Recent Posts

201

Circle Dock / Re: One Circle Dock download for every second so far!

« Last post by Markham on January 29, 2010, 01:05 AM »

The Redmine????

-sgtevmckay (January 29, 2010, 12:46 AM)

That's a possibility, I guess. Netcraft tells me that the Redmine site is on a different server but the domain is owned by Donationcoder, so that would be mouser's call.

That said, there is an even simpler solution, in theory at least. As the language and image files account for roughly 70% of the download size, it might be better to remove them from the base install and make them an installable option. Those language and image files would remain on the server and would be downloaded only if the user needs them at install time. There is a download manager included with Inno Setup (which I use to prepare the installer) so this shouldn't be much of a problem.

I can also look into using something like WyUpdate which would "phone home" at user-specified intervals and download just those files that have changed since the previous update.

All these measures should effectively reduce the Gigabytage downloaded whilst keeping the number of users at a steady (or rising) level.


Mark

202

Circle Dock / Re: One Circle Dock download for every second so far!

« Last post by Markham on January 29, 2010, 12:43 AM »

IF and only IF a secondary server is necessary, I'd suggest using C-Net. They have very fast servers and we will get a download count (but no other useful statistics).

Interesting that there's a percentage of downloads coming from the temporary web site I put up on dcmembers.


Mark

203

Circle Dock / Re: One Circle Dock download for every second so far!

« Last post by Markham on January 29, 2010, 12:37 AM »

Do you want me to delay the release of the next version? That will cause another spike!


Mark

204

Circle Dock / Re: One Circle Dock download for every second so far!

« Last post by Markham on January 29, 2010, 12:31 AM »

No but I rather think mouser is dreading his hosting bill this month!

Do we need to consider getting up some mirrors?

-sgtevmckay (January 29, 2010, 12:24 AM)

205

Circle Dock / Re: One Circle Dock download for every second so far!

« Last post by Markham on January 29, 2010, 12:23 AM »

You're seeing information that I can't see  . I'm only seeing information from 16.15 on January 28.


Mark

There is no doubt that circledock is EXTREMELY popular... and growing more so.
Furthermore gothic and i seemed to have confirmed that the bandwidth numbers are real.. peaking at 63GB of circledock downloads YESTERDAY ALONE.
 (see attachment in previous post)
The remaining issue however, is that there seems to be an enormous amount of PARTIAL CONTENT download errors.. and a chunk of that large bandwidth may come from the server failing during serving downloads, causing a kind of cascade of re-downloads, etc.

Of course this only happens if there is huge demand for the files on the server so there is no question about the large spike in # of downloads.. the only question now is really whether those numbers are a true reflection of downloads, or are somewhat inflated by failed downloads by a server struggling and somewhat failing to keep up with demand.

I mean 63gb in one day is pretty much an insane amount of downloads -- just not in the realm of what i would expect regardless of how much attention it got.  As nice as it would be if this stat was real.. it just doesn't seem possible to me...

No matter how you look at it, it's a testament to what you guys have done with CircleDock -- people can see it being actively improved and supported and are reacting positively to it.

-mouser (January 28, 2010, 11:57 PM)

206

Circle Dock / Re: One Circle Dock download for every second so far!

« Last post by Markham on January 29, 2010, 12:19 AM »

That's roughly 7,800 downloads!

As for partial downloads, I believe Awstats only records completed downloads but even if it doesn't, we can easily spot this from the main information screen.

The busiest time yesterday appears to have been between 16.00 and 20.00, but I'm not sure if that's GMT or not.


Mark

207

Circle Dock / Re: Transparent dock + hide taskbar = no settings access!

« Last post by Markham on January 28, 2010, 11:58 PM »

Right click on the Centre Button 


Mark

208

Circle Dock / Re: One Circle Dock download for every second so far!

« Last post by Markham on January 28, 2010, 11:57 PM »

The LifeHacker is a huge push, but I would not have expected more that 50,000 to 55,000 dl's from this.

-sgtevmckay (January 28, 2010, 08:13 PM)

Unfortunately Awstats wasn't running when that article appeared and the old log file doesn't contain any detail other than IP Address and activity (ie a download, view a web page, etc.) so I really can't say what effect that article had.

Mouser did say at one time that CD was only second to F.A.R.R.

Have we topped it, I wonder .

And I have yet to start the big push to DevArt, as I have been attempting to stem a flow that I know will come to the forums.

Judging from the lack of activity on this forum, given the download count, I wouldn't worry too about that -- which is a good thing as it means you can concentrate on the marketing!



Mark

209

Circle Dock / Re: One Circle Dock download for every second so far!

