Author Topic: DC Forum Post Notifier Lite (a.k.a. Pop-Up Cody) - v1.1.6 - May 21, 2007 (Read 120125 times)

Wordzilla · « **on:** December 31, 2006, 03:39 AM »

Alias: Pop-Up Cody
Size: 108kb
Type: Standalone Executable
License: Freeware
Requirements: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, runs natively on Vista

Download

What does DC Forum Post Notifier Lite do?

DonationCoder Forum Post Notifier Lite is a fairly lightweight utility that

Alerts you whenever a new post has been made on the forum (DC forum only)
Keeps you informed about the most recent 10 posts
Provides handy shortcuts for easy access to a series of forum features

Features

Standalone and Lightweight
Prompt notification with minimal network traffic usage
What You See On the Forum Is Almost What You See Locally (see screenshot #4)
Fade-in/out and slide-in effect
Ability to auto-run when windows starts (optional)
Low bandwidth consumption (around max 2kb per minute)

I personally have this little tool on auto-start and let it stay in my system tray around-the-clock. It really does my a big favor keeping me up-to-date on forum activities when I'm busy coding or working on my Moby thesaurus and cannot check out forum stuff regularly.

Usage Tips

Move mouse cursor to the exact top-left corner of the screen to hide notification window instantly.

Screenshots

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Special Thanks to

Deozaan
for beat-testing this app and offering his valuable advice.

Mouser
the BOSS

Version History

v1.1.51

Fixed a bug that affects Vista users with UAC (User Account Control) enabled.

v1.1.5

Changes:

1. Move mouse cursor to the exact top-left corner of the screen to hide notification window instantly.
2. Multiple user options added
3. Displays "Last Checked on" time in tray icon tooltip
4. Notifies connection error

v1.1.41

It would be nice if when you hover over links within a post that you could have a tooltip with the url it leads to.
-app103 (May 15, 2007, 05:18 AM)

Agreed.

v1.1.40

Changes:

1. Links embedded in posts now open in default browser (instead of IE)

Yuck!
-app103 (April 21, 2007, 07:39 AM)

2. Autorun at startup option now modifies registry settings in CurrentUser only.
3. Use less system resources.

v1.1.39 Adds 'Help Desk' to Extras, minor bug fix
v1.1.30 Embedded slightly modified version of DonationCoder CSS file, allowing the app to display posts almost identically to their forum view.
v1.1.25 Connect to the Internet via proxy/no-proxy based on Internet Explorer settings
v1.1.20 Display pause icon in the tray area when notification is paused
v1.1.15 Added user option to pause notification
v1.1.10 Fixed a minor post time difference bug
v1.1.05 Added "Reply" Button, changed font
v1.1.00 First Release

mouser · « **Reply #1 on:** January 01, 2007, 03:28 PM »

Fantastic!
But it sure seems to be checking frequently - like every 5 to 10 seconds! I think this should be an option and default to something less frequent maybe?

Wordzilla · « **Reply #2 on:** January 01, 2007, 07:46 PM »

Fantastic!
But it sure seems to be checking frequently - like every 5 to 10 seconds! I think this should be an option and default to something less frequent maybe?
-mouser (January 01, 2007, 03:28 PM)

Mousie -> update!

Current ver 1.1.10 (also 1.1.05) checks https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?action=.xml;type=rss2;limit=1 every 30 seconds, and thus bandwidth usage averages 2 - 4 KB per minute. Come on!

Wordzilla · « **Reply #3 on:** January 01, 2007, 07:54 PM »

I personally have this little tool on auto-start and let it stay in my system tray around-the-clock. It really does my a big favor keeping me up-to-date on forum activities when I'm busy coding or working on my Moby thesaurus and cannot check out forum stuff regularly.

Do you think this tool improves your daily DC forum experience?

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** January 01, 2007, 07:56 PM »

really great job anderson, i have to say this is absolutely a great thing.

i can see several requests coming soon after you catch your breath..
id love to be able to tell it to only alert me when one of several people or keywords were found in a post.

maybe be nice also to be able to add several smf forums and make it a generic smf forum notifier?

Arjen · « **Reply #5 on:** January 02, 2007, 06:47 AM »

Do you think this tool improves your daily DC forum experience?
-Mobysaurus (January 01, 2007, 07:54 PM)

Definitely!

i can see several requests coming soon after you catch your breath..
-mouser (January 01, 2007, 07:56 PM)

Sure, here are some! I'd like to...

be able to resize the notification window.
be able to temporarily disable the popups (preferably with a hotkey).
be able to customize fonts and colors.
see what forum users are online. (*)
know how you made the sliding transparent popup windows!

Arjen.

(*) Update: I see "Who's online" is in the context menu. Maybe changes in this page can be shown as popups somehow?

