[release] Avedesk 1.1

[choo-chee]

avedesk is very cool !!!!

but it crashes when I try to apply some of the effects (snake, matrix, bounce)..... why ?

[kamengau]

Congratulations on a masterpiece work Ave. I for one have been awaiting for this release since the days .0 and I must say you have kept to your word on delivering a solid application.

Kudos to you!

[Magnolium]

1.1 ... here...finally ... too happy ... my body just imploded :woot:

[deadzombie]

Originally posted by PlopPlopFizz@Jul 25 2004, 05:48 AM

How the hell do you work this thing? I tried the help option, but it doesn't actually bring up a help dialog. I have no idea how to use this. Can anyone help me get started? It looks like a cool prog.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Extract Avedesk 1.1 into a new directory (preferably called "Avedesk 1.1") wherever you keep your applications at (usually "Program Files"). Double click AveDesk.exe to start up the app.

Most of your initial setup is going to be involved using the taskbar icon for Avedesk. Right click the taskbar icon, and select "Desklets Control Panel". This will bring up the applications main dialog box.

First, set up a simple shortcut. In the Desklets Control Panel go to "Desklets->Add...". This brings up the Add Desklet dialog. Choose Folder in the left hand dialog window, then press the "Add Item" button on the lower right hand side. You should now have a new desklet on your desktop. By default I believe it will say "New Desklet" and have a gray question mark as the icon.

Now configure your new shortcut Desklet. You can select the desklet in the Desklet Control Panel, or you can right click on the gray question mark and select "Desklet Properties". From this point its pretty easy.

Appearance tab: Icon image, desklet label name, position and size of desklet, along with any effects are configured here. Choose "Desktop Icon" as your style, set your desklets position and choose a groovy image for the desklet. Notice that you can use a variety of image types, from .pngs to .icos.

Label tab: Set up your label here. I find the default text size is too large, but set this up to your own tastes. Basic font/ color/ shadow selection here.

Advanced tab: This is where you determine Desklet quality - Good quality, slower speed is a nice setting that doesnt use too much of your precious resources. You can colorize the desklet here or add a drop shadow.

Label format tab: This is actually the SUB LABEL FORMAT tab, used for setting up input from your desklets to be shown in the desklets secondary label. A shortcut to a drive might tell you how many files or how much free space you have. Follow the included guide on this tab to customize your sub-label. I turn off the checkbox for "Automatically update the desklets caption to the file name", as I have already named my desklet on the first tab. (In some instances you may link to a directory with a long file name like "New Desktop Wallpapers" and you may just want the desklet to say "Pics", as an example).

Shortcut tab: This is where you want your desklet to target. This follows the same guidelines and options that a regular Windows shortcut properties box would, with options varying between the different types of desklets. This is fairly straightforward.

Once youre finished, click "Apply" and then "Ok" to exit the Desklet Properties dialog. If you don't have the Desklets Control Panel still open, re-open it using the taskbar icon. Go to "Application -> Save Configuration" to save the changes you've made to your personal Avedesk 1.1 theme. If you do not save your configuration, Avedesk will not keep your theme once you turn it off!

Using the different menus under the Settings menu, you can set up your default options for Avedesk, saving yourself alot of time when creating a theme. Icon sizes, label types, even effects can be applied to any future desklets you create by setting this up.

I hope this helps, I have to get back to work so its a little rushed.

[keyboardguy]

Awesome App!!

I seem to have a problem with the drop shadows - it works of the first desklet I set up but not any of the others. Any idea what's wrong?

[Beginning]

Just had a chance to try most of these.. Nothiing but flying stars all the way.. You've done an awesome job on this man... You're the best!!

[Zefrem23]

Andreas, you iz da man! Avedesk 1.1 iz da bomb... :woot: YAY! etc etc

I have one issue though - the FTP drop desklet is great, except for one small piece of functionality that would make it the sweetest perfection, and that is to be able to drop a folder onto the FTP desklet and have it create the folder on the server and copy all the contained files into the created folder. Now, this might already be possible, however I have played with the provided tokens like {folder} and have had no joy. All I get is a zero-byte file - with the name of the folder - in the root of the FTP destination, and none of the files are actually copied.

IF there *is* a way to do this, I will be able to throw away my FTP software and use AveDesk for *everything*!

Now if only you could have it make coffee in the morning and do my work for me, life would be flawless! heheh.

[Manyk]

Been waiting for this for a while. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the frontpage news!!

Ok, so now I'm giving it a whirl, as I did the initial release of 1.0

I gotta say, this runs just about flawless on my system, compared to previous.

It FEELS much more responsive ... things draw and animate and glow and all that jive much smoother than before. Of course, the added features are like icing on the cake!

Andreas, you have done a magnificent job with this. You've listened to folks posting not only here but at the other venues and it would appear you haven't gone overboard.

Beta Testers, again, great job with finding the bugs and reporting them to Andreas. Beta testing is not something I could do myself, and I truly respect the job you folks have done for this great app/util.

Now I just need to get used to what it can do 'out of the box' ... tinker for a bit.

I'm sure I'm going to want a few desklets as well ... but for now I'm definately thinking this is going to be a 'running' app on my system.

Again, Andreas, and everyone else involved in making this what it is ... GREAT JOB!

[aashish13]

@Deadzombie, I just tried the iTunes desklet, and I just wanted to know is there anyway to make the album art resize itself to the size of the icon cover. I set the image to 96 to 96, but the album art that is showing is like .25 the total image. Anyway to fix this? Maybe Judge would know?

[deadzombie]

Originally posted by aashish13@Jul 25 2004, 08:33 AM

@Deadzombie, I just tried the iTunes desklet, and I just wanted to know is there anyway to make the album art resize  itself to the size of the icon cover. I set the image to 96 to 96, but the album art that is showing is like .25 the total image. Anyway to fix this? Maybe Judge would know?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I dont know, I just make certain my album art is squared and it always resizes. I haven't had a reason to try to change the settingss of the Album Art aspect of the config.

