Messages

7351

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« on: May 14, 2009, 08:36 PM »

Fixed another quirk.  If app was starting with Windows then paths with a network drive letter would be seen as invalid and purged from the list.  I delay path validation until the window opens, rather than during reading the folder list.  This gives the system, or user manually, a chance to map the network drive(s).

7352

Coding Snacks / Re: Overlay Folder Icon with Exe icon

« on: May 14, 2009, 05:05 PM »

Well, I don't always know what I am talking about, but I always know what I want!

-robinsiebler (May 14, 2009, 04:12 PM)

Yeah, but you're not supposed to admit that if you ever hope to get into management. 

7353

Living Room / Re: Looking for a newsgroup news reader

« on: May 14, 2009, 01:54 PM »

I haven't been very active recently on text newsgroups.  I used to like Agent Newsreader but for text based groups there may be something better by now.

For a Windows binary newsreader I recommend Usenet Explorer.  It has built-in automatic par and unrar handling.  Also the author supplies free access to his search server, unlike some other readers that charge subscription.  When you register it says for $35 you get 18 months of upgrades and search server access.  I've been using it for years and he's never cut off the upgrades or server access.  The 18 months is sort of like the minimum that's guaranteed.

Also the user forum is responsive and you don't get chopped at the knees just for asking a question that might seem a bit obvious to long-time users.

http://www.netwu.com/ue/


Edit: Just fyi it just so happend that my license ran out yesterday.  So I guess the 18 months is enforced.  Seemed like I owned it longer than that.  Anyway, $35 for 18 months updates and search subscription is pretty cheap if you're into binary download.

7354

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: ReOpen - Folder Cache, only betterer

« on: May 14, 2009, 01:22 PM »

I updated the drive type checking to avoid delay if a network drive letter is not assigned.  Also I added some alternative background colors via .ini file to accomodate XP themes.  For instance, if you have an XP theme where the window title bar is black, it would all blend together.  See readme file for supported background colors.

Until I find out more about Vista Glass any background color other than black seems to throw off the thick glass border.  Doesn't look totally horrible but there should be some way to make it glass instead of see-through whatever color, next to the window frame.  The adjustable background is mainly to avoid XP theme clash but some of them look okay if you get tired of black.

I reset it to use theme-compliant colors unless Glass is enabled. Just too much hassle to try to figure out what XP is showing so let the system handle it.

7355

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« on: May 14, 2009, 01:17 PM »

There is a noticeable delay when the availability code runs but I see you have made it remove the entry so that the delay doesn't happen twice.

I'm quite happy with this compromise. Thanks.

-mediaguycouk (May 13, 2009, 03:11 AM)

Please update to the latest since I found one reason for delay on startup is if a network drive letter is not assigned.  I've updated the drive type checking.  Please let me know if you get any more delays or hangs.

7356

General Software Discussion / Re: Arrange "start" menu programs list alphabetically??

« on: May 13, 2009, 07:57 PM »

Here's a couple of freeware that both work pretty well. I tried them for awhile but I ended up just using folders to categorize my apps and put the folders on RocketDock.

But these do actually work and I didn't notice any obvious bugs:

http://www.techsuppo...menu-replacement.htm

http://sourceforge.net/projects/smoz/

7357

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« on: May 13, 2009, 11:27 AM »

Latest 2.1 builds call the Windows API to make sure the Dwm composition mode is actually enabled before using Glass, rather than just assuming if you have Vista or W7 it's on.

7358

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« on: May 13, 2009, 11:19 AM »

There is a noticeable delay when the availability code runs but I see you have made it remove the entry so that the delay doesn't happen twice.

I'm quite happy with this compromise. Thanks.

-mediaguycouk (May 13, 2009, 03:11 AM)

Glad it's working for you.  Thanks for the information.

7359

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« on: May 12, 2009, 06:15 PM »

Stupid .net if that is the case. I don't see how having a CD, removing it and calling file.exists would ever cause an exception. Either it is there or you return false...

-mediaguycouk (May 12, 2009, 03:19 PM)

Actually this one I'm doing in AutoIt.  Kind of surprised me that FileExists function would be that treacherous.  So now I just put FileExists in a bigger function that checks the path is not empty string, the drive part is not a removable drive that isn't ready, then call FileExists. I haven't been doing that much with USB sticks or data DVDs or I probably would have thought to test it in more depth.

7360

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: ReOpen - Folder Cache, only betterer

« on: May 12, 2009, 01:14 PM »

v. 1.6  added code to avoid accessing drives with no media present.

Also the latest build calls the Windows API to make sure the Dwm composition mode is actually enabled before using Glass, rather than just assuming if you have Vista or W7 it's on.

7361

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« on: May 12, 2009, 01:13 PM »

btw I'm glad you found that bug.  While trying to solve that issue I found a solution to an annoying explorer issue.  On my Vista64 system if I opened a DVD folder directly in 64 bit explorer, everything was fine.  But if I tried to do it using "Explore" command from FreeCommander 32 bit app, I got that offer to format and burn my disc.  And in Folder Cache I got "invalid parameter."

I found a registry hack to turn off the explorer burning and now everything works as expected!!

http://www.howtogeek...vd-burning-features/

7362

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« on: May 12, 2009, 10:45 AM »

Please download now and try it out.  It's v. 2.1

I replaced file exist function with one that checks the drive type, if it's ready, then looks for file or folder.  Should be solid as the checks are repeated right up to the line where the item is launched.

Let me know if it still traps out.

7363

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« on: May 12, 2009, 10:04 AM »

No, I'm talking about the program being in the system tray and causing the error message itself.