Ruffnekk · « **Reply #6 on:** January 02, 2007, 07:06 AM »

Excellent tool MobySaurus!

I have minor thing though: the menu for 'Show recent posts' doesn't do anything... I'm not sure if you are aware of it or not, but you may want to look at it. I'm definitely going to use this!

Arjen · « **Reply #7 on:** January 02, 2007, 07:12 AM »

I have minor thing though: the menu for 'Show recent posts' doesn't do anything...
-Ruffnekk (January 02, 2007, 07:06 AM)

Just FYI: it works correctly for me...

Ruffnekk · « **Reply #8 on:** January 02, 2007, 07:13 AM »

I have minor thing though: the menu for 'Show recent posts' doesn't do anything...
-Ruffnekk (January 02, 2007, 07:06 AM)

Just FYI: it works correctly for me...
-Arjen (January 02, 2007, 07:12 AM)

Okay then there's something else wrong. All links work from the menu except that one ??

Wordzilla · « **Reply #9 on:** January 02, 2007, 07:22 AM »

I have minor thing though: the menu for 'Show recent posts' doesn't do anything... I'm not sure if you are aware of it or not, but you may want to look at it. I'm definitely going to use this!
-Ruffnekk (January 02, 2007, 07:06 AM)

Thanks! Glad that u like it.

It works like this:

1. For "Check Now" and Auto-notification, the window pops up showing only the most recent post, no back/fwd buttons

Screenshot - 3_01_2007 , 12_11_20 AM.png

Screenshot - 3_01_2007 , 12_11_20 AM.png

2. For "Show Most Recent Posts", the app fetches the most recent 10 posts and displays back/fwd buttons plus sequence number (with #1 being the most recent)

Screenshot - 3_01_2007 , 12_12_06 AM_111.png

Screenshot - 3_01_2007 , 12_12_06 AM_111.png

Wordzilla · « **Reply #10 on:** January 02, 2007, 07:24 AM »

Okay then there's something else wrong. All links work from the menu except that one ??
-Ruffnekk (January 02, 2007, 07:13 AM)

hmmm, what else is wrong and which link were u referring to?

Ruffnekk · « **Reply #11 on:** January 02, 2007, 07:24 AM »

Okay in that case it must be a proxy issue, because here at work I'm not getting notified of new posts either... At home it worked

Any chance your app can be made to configure the use of a proxy server with authentication?

Ruffnekk · « **Reply #12 on:** January 02, 2007, 07:25 AM »

Okay then there's something else wrong. All links work from the menu except that one ??
-Ruffnekk (January 02, 2007, 07:13 AM)

hmmm, what else is wrong and which link were u referring to?
-Mobysaurus (January 02, 2007, 07:24 AM)

I thought the 'Show recent posts' was a link to the 'Show recent posts' page on DC

Wordzilla · « **Reply #13 on:** January 02, 2007, 07:55 AM »

Definitely!

Sure, here are some! I'd like to...

be able to resize the notification window.
be able to temporarily disable the popups (preferably with a hotkey).
be able to customize fonts and colors.
see what forum users are online. (*)
know how you made the sliding transparent popup windows!

Arjen.

(*) Update: I see "Who's online" is in the context menu. Maybe changes in this page can be shown as popups somehow?
-Arjen (January 02, 2007, 06:47 AM)

Great! I'm very happy that this tool is actually helping ppl. I'm def going to better it and bribe mouser into approving it as an official forum tool!

be able to resize the notification window.

Maybe a good idea to let users to have the option of displaying tiny/small/normal/huge/gigantic window?

be able to temporarily disable the popups (preferably with a hotkey).

I'll add this feature in an hour or so (assuming you dont care very much about hotkey).

Gonna explore hotkey function in the later PRO ver.

be able to customize fonts and colors.

Yes, of course, it's already planned to go into the PRO ver.

see what forum users are online. (*)

(*) Update: I see "Who's online" is in the context menu. Maybe changes in this page can be shown as popups somehow?

Guess it won't be very hard for me to add "see what forum users are online" right now since I used to work on a tiny infamous app of which the sole purpose is to monitor mouser's online/offline status.

The Pro ver might even allows you to custom a watch list of a bunch of ppl to periodically check for their online/offline status and pop up a MSN-like notification window:

"Mouser the Evil Lord is online now! Say hello to him or click here to feed his ego with some DC credits."

Maybe changes in this page can be shown as popups somehow?

I think the viewing of Who's Online area is currently restricted to privileged users only, so there may be some difficulties implementing this feature.

If successfully coded it'll allow you to monitor mouser's almost real-time activity - could be very very fun!!

"Mouser is now posting in the Official Announcements section..." <- what's he up to? $:-\$

edit:

know how you made the sliding transparent popup windows!

