Task List Docklet

[scissorhands7]

Yep you understand me perfectly,

Every time though that I either restart or turn off and back on object dock, the task docklet reverts back to the default settings for me. I've tried reinstalling the task docklet but to no avail. I have no clue how to fix the problem. Would there be a way for me to alter the default settings? Like an .ini file?

Thanks again

[Ghostwalker]

saved the docklet configuration without problems here.

Working fine here also Windows XP Pro SP3

[scissorhands7]

Is there maybe a particular process or service that does the saving that maybe isn't turned on?

[Smaky]

Not at all, configuration settings for the docklet are saved by OD/OD+ itself. Did you try closing OD and reopening it? This way you cuould see if there is a docklet that is causing OD to crash during closing (when OD saves all docklet configuration), or if the TaskList docklet is failing... anyway, it seems to me that while closing OD something is causing it to crash preventing it from saving all docklet information.

For the sake of testing close OD/OD+ and backup (copy to another location) your CurrentThene.ini and CurrentTheme_Backup.ini and delete or rename them under your user's profle AppData/Local/Stardock/ObjectDock[Plus]/. Then restart OD/OD+... a default configuration will be created with no additional (non stardock) docklets. Add the TaskList Docklet and test it out, then close/restart OD/OD+ and see if it fails to save the config data. When you are finished, replace the config files with your original ones.

Edited April 21, 2009 by Smaky

[scissorhands7]

Yes I got it! Thanks Smacky. I was using task manager to end Object dock instead of using the "Quit" option from objectdock itself. Once I did that it saved. That was a stupid mistake. Thanks for your help

[Ghostwalker]

I was thinking the context menu should have some options like...

1. Minimize All

2. Show All

3. Open Task Manager

These are just a few things that could be done for windows.

Also I noticed if an app is set to "Minimize to Tray" when you Minimize it you cannot bring it back from the docklet, not sure if there is anything you can do about that. Windows that don't have a title in the title bar do not show in the docklet. I have Firefox modded to not display a title(to mimic the mac)so it does not show in the docklet but the Firefox download manager will because it has a title, not sure if you can do anything about that either.

Edited April 21, 2009 by Ghostwalker

[Smaky]

Good idea.

1. Minimize All

2. Show All

3. Open Task Manager

[scissorhands7]

Good idea.

To add to that, you could also have a close all perhaps?

[Smaky]

Ok, the docklet has been udpated to refresh the application count each time a new application is opened or closed... it waits a second and updates the status... I'll continue with the Context menu stuff.

Edit

I have added the options requested in the context menu.

Edited April 22, 2009 by Smaky

[scissorhands7]

Problems/Suggestions for the new vers.

1. Updates way way way too frequently. Perhaps switch the updating to maybe updating every 30 seconds to every 60 seconds. It seems right now that you have it update every time objectdock is clicked on any docklet, and also any time I open a folder/go forward/backward it updates as well as opening a new tab in firefox, going to a new webpage etc. which really isn't too necessary for me. I'd just be happy with an update every 30 seconds to 1 minute.

2. When it updates it displays "Retrieving tasks" If you could remove that it'd be welcome.

3. Also when switching windows it makes it impossible to type in a text box or click an icon for at least 12 seconds because the mouse goes from mouse to pointer (hand) as if I'm clicking a link and back to pointer repeatedly. Sometimes the text boxes freeze permanently and I have to use Matonga's winexpose to get the functionality of text boxes back. Even if I don't use the task list docklet to do minimize/maximize/restore and just use the regular buttons this happens.

The context menu has full functionality and works really nice.

4. The task list docklet still does not work like a real taskbar. Same problem as before. The docklet minimizes the open window instead of bringing it to the foreground.

5. If you could, could you add the option to remove the icon in the lower right hand corner of the screenshot previews? Perhaps you could have an option for all windows to just use the default icon instead of the ones that don't have an icon. That way I could just use a transparent icon as the default.

Edited April 24, 2009 by scissorhands7

[Smaky]

Well,

1. Updates are not tied to a timer or so, except for a small delay (3/4 sec) after any create/destroy window message is sent. I have hooked to these two messages in order to intercept them and update when a new window is going to be created/destroyed. Looking at the current behaviour, it seems that I am intercepting too many messages, that is, creation of what we would not consider a new window (like a pop-up menu) but which windows does. I need to further investigate on this, so I could find a way to filter our those messages.

2. I plan to get rid of it, but for now it let me (and those who are beta testing it for me) to be assured that the docklet is being updated. The final release will not show it.

3. Just to test.. disable the option to capture minimized windows, see if this is alleviated after that.

4. This is tricky and would require you to help me out a bit. Maybe I could PM you a debug version which will output some info that will let me undertand why it is not working on your system.

5. I could add an option no to overlay the application icon to the snapshot. Whenever an application does not have an icon, it is supposed to show the icon configured in the settings dialog. What I found is that many apps do retrieve an icon that it is either transparent or with alpha info corrupted (perhaps it's me the one who is corrupting it), so it seems that some icons would not show the overlay application icon and some will... but in reality all are "trying" to show the application icon. Until I find a solution (hopefully) I could add an option to get rid of the icon if that helps.

Problems/Suggestions for the new vers.

1. Updates way way way too frequently. Perhaps switch the updating to maybe updating every 30 seconds to every 60 seconds. It seems right now that you have it update every time objectdock is clicked on any docklet, and also any time I open a folder/go forward/backward it updates as well as opening a new tab in firefox, going to a new webpage etc. which really isn't too necessary for me. I'd just be happy with an update every 30 seconds to 1 minute.