[dk[DAnCE]]

ThX for that,finaly the waiting has come to an end.

Awesome Work you are the Man !

Love the Notes Desklet really great !

[deadzombie]

Here's my biggest complaint:

It's too useful! This isn't a joke, this is actually an issue... I suddenly find myself with 2 FTP drops, 3 drive/ folder desklets with sys info being relayed from each directory, multiple notes, CPU/ RAM meter, network traffic meters, a clock, iTunes controller and iTunes CD art AND weather.

Where the hell do I put all these widgets at!?! Im running two monitors and space is getting used up quickly. :rant:

[th507]

Oops! Is it a bug or something?

After I change my drive desklet label font to LucidaMac, all the label texts are gone, but when I switch to Lucida Grande, label appears.

Can anybody tell me what's goning on?

...stunning app...Ave...done it again...

[altern]

Great Job Andreas !

Is it possible to make the link to the file uploaded with the ftp drop auto copy in the clipboard ?

thx

[dede]

Fantastic Andreas...it's a dream!!!!!

[AndreasV]

I have one issue though - the FTP drop desklet is great, except for one small piece of functionality that would make it the sweetest perfection, and that is to be able to drop a folder onto the FTP desklet and have it create the folder on the server and copy all the contained files into the created folder. Now, this might already be possible, however I have played with the provided tokens like {folder} and have had no joy. All I get is a zero-byte file - with the name of the folder - in the root of the FTP destination, and none of the files are actually copied.

Weird, that SHOULD work. On what kind of server are you, Apache on Unix/Linux, IIS On Windows?

@Deadzombie: buy another monitor :6 :6

@others: I will reply every bug/complaint/etc after my lunch.

[Brainbug]

history is been writen. ur da man ave. congrats.

B²

[Septimus]

Small issue I'm having - After saving my config, using my pc a while then turning it off, then turning it back on again, windows boots and my desklets are all over the place and not where I saved them

Any ideas?

[Zefrem23]

(fixed quote-tags, Ave)

Originally posted by AndreasV@Jul 25 2004, 12:45 PM

Weird, that SHOULD work. On what kind of server are you, Apache on Unix/Linux, IIS On Windows?

I'm running XP SP1, and the FTP server I'm connecting to is on a Linux box, and it's Pure-FTPd. I've tried passive as well, and it also fails to behave as expected. Do I need to specify a custom path format perhaps?

Thanks in advance Andreas, your hard work and tireless support are greatly appreciated!

[AndreasV]

Is it possible to make the link to the file uploaded with the ftp drop auto copy in the clipboard ?

I'll see if I can make an option out of it.

After I change my drive desklet label font to LucidaMac, all the label texts are gone, but when I switch to Lucida Grande, label appears.

Don't use Type1 fonts, use Lucida Sans Unicode instead.

I try to use the hide icon when drive isn't mounted option but the icon isn't being hid. It still stays on my desktop. Does anyone know how I can fix that?

You're the first on to report that. I will kick out some test-versions soon, so I can find out if/what's the problem.

I'm sure this is going to sound dumb but how do you use the text-to-speach desklet? So lost right now.

Drop some text from, for example, an MS Word document on it.

is it possible to open the window with folder view (drives on the left pane, content in the right pane) ??? I'd appreciate your help, Ave.

Will add it as an option or for SHIFT click.

but it crashes when I try to apply some of the effects (snake, matrix, bounce)..... why ?

Very weird, I guess the auto-registring of the COM component doesn't work. Try to do

regsvr32 

[b]Small issue I'm having - After saving my config, using my pc a while then turning it off, then turning it back on again, windows boots and my desklets are all over the place and not where I saved them[/b]

WOW Can you upload/send me your theme.ini (be sure to strip out the passwords first)?

[b]I'm running XP SP1, and the FTP server I'm connecting to is on a Linux box, and it's Pure-FTPd. I've tried passive as well, and it also fails to behave as expected. Do I need to specify a custom path format perhaps?[/b]

I am using the default FTP component provided by Windows. I guess, somehow, there goes something wrong with the CDIR ftp command, although I am using an abstracter version of it.

How do you upload a folder? Just drag it on the FTP drop? What is the path from where you upload the folder?

[pantoni]

Looks amazing! Too bad I can't try it in that damn internet cafes

[Zefrem23]

Originally posted by AndreasV@Jul 25 2004, 01:05 PM

How do you upload a folder? Just drag it on the FTP drop? What is the path from where you upload the folder?

I have tried using both standard drag and drop of a folder on my desktop, and also dragging a folder from Total Commander (path was C:\test\), both give the same result: a zero-byte file with the name of the folder. If I'm the only one experiencing this problem, then don't worry too much about it - XP has been known to do weird things.

Can anyone else perhaps see where I might be going wrong?

Thanks as always!

[AndreasV]

I have tried using both standard drag and drop of a folder on my desktop, and also dragging a folder from Total Commander (path was C:\test\), both give the same result: a zero-byte file with the name of the folder. If I'm the only one experiencing this problem, then don't worry too much about it - XP has been known to do weird things.

Can anyone else perhaps see where I might be going wrong?

It is probably my fault, not using PathAppendBackSlash, but using strcat(path,"/");

Will take a look in the code and fix it if it's this prob.

[siwu]

Andreas, really, really really awesome... you made me want to go back to skinning again

Thx this is just great

siwu

[Septimus]

@AndreasV - Ok the icon thing has stopped doing it now...grrr. Well good I guess

I use the hide icon when not mounted option on my firewire drive and it works perfectly btw.