« Last post by Markham on January 28, 2010, 11:47 PM »

cricledock is insanely popular.. but i have lingering feeling something might be wrong with the stats -- i've asked gothic to look into it.. im not sure just seems a little high, even for such a wonderful tool.  maybe there is a way we can test by putting a copy of the file on another server like sourceforge and redirecting for a few days and comparing counts?

-mouser (January 28, 2010, 07:21 PM)

I've just spent the last six hours scanning through the raw data for the first 27.5 days - all 5,798 pages of it - and there quite a lot of duplicate IP Addresses but only until the end of November. So the data appears kosher to me. The nice thing about Awstats is that the referring web site is recorded and for that four minute window I mentioned in an earlier reply, all the referrals came from sites in non-English speaking countries and from pages that feature Circle Dock.

Before we condemn the log, I think we should wait until the end of February by which time Awstats will have been running for a month and we'll get a clearer indication as to the validity of the previous log file.

Let's not burst the bubble and enjoy our success!


Mark

210

Circle Dock / Re: One Circle Dock download for every second so far!

« Last post by Markham on January 28, 2010, 11:37 PM »

Congrats Mark! Loving CD so far...

226,720 is indeed a massive number for downloads during such a short period, but have you taken into consideration that download managers these days open multiple processes for a single file so 8 or more "downloads" may actually be from one user?

-lotusrootstarch (January 28, 2010, 07:17 PM)

Judging from the thus-far limited stats that are broken down, download managers accounted for just 1  download (that's in the 3 or so minute window between the tool starting and me accessing the stats late last night). The most popular download "tool" was Internet Explorer, followed by Firefox and then Google Chrome. Curiously there was even a download to a Linux box! The metrics tool is smart enough to recongnise download managers.

When the metrics tool initiated yesterday provides some more meaningful data, I'll post a message with the results.


Mark

211

Circle Dock / One Circle Dock download for every second so far!

« Last post by Markham on January 28, 2010, 07:08 PM »

Yes, you read that correctly! Each second, someone somewhere in the world has downloaded Circle Dock since v1 was released on January 1 this year. How do I know this? A few days ago, I asked "mouser" (this site's administrator) if there were any metrics they could install on the download site so that we have some idea of the number of downloads and thus gauge its popularity. Those metrics were installed yesterday and as part of that exercise, a file containing raw data for the period ending yesterday was made available to me from which I was programatically able to extract the number of downloads for the period 1st to 28th January - a fairly massive 226,720 and still climbing! If we include all Circle Dock downloads since I became involved in its development, that number is close to 400,000!

From a random sample of IP addresses, it's quite clear that Circle Dock is being used in many countries where English is not the first language from which one can infer that its true, multi-language capability is widening the program's appeal. Brazil for example has four web sites featuring Circle Dock, one of which features a screenshot of Circle Dock's main settings dialog in Portuguese.

Thank you dear user, for downloading and using Circle Dock and a big thank you to "mouser" and the DonationCoder team for hosting this great program. I think you can confidently expect to receive a similar number of "hits" next month when we plan to roll-out the next release!



Mark

212

Circle Dock / Re: When is next revision coming out?

« Last post by Markham on January 26, 2010, 10:29 AM »

The short, truthful answer is, when it's ready and not before.

All the coding has been completed for the next release and we're to enter the testing phase which will be undertaken by the Sarge and some other seasoned beta testers I've used before. Also the Sarge needs to come up to speed with all the new features and changes.

Once all that has been accomplished, then we'll set a release date. So bear with us, please.


Mark

213

Circle Dock / Re: Start CircleDock via Desktop Context Menu?

« Last post by Markham on January 25, 2010, 12:10 PM »

Mark:

How difficult would it be to add command line arguments/instruction; Similar to Foobar and Winamp???

Example:
Address
Command
C:/Circledock.exe/ Toggle Appearance

-sgtevmckay (January 25, 2010, 11:29 AM)

If Circle Dock is loaded but hidden and then restarted from the command line, the hidden instance is re-activated - though you will get a warning dialog regarding multiple instances. I guess it could have a command line parameter that effectively does not show the warning dialog but still activate the hidden instance. Why not suggest it to the Developer by posting on the tracker site?!


Mark

214

Circle Dock / Re: Start CircleDock via Desktop Context Menu?

« Last post by Markham on January 25, 2010, 10:31 AM »

No, I'm afraid it is not at all the same. In your case, an external program is being summoned by the menu.

I don't know if this will be of interest to you but the next release will allow you to specify modifier keys for the mouse button visibility setting. See this entry for more information.


Mark

215

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock Dual Screen Slow Refresh

« Last post by Markham on January 24, 2010, 09:10 PM »

Keep checking here for news about 64-bit native support.