2. When it updates it displays "Retrieving tasks" If you could remove that it'd be welcome.

3. Also when switching windows it makes it impossible to type in a text box or click an icon for at least 12 seconds because the mouse goes from mouse to pointer (hand) as if I'm clicking a link and back to pointer repeatedly. Sometimes the text boxes freeze permanently and I have to use Matonga's winexpose to get the functionality of text boxes back. Even if I don't use the task list docklet to do minimize/maximize/restore and just use the regular buttons this happens.

The context menu has full functionality and works really nice.

4. The task list docklet still does not work like a real taskbar. Same problem as before. The docklet minimizes the open window instead of bringing it to the foreground.

5. If you could, could you add the option to remove the icon in the lower right hand corner of the screenshot previews? Perhaps you could have an option for all windows to just use the default icon instead of the ones that don't have an icon. That way I could just use a transparent icon as the default.

[scissorhands7]

3. Just to test.. disable the option to capture minimized windows, see if this is alleviated after that.

Yes this alleviated that problem

4. This is tricky and would require you to help me out a bit. Maybe I could PM you a debug version which will output some info that will let me undertand why it is not working on your system.

4. Yeah I have no problem with doing a special debug version. Just PM me with the details or post it on the front page and I'll get to work testing it.

5. I could add an option no to overlay the application icon to the snapshot. Whenever an application does not have an icon, it is supposed to show the icon configured in the settings dialog. What I found is that many apps do retrieve an icon that it is either transparent or with alpha info corrupted (perhaps it's me the one who is corrupting it), so it seems that some icons would not show the overlay application icon and some will... but in reality all are "trying" to show the application icon. Until I find a solution (hopefully) I could add an option to get rid of the icon if that helps.

Yeah that would be perfect if you could add an option to show no application icon to the snapshot.

Thanks again!

[Smaky]

Ok, when capture minimized apps is set, the Docklet will do a "trick" to get a snapshot of the minimized application, I've seen that in that case, it takes more CPU and it even result in extrange behaviour... I need to improve that code and the one for excluding new windows that are not really windows... I hope I can find some time this weekend to dwelve into those.

[wonderer]

First I'm using (and loving ) *almost* all of Your docklets. But this one doesn't work with alternative shells (I'm using emerge desktop).

So I suggest (and beg You) to change the way it's getting windows list.

I've been looking for a working tasks docklet/stack/whatever for quite a while now, so pleeeeeaaaaase fix this to work with emerge

[Smaky]

The reason it is not working with the emerge desktop is because the list of windows list is retrieved out of the task list... There is no documentation on how to determine the actual window list (since there are many windows that do not get listed in the task list). Since the docklet is not working on Windows 7 (in Windows 7 the task list was completely redesigned) I will be revisiting the window list code in the near future.

[DustyMiller]

I'd gone to the StarDock ObjectDock forum to have a moan about no docklet for switching between windows when the taskbar was hidden. A posting there lead me to this forum and exactly the docklet I was looking for. It works sweetly on my system:

XP Pro (SP3) / Object Dock+ / Visual C++ 2005 Redist / IE7 & Safari for Windows.

Many thanks .

Would it be possible to add a 'right button click' action to the listing task icons? So a standard/left click minimizes/restores the window (as it does now) and a right button click brings the window to the foreground if it's not minimized and if it is minimized restores it.

So you can switch between windows with a single selection click.

Currently if there are several non-minimized windows open I click on the one I want, which minimizes it, then have to repeat that to restore the window to the foreground.

[Smaky]

Currently I am investigatin how to recognize right button clicks... since matonga's stacklib (on which my docklet is based on) does not provide that functionallity out of the box. I've seen an XWindows Dock that is able to process right clicks... I'll be updating the docklet shortly if I found a way to do it.

Would it be possible to add a 'right button click' action to the listing task icons? So a standard/left click minimizes/restores the window (as it does now) and a right button click brings the window to the foreground if it's not minimized and if it is minimized restores it.

[scissorhands7]

Any luck on this docklet Smaky?

[Smaky]

Currently I am working on updating my Digital Clock Docklet, additionally, I am waiting for matonga to update his Stacks Docklet, so I believe it will be at least one more week before going back to this docklet. Sorry.

[xfifteen]

It's working fine here (Windows Vista) just a bit slow

[Smaky]

When "Capture minimzed windows" is set it takes more time to get the window snapshot. If performance is a must I would suggest to disable this setting, until I find some other way to do it.

[Ghostwalker]

"Capture minimized windows"

Mine seems to run great but I don't see that option here maybe I don't have the latest version?

Nope I didn't guess I will play with this today.

Ok first thing need to get rid of is in the docklet font. When displaying the number of windows it flashes back and forth as it updates I think it is something like "Retrieveing....." could you not have it display that?

Also it seems here when I set the Docklet Info to $tc and restart the dock it is gone and I have to add it back.

Edited May 16, 2009 by Ghostwalker

[alaskale]

Wonderful stuff, thanks for it!

But I'm wondering, can the same thing be done with the system tray? It'd be great to be able to completely ditch the taskbar. So much more fun to use a dock. ;D

[Ghostwalker]

I think the system tray would be great but the problem I see with that is you would need to be able to right click the stacks icons and get the default context menu for the tray icon or it would be pretty useless, just my thought the tray icons is the only thing keeping me from ditching the taskbar.

[Smaky]

That's exactly why I have not tried to create a TrayStack Docklet... when matonga adds support for right click to the stacks library (and when it gets a little bit more stable) I will return to this docklet and add more stuff to it (and maybe I will create a TrayStack one.

Showing the number of tasks will be taken out in the final version... right now I have left it there so debugging goes easier. I will take a look at the $tc stuff.