-mediaguycouk (May 12, 2009, 09:59 AM)

I have it.  I found autoit code that can avoid the error.  I'm checking it out now.

7364

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« on: May 12, 2009, 09:57 AM »

Are you talking about opening Folder Cache while the error dialog is still open?

Edit:  Thanks for pointing that out.  I should have a fixed build up in a bit. 

7365

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: ReOpen - Folder Cache, only betterer

« on: May 11, 2009, 06:28 PM »

Note, I modified the main window to match the dialog.

7366

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« on: May 11, 2009, 06:27 PM »

Note, I modified the main window to match the dialog.

7367

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: ReOpen - Folder Cache, only betterer

« on: May 11, 2009, 04:03 PM »

v. 1.54 spiffed up the Set Hotkey dialog with a bit of glass
if running Vista or W7

7368

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« on: May 11, 2009, 03:59 PM »

v. 2.04 spiffed up the Set Hotkey dialog with a bit of glass
for those running Vista or W7

7369

Developer's Corner / Re: useful snippets?

« on: May 10, 2009, 08:48 PM »

Hmmmmmmmmm just as I was getting psyched about having Associative Arrays in AutoIt3 on the cheap, I tried it in my program that starts with Windows.  It really bogs it during a fresh boot.  Oh well, guess you can't get something for nothing.

7370

General Software Discussion / Cool AutoIt3 script for semi-transparent blurred cmd windows

« on: May 10, 2009, 08:44 PM »

Noticed this on AutoIt3 example scripts

http://www.autoitscr....php?showtopic=94763

Let it sit in task tray and any time you open a cmd window, it sets it to semi-transparent blur background.  Requires Vista or W7.

It modifies any cmd.exe it sees.  If you have a script that pops up a command window it looks really cool if this is running.

For myself I added an exit function to unhook the window.  Don't know if windows does it automagically when a window is destroyed, but it can't hurt to manually unhook it.

7371

Living Room / Re: partitioning first time - checklist (cleaning, backup, tools, etc)

« on: May 10, 2009, 07:16 PM »

... round robin swap ...

-MilesAhead (April 06, 2009, 02:47 PM)

is that a linux thing Miles?

-tomos (May 10, 2009, 04:39 PM)

It's one of the options of the Linux Swap command.
With Windows you can have swap on or off and set the min max sizes and which drives have a swap file.  That's about it.  In Linux you have swap partitions specifically dedicated to swap.  Also you can dynamically create swap files. All other things being equal, swapping via partition is much faster than swapping to file. You can set things up to swap to one or more patitions, then if all swap is exhausted you can create a swap file.  I'm just going from memory.  If you google the man page on the swap command you can get details.  Don't know if it's been modified in recent years.  But it's quite a bit more versatile than the swap settings you can do with Windows.

7372

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: ReOpen - Folder Cache, only betterer

« on: May 10, 2009, 04:04 PM »

Uploaded v. 1.53 sorry for the rapid updates.  I thought since AutoIt3 was now XP and later anyway, I'd use Scripting.Dictionary for associative arrays for the hotkey lookups. Kind of bogs it down on a fresh bootup waiting for .NET to load. So I changed main hotkey stored in the .ini file to include the surrounding brackets. That way I could use it directly.

The upshot is, when you change to this version or later, if there's an error reading the .ini file, it will reset the hotkey to default, show you what it is, and remind you it can be modified using the Tray command.  You should only get the error on the first run with the new version.  On exit the program will rewrite the .ini file.

It's too bad because I thought I was going to get associative arrays in AutoIt for free. 

7373

General Software Discussion / Re: Announcement: Way Simple Folder Cache for Windows

« on: May 10, 2009, 04:02 PM »

Uploaded v. 2.03 - sorry for the rapid updates.  I thought since AutoIt3 was now XP and later anyway, I'd use Scripting.Dictionary for associative arrays for the hotkey lookups. Kind of bogs it down on a fresh bootup waiting for .NET to load. So I changed main hotkey stored in the .ini file to include the surrounding brackets. That way I could use it directly.

The upshot is, when you change to this version or later, if there's an error reading the .ini file, it will reset the hotkey to default, show you what it is, and remind you it can be modified using the Tray command.  You should only get the error on the first run with the new version.  On exit the program will rewrite the .ini file.

7374

Developer's Corner / Re: useful snippets?

« on: May 10, 2009, 03:49 PM »

There are the individual forums in each language, but nothing specifically for these kinds of snippets.

Seems like another reason for a Donationcoder wiki 

-mnemonic (May 10, 2009, 02:06 PM)

It should definitely be broken out into the programming language whatever container it's in.  Just thought the categories were already there with Programming School. Maybe it would increase the traffic too if people looked through trying to get a useful function or whatnot?

7375

Developer's Corner / useful snippets?

« on: May 10, 2009, 12:56 PM »

Is there anywhere to post useful snippets?  The Programming School forum is busted out into languages already but I don't know if snippet posting would be a distraction or disallowed?

I'm just thinking if somebody came up with a few lines of code, esp. something that harnesses a resource that might not be obvious, it might be useful.

As example of what I mean, I was trying to find a way to simulate associative arrays in AutoIt3 to make it easy to look up a text symbol using a more human readable key.  I ran into a discussion on AutoIt Forum making use of the Microsoft Scripting.Dictionary object that's already on Windows.  That simplified matching up key/item pairs instead of trying to mess with 2 dimensional arrays or some other more complex library.

Anyway, if snippet posting is allowed then I vote for an AutoIt3 language to be added to the compendium.