Topics

26

Circle Dock / Coming soon ... Elliptical Docks

« on: November 11, 2009, 03:15 AM »

I will be uploading a Beta of the forthcoming version 1.00 of Circle Dock in the next day or so. This will support elliptical as well as circular dock shapes.

Here's a sneak preview:



The background object is, in fact, a circular bitmap which has been 'morphed' into an elliptical shape with the same aspect ratio as the elliptical arc described by the Dock Items. Circle Dock handles this automatically for you.


Mark

27

Circle Dock / Circle Dock: The Past, The Present and The Future

« on: November 07, 2009, 12:11 AM »

Eric Wong - "Video-In-Picture" - is Circle Dock's original author and the first versions were written in Microsoft's Visual Basic. More recently he converted the whole project to C# (pronounced "C Sharp") and that remains the language used for its development. The last version he released was "Alpha 8" and that was in September 2008 and shortly after he released a binary only version which included the ability to set the shape of the dock to be elliptical. He last posted here around 8th October 2008 and also added an entry on the Circle Dock website that the next release - "Alpha 9" - was postponed indefinitely.

Unfortunately he does not appear to have returned either to this site or to the development of this, or any of his other programs, since that date.

I first came across Circle Dock towards the end of August but on finding some nasty bugs, downloaded the source code and began to fix all those I came across. I also added some new features and released an unofficial version in early September. Since that time, I have continued to fix further bugs, make some changes (such as the new Properties dialog) and add a raft of new features. Some of the new features are not mine - the enhanced drag-and-drop and Toggle Button - are the work of another Circle Dock enthusiast, "Dr Wicked".

I will continue to develop and maintain Circle Dock for the foreseeable future and should Eric return in the interim, I will gladly hand-back the development - and kudos - to him. Until that time, you can rest assured that work will continue on Circle Dock.

There's now a new moderating team for this Forum: SgtEVMcKay joins me in keeping some sort of order in this place!


Mark

28

Circle Dock / Circle Dock Release v0.9.3.1

« on: November 02, 2009, 12:26 PM »

This version has one bug fix, one change and one new feature.

The bug fix concerns clearing the exception when setting the mouse to toggle the Dock's visibility at one or more screen edges. Simply rearranging the modules in the packed executable fixes that.

The change is that the help system was consuming to much memory and resources. It has now been externalised and can be called-up from the Dock's Context Menus, the main Properties dialog, as well as the Start Menu and Desktop (if you've permitted that on installing).

The new feature is that now Circle Dock can almost entirely be controlled by the keyboard. You will almost certainly need to have a mouse available to configure your Dock but once all your items are added, you can enable the "keyboard emulation" mode. This is documented in the help system.

Download: SetupCircleDock.zip (7633.01 kB - downloaded 8582 times.)

Enjoy!


Mark

29

Circle Dock / Circle Dock v0.9.3.0 is released!

« on: October 29, 2009, 05:21 AM »

I know what you're thinking - "another day, another release"!

Anyway this one does contain a new feature that's been asked for several times recently - multiple instances. The way I've implemented this forces you to use different directories for each instance you intend to run and each directory structure must be complete - there's no sharing of code or data between the various instances.

Rather than explain how it works here, I'll let you read all about it in the Help system - you do know there's a Help system now, don't you?!

This release also contains several fixes and changes in behaviour whichg you'll find documented in the Help's "History" page.

Download and install: SetupCircleDock.zip (7636.73 kB - downloaded 1423 times.)



Mark

30

Circle Dock / Circle Dock v0.9.2.7 is now released!

« on: October 23, 2009, 04:21 AM »

You can now download Version 0.9.2.7 which contains all the changes noted in this Topic.

If you're using an older version - and in particular Alpha 8 or earlier - then you really should get this upgrade!

New Version: SetupCircleDock.zip (7554.27 kB - downloaded 674 times.) (Refreshed 28 October)


Enjoy!


Edit: I have had to remove the original download link as the dcmembers site is no longer accessible for me - therefore I'm unable to upload there.
Mark

31

Circle Dock / What's planned for the next (unoffical) release (Updated 19th October)

« on: October 17, 2009, 02:13 AM »

The next release will be v0.9.2.7 and will contain the following enhancements, changes and bug fixes:

• The Configuration Settings dialog has been completely revamped and is now in the form of a Tabbed Notebook. This makes it much easier to implement enhancements to Circle Dock and include their settings. This paves the way for inclusion of new shapes.
• The LNK bug should now be cleared - finally!
• If a Dock Item was moved to the Centre Button and the user decides against deleting it, the item would continue to have a "Garbage Can" cursor whenever the mouse moves over it. The cursor is now updated correctly.
• Cleared a bug in the Configuration affecting the showing of the dock when mouse cursor at a screen edge: the new setting was not immediately applied.
• Some users have reported that the Start Menu is not shown when the Centre Button is clicked. A new configuration item has been introduced that, if enabled, forces the Start Menu to open by sending Windows KeyDown and KeyUp commands using an undocumented key value. The only drawback to this method is that the Start Menu will be shown in its normal position (ie bottom left of the screen).
• Some of the Special Folders used Class IDs that were specific to Windows XP and earlier versions of Windows. These IDs are not correct for Windows Vista or Windows 7. The correct Class IDs are now used.