Sure! I'd love to share my code/knowledge. (Also there are quite a few open source pop up notification controls on codeproject.com.)

basically it works like this:

1. Notification window = window placed in the bottom right corner

Window Location:

Code: vb.net [Select]

Me.Left = My.Computer.Screen.WorkingArea.Width - Me.Width
Me.Top = My.Computer.Screen.WorkingArea.Height - Me.Height

2. Slide effect

Create a timer object and let it be that when it ticks (triggers the event) every # of milliseconds, move the window up a few pixels - until it reaches the desired location, which is

Code: vb.net [Select]

Me.Top = My.Computer.Screen.WorkingArea.Height - Me.Height

3. Fade in/out effect

Use Timer + Changing window transparency/opacity

Create a timer object and whenever it ticks,

Code: vb.net [Select]

Me.Opacity +=0.01   (or equally, Me.Opacity = Me.Opacity + 0.01)

(in vb.net, opacity = 1.0 means no transparency and opacity 0 completely transparent)

so every time the timer ticks (like every 30 milliseconds), the window becomes 1% more opaque (fade-in effect)

Plz let me know if you need help with it.

Wordzilla · « **Reply #14 on:** January 02, 2007, 09:00 AM »

be able to temporarily disable the popups (preferably with a hotkey).
-Arjen (January 02, 2007, 06:47 AM)

Arjen, check out the new version (fresh off the compiler

) and my edited guide to "sliding transparent popup windows" above.

Arjen · « **Reply #15 on:** January 02, 2007, 09:14 AM »

Arjen, check out the new version (fresh off the compiler ) and my edited guide to "sliding transparent popup windows" above.
-Mobysaurus (January 02, 2007, 09:00 AM)

Great, that's a super quick update, thanks!

So these popup window effects are mostly plain hand work; I had hoped it would have been something like:

Code: C# [Select]

this.DoMagic();

Arjen · « **Reply #16 on:** January 02, 2007, 09:20 AM »

Oh, and another thing to keep you busy: when the notification window pops up, it gets focus, so I'm suddenly (even more) interrupted in my Really Busy Work.

Wordzilla · « **Reply #17 on:** January 02, 2007, 09:30 AM »

Oh, and another thing to keep you busy: when the notification window pops up, it gets focus, so I'm suddenly (even more) interrupted in my Really Busy Work.
-Arjen (January 02, 2007, 09:20 AM)

That's weird, I don't experience any de-focusing of current working window at all.

By "Really Busy Work", you meant game or other full-screen programs?

Could you tell me what program you were working with when your work got interrupted?

Arjen · « **Reply #18 on:** January 02, 2007, 09:36 AM »

By "Really Busy Work", you meant game or other full-screen programs? Could you tell me what program you were working with when your work got interrupted?
-Mobysaurus (January 02, 2007, 09:30 AM)

Excel. (Sounds really Serious isn't it?) Other apps, too.

I'll check again after I've posted this message.

Update: it went OK now, when I was in an editor! I got interrupted earlier when editing a formula in Excel. I'll keep an eye on it...

CodeTRUCKER · « **Reply #19 on:** January 02, 2007, 09:38 AM »

I don't experience this either, but I'm using the original version posted on 1-1. BTW - Great app!

Arjen · « **Reply #20 on:** January 02, 2007, 09:49 AM »

I don't experience this either, but I'm using the original version posted on 1-1. BTW - Great app!
-Farmsteader (January 02, 2007, 09:38 AM)

I might have been too hysterical.

I think it only happens when editing a formula in Excel.

CodeTRUCKER · « **Reply #21 on:** January 02, 2007, 11:55 AM »

Arjen, I have always thought that if something produced that kind of reation, it would best be left undisturbed.

CodeTRUCKER · « **Reply #22 on:** January 02, 2007, 05:31 PM »

... then again, I have duplicated similar traits when working with Excel too!

CodeTRUCKER · « **Reply #23 on:** January 02, 2007, 05:35 PM »

Can you set up a [CTRL]+[Spacebar] or [ALT]+[Spacebar] to immediately clear the slide? In my continued use of your app all day long, that is something that would really be helpful!

Wordzilla · « **Reply #24 on:** January 02, 2007, 05:43 PM »

Can you set up a [CTRL]+[Spacebar] or [ALT]+[Spacebar] to immediately clear the slide? In my continued use of your app all day long, that is something that would really be helpful!
-Farmsteader (January 02, 2007, 05:35 PM)

Sure! I'm on it! Also will upload a new test version in 30 mins and hope you guys will help me out on this weird grabbing focus issue.

btw, ctrl+spacebar is also used by mouser's FARR, but hey it's official hotkey is Pause/Break, right?