[...] I think a menu item would be good, too. And a fold out menu listing all defined alarms--similar to the Timers menu--would be amazing.

... oh boy... I thought you just wanted a mouse click option for that one I don't actually like to bloat the menu too much... it would require a rewrite to be able to activate and disable all of them if someone wants to.. (with the Exit menu item at least available by holding down SHIFT or CTRL)
What do you want that "fold out menu" to have or behave like? Right now it would still be the same as the properties page...

All that "Alarms" and "Timers" stuff isn't that user friendly... nor easy to understand...
Alarms should for example also work on a specific date... chosen by a date picker control or something like that.

Something I didn't mention before: It's not obvious how to create a new menu item in the "Menu Item Details" tab. It might be a good idea to add a "New Menu Item" button. I just now figure out that I have to start from the "Quicky Menu Items" tab.
[...]

... while I like to improve usability like I did with the mouse tab... I hate to rewrite those dialogs xD Besides I can't see how it could be better... Unless you want to draw me and example

P.S. I know bugs related to the Calendar already Didn't work out on XP as I thought^^ Nor is the focus thing fully working.. (that one worked in all my tests before...)

@ WhiteTigX  - Make frequent backups, and do not do any testing on the development machine (use a VM) if you tackle that code. The arrays are touchy as hell, resources have to be defined within certain ranges, and anything it doesn't like will result in a missing menu/shell crash.

^That^ is half the reason that T-Clock has an exit command line option ... which didn't always save me (hence the VM recommendation).

I'm available if you get stuck.

Those buttons are very necessary as it is otherwise completely opaque to the user that double clicking on some list will do anything. That is just not the way UIs normally work. I only discovered that double clicking worked by accident yesterday when I was writing the complaint. I was actually going to report that the custom menu option was broken, because I couldn't figure out how to work it. That's how unintuitive the current arrangement is.

The buttons not only make it very clear to the user what they do, but also are standard on pretty much any list I've ever seen where you can add, edit, and delete entries. Right-click menus would just once again hide features from the users.

And I've never seen a tab becoming overwritten. If you have to because of resource restrictions, fine, but it would be a really strange experience. A popout modal dialog box is how this usually works.

But, ultimately, my main point is that, if you want to make something more user friendly, you can't hide the basic features from the user. If you want to let them edit menu items, you have to make that feature front and center.

I don't need any of these changes, as I've figured it out. But I am trying help you with the goal you stated--to make the menu dialog more user friendly.

well... I don't really think those buttons are needed... you didn't change other stuff besides that.. "non-existing" menu items could include a dummy text.. such as "double-click to add new" or something... Or a context menu on right click...

Quick-N-Dirty compromise might just be to change the group box text from "Add Menu Item" to Add Menu Item (Double Click to Add or Edit).

Honestly as far as ListView controls go double clicking to trigger the default action has always been a rather common behavior in any application I've ever encountered. *Shrug* So after having been there for 10 years it now has 1 complaint ...... It's up to you man.

Quote from: WhiteTigX on June 19, 2014, 04:37 PM

well... I don't really think those buttons are needed... you didn't change other stuff besides that.. "non-existing" menu items could include a dummy text.. such as "double-click to add new" or something... Or a context menu on right click...

Quick-N-Dirty compromise might just be to change the group box text from "Add Menu Item" to Add Menu Item (Double Click to Add or Edit).

Honestly as far as ListView controls go double clicking to trigger the default action has always been a rather common behavior in any application I've ever encountered. *Shrug* So after having been there for 10 years it now has 1 complaint ...... It's up to you man.

Double click to use the default action. That means there's always another, more easily discovered way to do it. And Add/Edit/Delete buttons extremely standard, to the point that I haven't encounter an editable list that doesn't have them (even if they are in the form of icons like an X and a + sign). I cannot think of any example.

Plus, there's just the fact that there's a ton of whitespace over there, taking up space for no reason. Why not make that whitespace functional? I didn't have to move a thing to fit those buttons in. If you didn't have room for the buttons, I could understand making a different choice.

And I would guess that you haven't had any complaints because most people don't use the feature. People who want T-clock generally aren't looking for a program launcher. They are looking for a replacement clock. Program launching is a nice feature if you find it, but not in any way essential.

All of that said, a compromise of indicating the double click feature in any way would be nice, if not ideal. It would at least make it discoverable. The way I'd do it is to both add "(double-click to edit)" to the top, and put a dummy "Add new item" entry at the bottom of the list. But it would still be good to be able to delete directly from the list, and not have to open the edit dialog, and I'm not sure what you would do about all that extra whitespace.

And, no matter what you do, I think the Menu Item Details tab is not so great. It doesn't work like a tab--you can't use it separately from the Quicky Menus tab. It's what made me think the program launcher feature was completely broken. Remember, this is a hack of a hack--the idea that some things may be broken is built in.

BTW, if you really want to get user friendly, you need an installer. There are so many people I would recommend this software to, except they would not know how to install it. The portable version is nice, but a fully installed version would be nice, too.

Heck, if you want, I might work on it--assuming my illness doesn't get in the way of doing work again.

Remember, this is a hack of a hack--the idea that some things may be broken is built in.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you are unaware of the fact that I designed said interface, and wrote the code for it...so a modicum of tact would be appreciated. Even if it is your wish to imply that you have some sort of insight into what I was thinking at the time of its writing.

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@mouser - While I've never been a fan of installes for this type of small program, it is one of the most common requests regarding T-Clock that I received over the years. It is a kind offer, but the decision is up to WhiteTigX - I really am trying to stay the hell out of here - so as not to become a total pain in the ass - but it's the damn force of habit ... I just seem to keep gravitating back.

I might as well add a hybrid installer

I used to use a single zip-compatible installer for my apps, for quite some time.  I can tell you that the switch to 2 separate downloads, one a standard installer, and one a simple zip file, made things cleaner and less troublesome.  Especially with regard to download problems and code signing stuff.  So I recommend having two separate downloads.

Thanks everybody, specially WhiteTigX for resurrecting the development of this magnificent piece of software. There is one item in my wish list: Using option TZN (Time Zone Name) it always shows PDT, no matter what the computer time zone is set to

I just noticed that WhiteTigX has incorporated my previous request regarding the calendar and now I can set the current month to be in the middle position in a three months calendar, for which I thank him. However, if I change the month using those little left/right triangles on the calendar window, and then I click on "Today:" text at the bottom left corner, it wouldn't put the current month in the middle.

Also, when using those little triangles to go to a different month, I see that the first date of a month is always automatically selected. I think that is a bit confusing and I suggest no date be pre-selected while navigating through months.

Edit: I mean when opening the calendar, Today's date be pre-selected, and then when navigating between months, the last selected date be preserved

I have noticed that through Tclock, custom calendar will not open if TClock has been running for a few hours. Custom calendar will run if TClock has just been started.

Yes, this happens even when options dialog is not open, and "close on lose focus" isn't checked. I think it is because of Windows 8.1 and the way it does the high DPI setting. I tried disabling display scaling for Clock.exe and it seems to work just fine now

I also tried to move the calendar window a bit low and to the right to remove the gaps, but it doesn't retain the window location

If you go to Control Panel for Display, then you can set the display scaling to 125%. Then you can right click on an exe file, get Properties and then go to Compatibility tab and select "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings". I have seen some programs misbehave at high DPI settings as they receive the scaled location of the mouse pointer from Windows 8.1 while the program is not high DPI aware.

Did I ask already what happens when you execute "Calendar.exe" manually? (with the 64bit version first if your OS is 64bit, try the 32bit version after that)