Author Topic: Circle Dock: The Past, The Present and The Future (Read 32,001 times)

Markham · « **on:** November 07, 2009, 06:11 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

mouser · « **Reply #1 on:** November 07, 2009, 06:18 AM »

Mark, I know I speak for many when I thank you and Dr Wicked and SgtEvMcKay for bringing Circle Dock back to life. Eric is still very much missed, and when he is ready it will be wonderful to have him back. Let us know when and how we can be of help to you guys in your efforts. Thank you.

sgtevmckay · « **Reply #2 on:** November 08, 2009, 07:37 PM »

Now I know I missed something

Time for another one of my blow hard, long winded speeches.

I first want to send along my apologies as I have been inundated with the final release of promotion of Rainmeter 1.1
It was released Nov 01, 2009, but the hit has not come until the last few days...and I have been neglectful in here with assistance, and with not having informed friends and acquaitences here about the new Rainmeter: which I will remedy soon.
Most embarrassing

I want to say thank you to Markham for taking on this excellent project and for doing what I can not, and that is program.
I am a skinner and artist of others works, and the art I do with CircleDock will continue in the not too far future as we take a break at the Rainmeter development and forum.

Mouser....You embarrass me, but I am grateful
I am 40 years old, and until the last year I have never understood what it is to take pride in what I do.
CircleDock was the beginning, CircleDock with Rainmeter has given me an opportunity to be part of something that is larger than myself, but also allows me to assist other with software I believe in.

I am humbled...Humbled my the software, the community here at donation coder, and the people that this community and environment provide.
I am also humbled by the becoming a Moderator for this little part of the community.

I will continue to assist as I can, as I have for almost a year now, and I will continue to e-mail Eric at the e-mail addresses that do not return a bad address.

I to hope for our beloved V.I.P.'s return, and hope that one day this will happen.

Mouser....You have given me access (some time ago) to some space here at he forums for my own bidding.
I would suggest the use of this as a new launch page for CircleDock...I have approached teh Admin. at wikidot, but there feelings are that any unapproved modification, at this time, would be grossly inappropriate...I respect that, but the word for Markham's work, and updates to CircleDock must be more publicized.
Since I have truly obtained a number of connections for software and media outlets. I would approach these places with the latest information.
I would also propose to make teh spave that you have so graciously given a new front page for CircleDock, and maybe we can get the page up, loaded, and Google (and others) to recognize this as a new front page.

I ask this through a lump in my throat, as I am overjoyed and emotionally hit by the unexpected trust and praise.
What say you folks?

mouser · « **Reply #3 on:** November 16, 2009, 01:04 AM »

sgtevmckay,

i'm sorry i missed this post originally!! please excuse my late reply

and thank you for such nice words.

there is such a satisfaction in working on a project and seeing it develop -- i think it's something most of us here share an appreciation of. it doesn't really matter *what* you work on, but pick a project of some sort and put your heart into it, and your life will be made more fulfilling.

as for CircleDock web space, etc., you guys absolutely will have anything you need from us in that regard. both you and markham have web space on dcmembers.com, though i understand that markham has been having a bit of trouble uploading to it lately.

maybe a good solution would be to give circledock it's own dedicated page, like circledock.dcmembers.com or something like that. you could just put up static page and downloads there, or we would be happy to set up a wiki page for it there, or cms, whatever. if you coordinate with markham and let me know what you would like i will make it happen.

sgtevmckay · « **Reply #4 on:** December 11, 2009, 09:59 AM »

@Markham

I have access to the CircleDock WikiDock site.
Other than a slight learning curve on the how to;s of the site
We are G to G

I will start committing updates soon.

Markham · « **Reply #5 on:** December 11, 2009, 07:57 PM »

Excellent news, Sarge!

Mark

mouser · « **Reply #6 on:** December 11, 2009, 08:00 PM »

By the way, one of the greatest girl groups ever (Shangri-las) did a very cool and haunting song called "Past, Present and Future":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3hCZiTNric

Markham · « **Reply #7 on:** December 11, 2009, 08:08 PM »

Quote from: mouser on November 16, 2009, 01:04 AM

as for CircleDock web space, etc., you guys absolutely will have anything you need from us in that regard. both you and markham have web space on dcmembers.com, though i understand that markham has been having a bit of trouble uploading to it lately.

maybe a good solution would be to give circledock it's own dedicated page, like circledock.dcmembers.com or something like that. you could just put up static page and downloads there, or we would be happy to set up a wiki page for it there, or cms, whatever. if you coordinate with markham and let me know what you would like i will make it happen.