Mark

216

Circle Dock / Re: Start CircleDock via Desktop Context Menu?

« Last post by Markham on January 24, 2010, 08:56 PM »

Possibly Fast Explorer in conjunction with Auto HotKey would work. However Fast Explorer on its own won't work. It's one thing to get Explorer to open a file, or folder, and quite another to have it generate mouse clicks or keystrokes; the former is possible, the latter isn't.


Mark

217

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock Dual Screen Slow Refresh

« Last post by Markham on January 24, 2010, 11:43 AM »

Aha! Well there is a Kernel patch available for 32-bit Windows 7 (and another for 32-bit Vista) here. I have installed the Windows 7 patch and can confirm that it does work, as you can see:



As for creating a 64-bit version of Circle Dock, I'll add it to the "wish" list (it's not quite as simple as simply throwing a compiler switch, unfortunately).


Mark

218

Circle Dock / Re: Circle Dock Dual Screen Slow Refresh

« Last post by Markham on January 24, 2010, 09:47 AM »

I have seen this effect on a Vista 64 PC but never on machines with 32-bit operating systems so I can only conclude  that the issue lies somewhere in the Windows 32-bit emulation. You could try adjusting your video card's hardware acceleration and see if that helps.

Circle Dock does not use DirectX at all but it does use GDI to render all the bitmaps.

One solution would be for me to release a 64-bit version of Circle Dock, however that would require you to download and install the 64-bit Net Framework. The downside to that is that the 64-bit version would never be capable of supporting Docklets since these are all in the 32-bit domain.


Mark

219

Circle Dock / Re: CircleDock Featured on LifeHacker Today

« Last post by Markham on January 24, 2010, 04:59 AM »

I have just spent the day implementing some enhancements - in fact, almost all those currently recorded in the "Issues Tracker" (you'll need to set the Filter to "All" and then click on "Apply") and those that I have implemented will be included in the next release.

I've also read all the comments posted in the LifeHacker article. Just in every sphere of human undertaking, you can't please all the people all the time, you certainly can't please all LifeHacker's commentators. As the (current) author, it is pleasing to read all the positive feedback and sensible suggestions posted to that article whilst ignoring the troll-like, keyboard-commandos' banal posts - like that from the guy who seems to insist Circle Dock is a rotary phone and the guy who spent all of five seconds evaluating the program before condemning it. As you will see, I have acted on some of LifeHacker's commentators' suggestions!



Mark

220

Circle Dock / Re: Start in parameter

« Last post by Markham on January 22, 2010, 04:21 AM »

Ah okay. It'll be added for the next release.


Mark

221

Circle Dock / Re: Start in parameter

« Last post by Markham on January 22, 2010, 03:14 AM »

Do you mean the "working directory", also known as "start-in folder"? If so, this is currently not stored or used by Circle Dock. When executing a program, it tells Windows to use the program's folder. Do you have a need to specify a folder other than that?


Mark

222

Circle Dock / Re: Questions about circle dock...

« Last post by Markham on January 22, 2010, 03:02 AM »

I'm not certain if this is related, but there was a bug which could prevent Circle Dock's "Portable Application" creator from including the configuration files. Please read this link http://redmine.dcmembers.com/issues/63.


Mark

223

Circle Dock / Re: Questions about circle dock...

« Last post by Markham on January 20, 2010, 10:04 PM »

Did you use Circle Dock's own "Portable App Creator"? It seems there are essential files missing.


Mark

224

Circle Dock / New for next Version - Advanced Stack Folders

« Last post by Markham on January 19, 2010, 02:11 AM »

Although there have been a number of requests for this feature, it has always been my intention to support Stacks Docklet version 2. Now, before you get too excited, no, I'm not currently supporting Docklets per-se, but rather a special implementation.

There'll be a new set of settings in the main configuration dialog which will enable you to set the default settings for Stack Folders but you can override these settings on an individual Stack Folder basis.

The following screen-shots show the new Stack Folder Properties dialog that will appear when you add a new Stack Folder, or edit the settings of an existing one:






If you enable "Use custom settings" on the above page, a further Page is selectable:



This last page is identical to the Stack Folder default settings pages in the main settings dialog.

Circle Dock's implementation of Stack Folders will (eventually) be somewhat more advanced than its competitors!


And before you ask: no, I'm not giving a time-scale for the next version. Sorry.


Mark

Update: A number of options are not acted-upon by the underlying application (StandaloneStack2), even though they are defined. Consequently some tab pages will remain hidden in both this dialog and in the main settings dialog.

225

Circle Dock / Re: Questions about circle dock...

« Last post by Markham on January 18, 2010, 01:41 AM »

Please read the Help, which explains multiple instances and how to make use of them; you should also read this message.


Mark