TicToc Title

[BTJ]

I have really enjoyed TicToc for several years on Win XP.  Well I finally moved to Win 7 64x and I find that TicToc flickers.  It flickers randomly about once a second.  This happens on a virgin install with only Firefox installed.  It is very annoying.  Is there any chance in looking at this problem?

[tomos]

Have you tried the various compatibility modes?
(dont know would they help but best to check I guess)

[tomos]

hi BTJ was talking to you on irs, but got distracted...

XP mode is a virtual copy of XP that you run within 7 (disclaimer - I haven't used it).

Compatibility is more attractive, cause the app runs in 7 - but hopefully it runs more like it did on XP.
Try out a couple of the compatibility settings, run the app, and see if it improves.

[BTJ]

Thanks for the reply.  I tried all the compatibility modes but I still end up with the flicker.  Someone suggested recompiling the program but that's all greek to me.

[BTJ]

Is there someone out there that can do the magic on TicToc Title code to make it run on Win7 64?

[skwire]

Hi BTJ.  I looked at Skrommel's code and what it's doing is creating a separate, transparent GUI window that gets positioned near the min/max/close buttons.  I'm going to guess that the graphics engine in Windows 7 is different enough from the Windows XP engine to make the GUI flicker like you're seeing.  For the record, it does not flicker on my Windows 7 install.

There are some drawbacks to Skrommel's method of using a separate GUI:

1. The positioning of the TicTocTitle GUI assumes the classic Windows theme; that is, if you try to use TicTocTitle with, say, the Aero look, the TicTocTitle GUI text overlaps the minimize button.
2. The TicTocTitle GUI font's style, colour, and weight are static; that is, they don't change if you change the font of your windows themselves.  Yes, there are settings in TicTocTitle to change this but, again, it's a manual thing.

One solution would be to modify the actual window title text itself.  This method would use the window's current font style, colour, and weight.  However, one drawback I can foresee is that I don't know if it's possible to (easily) right justify the text on a window.  What I mean is that the clock text portion would just be at the end of the current window title, possibly after a separator character like a pipe (|) or the section character (§).

[skwire]

I've been messing around with the code and I have it working, flicker-free, with the following caveats:

1. You can no longer set the size of the text.  Style and weight still work.
2. Any settings changes require you to restart the application.

Knowing this, are you still interested?

[BTJ]

Skwire, I  can't thank you enough for looking into the TicToc.  I would be interested in seeing what the fixed size of the font but doesn't sound like much of a problem.

[skwire]

Give this a try:

http://skwire.dcmembers.com/apps/snacks/TicTocTitleMod.zip

[BTJ]

Ho soooo nice. I could cry, I have it back.  I was constantly looking up on the title bar for the time or date. So nice to have it again. I like the format (Ddd  "W"week  "D"day    yyyy.MM.dd   H:mm).  When I am feeble minded which is most of the time, I can reassure myself what day of the week it is quickly in the title bar.

I am a photographer and when I want to dump a set of pictures to a client I use the day of the year number on all the pictures (ie D90 is today; file name: Sanders SKS4516 D90.jpg).  After the client reviews them and make changes I dump him a new set with the new day of the year number.  The day number is shorter than yyyy.mm.dd format and the client doesn't even know what the number means - sometimes a good thing.  I also use the day of the year for sequentially numbering document revisions in stead of longer yyyy.mm.dd.

I use the week number for accounting purposes.  It is sure easier than trying to tack down the calendar date of Monday of each week in a year.

I am pleased a punch with the modifications.  I no nothing about these programs.  I have coded in basic, fortran, dbase, excel (not vbasic) but have no idea what is going on there.

Thank you very much skwire.

[skwire]

You're very welcome.  I'm glad the program is working again for you. 

[mouser]

Love reading threads like this