Many belated thanks for that! Incidentally I do now have FTP access to dcmembers.com once more, a change in ISP has restored my access. Apparently my old provider had a problem with FTPES.

As you will have read in the Sarge's latest post, he/we do now have access to the Circle Dock website (on Wikidot) and as this is regularly trawled by the search engines, that site comes up within the first few entries of a search. I may be entirely wrong here, but it would appear that dcmembers doesn't grant access to the search engines to look at and index any sites it may be hosting. I've run a few tests and this would appear to be the case.

The good news is that version 1.00 will be released "real soon now (TM)" and we will be announcing the opening of the Redmine pages at that time.

Many thanks for all your help and hosting abilities!

Mark

mouser · « **Reply #8 on:** December 11, 2009, 08:13 PM »

the search engines shouldnt have any trouble spidering the dcmembers sites.. ill check to see if there is some robots directive that might be blocking it. but it may just be that they dont scan it as regularly (yet) as some other pages.

but please do host it wherever works best for you! the dc space will always be here for you, and you can always use it as a backup.

sgtevmckay · « **Reply #9 on:** December 11, 2009, 08:16 PM »

Quote from: mouser on December 11, 2009, 08:00 PM

By the way, one of the greatest girl groups ever (Shangri-las) did a very cool and haunting song called "Past, Present and Future":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3hCZiTNric (see attachment in previous post)

Indeed they did

Markham · « **Reply #10 on:** December 11, 2009, 08:24 PM »

Hmmm.... you two are showing your age

Mark

Markham · « **Reply #11 on:** December 11, 2009, 08:33 PM »

Quote from: mouser on December 11, 2009, 08:13 PM

the search engines shouldnt have any trouble spidering the dcmembers sites.. ill check to see if there is some robots directive that might be blocking it. but it may just be that they dont scan it as regularly (yet) as some other pages.

but please do host it wherever works best for you! the dc space will always be here for you, and you can always use it as a backup.

Thanks mouser!

A good friend of mine here - who's in the "web business" - has had a look at the test site I put up a week or so ago (you know where it is

) and he truly thinks the Google spider (at least) should have visited it at least twice since, but there's no trace of it if you Google "Circle Dock dcmembers". Now that site does have redirection (the default index points to the actual site) but, according to him, the rewrite/redirection does not break any search engine rules. As the Home Page has search engine friendly tags and content, his only explanation is that the search engines don't have the correct permissions - given the high-level of security you've imposed on that domain. Just a thought.

Mark.

sgtevmckay · « **Reply #12 on:** December 11, 2009, 08:34 PM »

I am so frustrated I want to spit.

I pride myself on being able to find almost anything, or come up with about anything, on almost everything.
But base coding for Docklets adaption has proven incredibly elusive.

I have been dancing with programmers for a couple or more months now, and have come up empty handed, with great sorrow and disappointment.

I keep getting referred to a BaduKing (apparently a programming legend when it comes to multiple docklet integration), but apparently no one has heard from him in two years or better.

I have 2 remaining contacts to make:
I will approach StarDock (I am fairly certain where that will go)
I will approach the folks at RocketDock again (I fear that I may over extend teh kindness that they have extended to me)

@ Mouser:
I may be putting up a general call on the forum, and see if the DonationCoder brain trust may be able to direct me in a new direction.

@Markham:
I am sorry that I have been un-able to produce anything.....yet!!!

I am so disappointed in myself and my apparent in-ability to deliver at this time

Markham · « **Reply #13 on:** December 12, 2009, 01:09 AM »

Hey, don't beat yourself up over it Sarge

Thanks for all your determined efforts in that cause though.

Mark

sgtevmckay · « **Reply #14 on:** December 12, 2009, 02:13 AM »

Thanks

Know that I am not done yet

sgtevmckay · « **Reply #15 on:** December 13, 2009, 02:08 AM »

I received the following response from an individual at Aqua Soft:

Posted Today, 04:13 PM
By: HERD
"Developer"

Quote

Just download the ObjectDock docklet SDK from StarDock and implement their interfaces.
They are pretty straightforward.
That's the way it worked in both AveDesk and RocketDock, if I remember correctly.

