latest version of the .Net Framework from Microsoft. It never hurts to have the latest version and may help the problem: http://www.microsoft...om/net/Download.aspx

Also, that's a cool looking screenshot. If you skin the taskbar, you can probably fool people into thinking you actually have Windows 7. 

347

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock 0.9.2 Alpha 7 Discussion

« on: August 26, 2008, 09:07 PM »

Shadow problem does not bother me since I normally have them turned off anyway.

Why not allow the centre button to be allocated to any keyboard key or combo? It wouldn't give the position by the dock but would increase flexibility. In my case, it would allow the Start Menu to come up even if I have it as the Vista Start Menu - and it covers teh whole screen anyway, so position is not an issue.

-Dormouse (August 26, 2008, 03:16 AM)

Yeah, I think that's a good idea. But maybe not execute a keyboard key combination but execute a regular file/folder like the other dock items. You can always create a little script file with your keyboard command and get the centre button to run that script. I'll add this in as an option for the Settings Panel under the Centre Button tab once I get a few other issues worked out.

Right now, I'm making it so that Circle Dock can extract all the default high resolution icons in Vista so that you don't have to replace all the icon images.

348

Post New Requests Here / Re: Check file/folder similarity, rename file when similiraty occurs

« on: August 26, 2008, 03:13 AM »

I see I'm a bit late. I saw this thread a few hours before but was busy coding other stuff.

Here's my solution to the problem:
1

It is written in C# and requires .Net Framework 2.0 which is already on all Vista computers and most XP computers that use Windows Update. Just double-click the MSF_FileRestructurer.exe file and the GUI will pop up.

The code copies the source directory into a new directory and then processes that new directory so there is no chance of something going wrong. It also has some error checking in the code just in case some file is being used or locked by the system so it doesn't crash while it is running. You can also stop the program while it is in the middle of running. There is progress bar that tells you how far along it is and an error message box that tells you any errors that pop up. I have tested the program using a test directory I created that is included in the file.

Source code is included.

349

Circle Dock / Re: Windows 7's Taskbar....Err.....Circle Dock for the DC Programming Contest

« on: August 26, 2008, 02:20 AM »

Eric,

Yes the conflicting hotkeys are for other applications.  I understand that it is impossible to programmatically discover what other hotkeys are assigned - that is why I said that in my post above.  However Windows assigned hotkeys or not, when you say that a hotkey is valid, many users will assume that CD has confirmed that it now owns that hotkey, when in fact it cannot do so.  Other programs already having that key hooked appearing when a user thinks that it was definitely grabbed by CD will probably cause confusion.

I personally have tried to find a way to map out all hotkeys assigned, hooked, or otherwise "taken" by either Windows or other applications.  It simply is not possible to do that except by opening every application on your computer and looking in their respective settings/options dialogs, and then listing them all one by one.  I would think that if it were possible at all to gather this information any other way - like through the registry or something like that - that someone would have a utility for sale that does it.  But there is no such utility available, so I would say that it cannot be done.

Thanks!

Jim

-J-Mac (August 26, 2008, 02:05 AM)

I think for hotkeys, there should be a very good reason a program has to resort to hooks to implement them when Windows will do it for you and can help to avoid conflicting hotkeys. What types of programs are you using that need to hook the keyboard?

350

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock 0.9.2 Alpha 7 Discussion

« on: August 26, 2008, 01:32 AM »

Circle Dock some time have some performance problem, after I drag and drop icons to rearrange, that will eating many CPU usage now, to stop this problem I just restart the circle dock.

-Boba-Fett (August 26, 2008, 12:59 AM)

How much CPU time does it eat up? On my computer, it'll go upwards of 10% but it's only for like 1 or 2 seconds and then it drops back down to zero and there is no performance problems.

-VideoInPicture (August 26, 2008, 01:07 AM)

The CPU running 50-70% and does not fall. Just at sometime not every time, when I drag and drop again and the CPU no eat again.

-Boba-Fett (August 26, 2008, 01:22 AM)

What are your computer specs? e.g: OS, cpu, amount of ram? I haven't seen Circle Dock do anything close to 50-70% on my computer. On a reorder operation, it just swaps the order of the two icons in the data of the dock and calculates their new positions and repositions the dock. There shouldn't be anything that keeps on running after the reordering. However, there could always be a non-obvious bug somewhere. I'll keep this in mind.