October 18 - New Enhancement

• A user requested the ability to sort the Dock Items. I've added a popup dialog which displays a table of the current dock level's items - as well as a thumbnail of their dock image. You can either select a single dock item and move it up or down, or, with a single mouse-click, sort all the dock items alphabetically by their display names. When the dialog is dismissed, all the dock items are reordered on the dock.
  
  
  
  Since writing the above, I've added the ability to sort alphabetically in descending order (as well as in ascending order).
• Added additional "Poof" effect and you can choose between "smoke" and "fire" in the new Settings dialog.

19th October

• When you change the Circle Dock's Language, you needed to restart the program in order for the new language setting to be fully-applied. There is now a (large) button on the Language Settings page which, if clicked, restarts Circle Dock - using the newly-selected language.
• Found and fixed an old bug which affected the opacity/transparency of the dock's Centre Button: if you moved the dock, the Centre Button would become fully opaque rather than obey its user setting.

32

Circle Dock / Circle Dock v0.9.2.6 Refresh

« on: October 10, 2009, 11:46 PM »

I have recompiled Circle Dock with settings that should allow it to run on 64-bit as well as 32-bit operating systems. I am unable to test the 64-bit setting as I don't have a 64-bit OS.

There are no other changes, so the version number remains the same.

Download link: Circle Dock v0.9.2.6 (Refresh) Installation Program





Edit: Corrected download link

33

Circle Dock / Circle Dock v0.9.2.6 now released!

« on: October 01, 2009, 09:44 AM »

Circle Dock v0.9.2.6 is an unofficial updated version of Eric Wong's 0.9.2 Alpha 8 version available on the Circle Dock website. As Eric has been missing from this board for many months and has not released any new versions in nearly a year, this release corrects many of the issues raised in the interim and also introduces some new features. For further details of what's in this version, please read this message and this message.

The download link is at the foot of this post.

The Zip file contains a full setup program which will install Circle Dock onto your PC.

If you are an existing user, simply install into your current Circle Dock folder, making sure that Circle Dock is NOT running when you install the new version or the installation process will fail.

If you are a new user, just install the program in the normal way. However, this release does not contain any program or folder icons - with the exception of its default folder icon. There are many icon collection on the Internet including those for RocketDock which work admirably with Circle Dock.

Enjoy this release!


Markham and DrWicked.


Download Link: CircleDock 0.9.2.6.zip (courtesy of DonationCoder)

34

Circle Dock / The next unofficial version - Updated 30 September

« on: September 28, 2009, 12:32 PM »

No! It's not released yet!!

Yesterday I released an unofficial update containing twelve changes and additions; that version has an Assembly version of 0.9.2.5 to distinguish it from Eric's last version which was 0.9.2.0. I am now working on version 0.9.2.6 and so far that update will contain the following:


• A widely-reported problem concerns Circle Dock's handling of shortcuts (ie LNK files). Eric had written perfectly valid code to handle shortcuts correctly and his code should, by rights, work. But as many of you reported, it often doesn't work and the problem is not Eric's, it's Microsoft's buggy code - a bug, incidentally, that has been present in all 32-bit versions of Windows since Windows '95. Others have solved it and I managed to track-down a solution which I've implemented: and it works perfectly.
• When a file is added to the Dock, its Description (which is used for the label) defaults to the file name with its file type extension, eg: "Word.exe". This has been changed such that the file type extension is no longer included - so "Word.exe" becomes simply "Word".
• "Add Blank Icon" has been renamed "Add File, Folder or Special Item" for clarity.
• There is a new button on the 'Dock Item Properties" dialog: 'Special'. This allows you to add certain Explorer folders (eg: My Computer, My Documents) and the most commonly used Control Panel items.

29 September Additions

• Drag-and-Drop functionality has been considerably enhanced with the addition of code kindly supplied by "DrWicked":
  
  • Drag and drop of items (including shortcuts - but not Windows folders) from the desktop (or Explorer) onto CD. If the item is dropped onto a CD dock folder it places it in that dock folder instead of at the current CD level.
  • Drag and drop of items that are already on the CD into dock folders. You can even drop a dock folder into a dock folder.
  • Drag and drop of existing items (or dock folders) up one level (if not at the top level). To do this, drag and drop onto the Center button. Previously, this was how one would delete items. Now to delete items just drag them off the CD outside of the bounds of the CD. At the top level, an item can still be deleted by dropping it onto the Centre button but the user will be prompted to make sure they want to delete the item.

• I have also incorporated "DrWicked"'s code to create an on-screen button which can optionally appear whenever Circle Dock is hidden. This is most useful in touch-screen environments but could also be useful generally. A new set of settings determines the image to be used, its size and opacity on the new "Toggle Button" section of the Configuration dialog.
• In Version 0.9.2.5 (the first of my unofficial releases), if the Dock was set to be invisible when loaded, it would sometimes briefly flash when it started-up. This has now been fixed.
• The "poof" animation now works.
  