Since you are going to host C/C++ libraries in .Net, you'll need to catch up reading
lots of InterOp (No COM/ActiveX involved, just plain LoadLibrary/GetProcAddress stuff
in the Win32 SDK), and forget about going 64-bits. Perhaps a mixed C++/C# assembly will do.

good luck,

herd

Original post:
http://www.aqua-soft.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=53245

I will continue to update as more information comes in.

sgtevmckay · « **Reply #16 on:** January 05, 2010, 09:29 AM »

Apologies for not having the wikidot site updated...There have been issues on there end...hopefully to be resolved soon.
Most of the pages have been updated except the main page with the latest release

Apologies

Also a Question there Markham.
Is the current release version have Stacks 1 or 2 integrated with Circle Dock???

Let me know, and I will get some documentation squared away

Markham · « **Reply #17 on:** January 05, 2010, 03:05 PM »

Sarge,

Circle Dock is still using Stacks 1 but I may change that at a future date. I'd really like to use it as a docklet hence I've been holding-off supporting Stacks 2.

Mark

sgtevmckay · « **Reply #18 on:** January 05, 2010, 07:43 PM »

Very good, just needed to know for the documentation.

Just an FYI:
Chris at "Chris n Soft" has created a stand alone Stack2 and it works like a champ in Rainmeter as a third party add on.
Just updated again:
http://www.chrisnsoft.com/2009/11/25/standalone-stack-2-released/
If we need permission from him to modify the code...I can get it!!!

I have yet to experiment with it in CD....give my time.

Damn Knee...Time for Pain killers

More later

Markham · « **Reply #19 on:** January 06, 2010, 03:44 PM »

Sarge,

I've taken a close look at Standalone-Stack-2 and I believe you can reasonably suppose that I'm adding support for this as a replacement for the earlier version.

However, there is a problem in that it's using the INI file format which does not support Unicode at all (in spite of what Microsoft might say on the subject!) and that format only supports files less than 64KB in size (or about 30 stack definitions). What I'd like him to do is support XML files and in particular the simple XML implementation CD uses. If he's agreeable, I can let him have a DLL which he can call (using its COM interface) which will do all the work for him!

From Circle Dock's perspective, Unicode support is a must-have, so that the program appeals to as wide an audience as possible.

The other problem is that its settings file is created and maintained in its own folder and this will cause UAC problems if that folder is on the System drive - but that one I can work around.

Let me know!

Mark

sgtevmckay · « **Reply #20 on:** January 06, 2010, 06:44 PM »

I will drop a bug in Matonga's ear (Creator of Stacks at Aqua Soft) and see what he thinks.

It never hurts to ask.

If Matonga is interested I will point him in your direction...or vise versa

Will let you know....

I am laso hot on the trail of RaduKing again...apparently he is on the move with something in the background...But I have a couple of other folks trying to get his attention for us as well.

Markham · « **Reply #21 on:** January 06, 2010, 06:53 PM »

It's not Matonga but the Chris'nSoft (StandaloneStack) guy. He's built-on Matonga's library and considerably enhanced the features and it's those features I want CD to capitalise on. By itself, Matonga's library offers us no more than what's in version 1 of StandaloneStack which CD already supports (kind of).

Good job on the Wikidot site!

Well done and thanks!

Mark

Markham · « **Reply #22 on:** January 06, 2010, 06:56 PM »

Oh yeah, almost forgot. StandaloneStack v1 had a command line option which prevent it from occupying a space on the Taskbar ("/notaskbar") but that option is missing in v2.x. I'd like it back!

Mark

sgtevmckay · « **Reply #23 on:** January 06, 2010, 07:05 PM »

I am writting in a request now...will add this in immediately

sgtevmckay · « **Reply #24 on:** January 06, 2010, 07:19 PM »

Request on forum out here:
http://www.aqua-soft.org/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=51400&view=findpost&p=533861

I will re-direct Chris and Mr. Moreno a direct e-mail shortly.

Also Have made some massive changes to the wikidot yesterday.
If you get an opportunity...Could I bug you to go over the change log at the wikidot site and see if I missed an major do-hickeys???
Also double check and see if I have missed anything.....There will be more changes when I get some current images, and do some more refining to the wikidot.
I am working on a CSS customization now, but could take some time.