Transparency, The Command Line and Multiple Desktops

[formidable]

Hello!

I'm really quite pleased with Desktopcoral.  It's useful and easy to use.  I have a request, however.  I see that others have asked about the same thing in the past, but I don't see any updates.  (I could easily have missed them!)

In any case, here's my usage scenario.  I have a triple monitor system and I use multiple desktops (using Dexpot).  I use Rainmeter for two sidebars and a bottom bar on the various monitors and I run three instances of Desktopcoral to preserve the monitor space for these bars.  When I switch desktops via Dexpot, Rainmeter follows me, but Desktopcoral doesn't.  This isn't that big of a deal.  What I've done is written an Autohotkey script (I just like using Autohotkey for simple scripts.) that stops all Desktopcoral processes and re-runs the three instances with the position parameters in the command line.  This happens every time I switch desktops, so now Desktopcoral follows just as I'd like.  This works swell, but for one small oddity.

The only problem is that the transparency settings for my three instances of Desktopcoral aren't preserved; I want the instances to all be transparent and have set them that way manually, but when I kill the processes ans re-run them, the transparency setting is forgotten and they default to something like %80 opaque. 

This is not a huge problem, just a bit of a nuisance.  I suspect that it wouldn't be difficult to add a command line switch to set transparency.  What do you think? 

Thanks for your attention!
a

[mouser]

hi A,

well that should be easy to fix -- let me do both, a commandline option to force transparency, but also let me make sure it stops forgetting the transparency.
look for an update early next week.

[formidable]

M,

You're awesomeness cannot be adequately expressed in cheesy iconography.
You rock!

Thanks!

[mouser]

New version is now uploaded.

ps. regarding it remembering your transparency setting -- i think this may just be the case of your tool quitting the program before it gets a chance to save it.  so you should be able to have it remember it if you change it, and then MANUALLY exit the program.  in future invocations it should remember the settings.

however, the new version lets you pass -transparency # on the commandline which would allow you to set it manually and use different values for each instance.

let me know if it works for you.

[formidable]

Thank you very much. 

I thought of closing the program manually back when I noticed the problem.  Oddly, this didn't seem to work.  Perhaps I didn't close all instances?  In order to complicate matters, remember I run three instances of Desktop coral which could conceivably require three different transparency settings.  Perhaps the transparency for the last instance to close is the one that's saved for all? 

In any case, the command line will do the trick I'm sure.  I'll try it when I get to work tomorrow.

Thank you!

[mouser]

Perhaps the transparency for the last instance to close is the one that's saved for all?

yep, i suspect that's right.

[Charpang]

@Formidable: Do you still have the Auto Hotkey Script that you used to solve your 3 instances of Desktop Coral? I'm kind of in the same situation and I thought I'd ask you if I could use your script because I lack the knowledge to write one...