30 September Additions

• The number of "Special Items" has been increased to 19 and now include "Log-Off User", "Restart PC" and "Shutdown PC". All "Special Items" have default images attached to them but you can change the display image for one of your choice.
• A new setting has been added to the "General" section which will add (or remove) Circle Dock from the list of programs that Windows automatically starts. No more copying shortcuts to your Startup Folder!
• If "Fast Draw" was enabled and you mouse-click on its background whilst it is building the current layer, there was a chance that additional, duplicate, items would be added to the Dock. This has been fixed.
  

That's it, so far. I will update this post as and when new items are added, or changes made, until the next version is released. No further new features will be added for the next release which is currently being tested. I anticipate releasing this new version in a few days.

If you have any request for new features - or have a bug to report - please add it to this Topic.

Thanks!!

I am currently investigating using other shapes including ellipses, spiral, rectangular and triangular. But I'm making absolutely no promises as to whether any new shapes are added or any time-frames. I'm also investigating the possibility of adding Docklets - but I need help with this: does anyone have the RocketDock/ObjectDock API for Docklets?

I'd like to thank "DrWicked" for his support and generosity in freely giving me his source code additions. That has saved me considerable time and also allows me to include new features I've not even considered!

Mark

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35

Circle Dock / My Unofficial Updated Version

« on: September 27, 2009, 11:38 AM »

I've read this Forum and it appears that many of the requested items are included in those I added in my copy of Circle Dock, so I'm making available my latest version.

The changes I've made include the following:

• 1. Folder Stacks: It is now very easy to add a Folder Stack to your Dock - see Add -> Folder Stack. This command adds a blank folder icon on your Dock and opens the Settings Dialog to allow you to change the icon used to represent the Folder Stack and give it a unique name. Do not make any other changes! After closing the Settings Dialog, left-click on your new folder and select the path that should be opened; ignore the icon field here.
  
  Important Note: This ability relies on StackDocklet.exe (version 1) being in your Systems\Miscellaneous folder and its associated DLL in System\Miscellaneous\StackDoclet. Copies of both these items are included in the Zip file.
• 2. Circle Dock can remain hidden after loading - useful if you include this program in your Windows Startup folder. In fact, in common with other Dock programs, it will briefly show itself on loading but will then hide itself. See "General" in the Configuration Dialog.
• 3. Circle Dock will optionally always display the top level each time it is displayed. See "General" in the Configuration Dialog.
• 4. Circle Dock can auto-hide itself if you move the mouse pointer outside its background's boundary, but not necessarily immediately: it uses a value based on the "dwell time" used for toggling its visibility if the cursor is at the top/left/right/bottom edges of the screen. See "Toggling" in the Configuration Dialog.
• 5. Added a new menu item: "AutoHide" to allow you to toggle AutoHide on and off. It will be necessary for you to disable AutoHide when dragging-and-dropping new items onto the Dock. Note this toggle is NOT persistent and the setting for AutoHide (from Configuration Dialog) will be used the next time you start Circle Dock.
• 6. You can force Circle Dock's background to be completely on-screen by disabling both "Centre around cursor  when shown" and "Lock Dock to current position". See "Location" in the Configuration Dialog.
• 7. The maximum size for the background is now the visible screen height (less a few pixels). This change was necessary to allow for completely showing the Dock (#5 above).
• 8. Enabled "Show Labels on Mouse-over" option so that labels can either be permanently shown or only shown when the mouse pointer is over the item. (Eric had this in the UI but had not added code to make it functional.) See "Labels" in Configuration Dialog.
• 9. Added an option - "Fast Draw" - which displays each item as it is created. If unchecked, the previous behaviour (show all items after last item is created) is used. Enabling this item may be visually better on slow PCs. (Eric had written the code for this but not added an enabling option in the UI.) See "General" in the Configuration Dialog.
• 10.The settings for Dock Rotation (Configuration Dialog -> General) were confusing. Circle Dock actually uses the value for 'Key Presses / Mouse wheel scrolls' whilst 'Set Rotation' displayed the number of Radians of the last rotation performed - this would be negative if the last rotation was counter-clockwise. The two controls are now linked, modifying one is reflected in the other. I've also added the necessary conversion code so that 'Set Rotation' displays Degrees rather than Radians.
• 11.Added a button to make it easier to set the optimum rotation values based on the number of items to be placed - set by the values in 'Dock Shape'.
• 12.Added hints to some of the more esoteric configuration items.

Attached to this post are two Zip files. The "Unofficial" upgrade should be unzipped to your Circle Dock Folder - ensure that you also unzip the support files to their correct folders. The second Zip file contains my latest source for those who are interested.

One thing that Eric hasn't yet implemented is elliptical dock shape. I do have some code for drawing and plotting positions on an ellipses and will look at implementing this. However, the math involved is quite complex and, more importantly, time-consuming: the time taken to paint each level will be somewhat slower. Rotating an elliptical dock may not be practicable - for the same reasons. Finally, as ellipses can have varying widths and heights, it may be better for Circle Dock to handle the drawing/painting of this, rather than use bitmap files.

Enjoy the update and let me know if you find any problems!


Mark