***THIS IS AN OUTDATED RELEASE!!! Please get eXpresso 1.5 Alpha 2 over here! ***
Application: eXpressoCategory: UtilitiesDescription: While active, eXpresso allows the user to associate files to applications on a portable device such as a USB flash drive or an iPod in disk mode, with a standard double click. No modifications will be made to the host system, all monitoring of file launches, all settings and all dependencies are contained in the eXpresso directory.eXpresso:Mirror 1 (Bensawsome.com) eXpresso [ 1.74 MB (1,832,787 bytes) download / 3.94 MB (4,136,033 bytes) installed (MD5: 31531d5b883e59af7c25b64756bd7ce2)]
To update from CAFEMod, just rename cafe.ini to eXpresso.ini and copy the files.
Sorry for making you guys update so much
The latest release should be stable and usable, and it won't delete you INI Development Test 1 (12-8-09)
- Initial
UnsupportedRelease - Fixed double instance errors
- Removed unreferenced labels
- Updated Launcher to current specifications (I think)
Development Test 2 (12-10-09)
- FINALLY FIXED the pause/running icons. (Looks like the code was never integrated, the original developers much have just hacked AutoHotKey's S icon or something, correct me if I'm wrong)
- Entire NSIS Launcher rewritten
- My Copyright added, now that I actually did some stuff (2 days worth of developing!!! :D)
- Cleaned up PortableApps.com Format in the App (appinfo.ini, installer.ini, readme.txt
- Fixed some more renaming from CAFE to eXpresso issues (forgot the lang files.)
- Added a Cancel button to the New Association window. (Thanks computerfreaker for pointing out a fix that was needed for this. :D)
Development Test 3 (12-20-09)
- Fixed cancel button errors on new association (Thanks to computerfreaker + waithdu)
- Removed the MOD in the eXpresso instructions.txt
- Fixed Double Clicking for about Everything (wraithdu)
- Fixed Window Double Clicking (waithdu)
- Many other things fixed by wraithdu I'm unsure of
Development Test 4/4½ (12-30-09)
- Fixed Refreshing Errors
- Fixed FindProc Errors
- Many other even more things fixed by wraithdu I'm unsure of
- (4½) Fixed NoINI Section
Development Test 5 (12-31-09)
- Fixed major INI moving problems
- (1.2.5 Release fix by wraithdu) Fixed some var issues
Known Bugs:
None Ha! No seriously, none officially proven
I encourage you to read what I wrote at This Post.
Great work so far, but it appears that there is an issue with the launcher:
Upon first launch, "ERROR:(APP\eXpresso\eXpresso.exe cannot be found)"
As I wrote in the above thread, you can take this over; I no longer have time to develop it.
EDIT: Looks like you already know that. I read the last page of the previous thread.
Only on first launch?
So, I shouldn't have noticed it when I ran it since it was using my settings right? Yeah, I'll look at it now.
Edit: Nevermind, I made a mistake with the NoINI section, "Forgot to place $EXEDIR before the ${DEFAULTAPPDIR} and ${DEFAULTEXEDIR}
Uploading fix now.
I am still having the "could not be found" issue when launching, except the error is longer:
ERROR:E:\PortableApps\eXpresso\App\eXpresso\E:\PortableApps\eXpresso\eXpresso.exe That is probably an issue.
Again, I have not checked the source before posting this.
Also, as far as I remember .5 or 1/2, etc. releases are discouraged. John prefers the versions for Dev Tests and Pre Relesases to be without these. If the changes are that small, or if the original release was not functional (as in this case), I'd recommend you just keep at Dev Test 4.
Sorry, I think I'm a bit off today
Okay, the problem was that this time, the $EXEDIR shouldn't have been next to the ${DEFAULTEXE} Var.
And just to be sure, I even ran it without the INI
Thanks for the update!
Does the program memorize the extensions? It seems to forget everything instantly :S. There's something I should do before use it?
What version of eXpresso do you have? It's definitely supposed to remember the file associations...
This is probably an unnecessary question, but it never hurts to ask - do you have any file associations set?
EDIT: I'll be darned - you're right.
wraithdu fixed that bug in a CAFE build, but AFAIK that build has not been publicly released.
Let me see if I can find the source of that problem in eXpresso...EDIT 2: I found the problem, and am fixing it right now.
In the meantime, you can work around this by creating a folder called "settings" (no quotes) inside the Data folder.
That should fix your problem until we get a permanent bugfix out.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
I've fixed the bug and am sending gluxon the fix right now. With luck, the fix should be posted shortly.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
I'm not blaming anything on wraithdu, I should have looked over the source but here's what happened.
wraithdu changed eXpresso to write it's settings to the ..\..\Data\settings folder, not the folder eXpresso.exe (Not Portable) was in. So moving the file was pointless.
Now, I just need to figure out why another executable of eXpresso is starting up with a weird menu.
Edit: Nevermind, the weird menu isn't popping up anymore?
Well, I think I have the first bug (misplaced INI file) fixed... want to check & make sure?
EDIT: forgot to mention, I also turned off debugging for the build I sent you. Maybe you're using a different AHK version than I am, but mine kept popping up a debugger - very useful while coding, but not so nice for normal users.
I didn't delete the debugger line, though - I just commented it out.
I can't seem to reproduce the second bug (weird menu). Can you post the steps to reproduce the bug, so I can help track it down?nvm, I see you can't reproduce it anymore either.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
I now have the source for both your latest build and wraithdu's latest build; after looking at both builds, I have a suggestion.
I think the two of you should probably create separate forks of eXpresso; your development styles are fairly different, and that's probably going to cause more problems like this one.
Just MHO; YMMV.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
No. I think it's better for the community if we merge both our codes. I'm pretty sure I already did that though.
I found out the source of the second menu I was getter. Actually, I find it quit Hallarious
I was working inside the Source/eXpressoSource folder, so I just randomly chose an AHK file to test eXpresso with. The only executable AHK was eXpresso.ahk, so I chose that to associate AutoHotKey with
So when I launched eXpresso.ahk with AutoHotKeyPortable.exe, I got a second menu.
LOL
Oh boy, that's the kind of bug I absolutely love... you can never find those bugs twice, so they inevitably get marked as "CANT REPRODUCE" and sit in the bugtracker for years until finally a (not-so-accidental) system crash removes them all for good... lol
With regards to the code merging... you guys are in charge. I was just making a suggestion based on what I'm seeing... there are probably upsides and downsides to both ways.
(btw, check your e-mail - I just dropped you back a note)
(btw #2, I'm in IRC right now - if you want to come in, we can talk about this in realtime)
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
Development Test 5 Released (12-31-09)
Here's something I found.
I have a better idea - keep in mind that it's old, and untested, (I wrote this before the installer got updated) but try and give this a shot:
I haven't really gotten the chance to look at how this might be integrated into the new installer, I am unsure of how it handles custom code. I did have a glance at the new installer. As far as I know this may not be necessary, but it might be useful.
It's a macro CustomCodePostInstall in PortableApps.comInstallerCustom.nsh.
I've just cleaned up and simplified that code. If you'd tested it you'd find that it doesn't work at all: all your IfFileExists clauses were the wrong way around, .. works unpredictably, and you had a trailing \ on a filename.
Also I removed the code to remove the old installation directory as that's very bad practice; leave the user to do it if they want to, and copy the config rather than moving it; the user might want it.
(Also it seems to me there's only any need for one FileExists check as cafe.ini is the only file you care about in the old version.)
Was X:\PortableApps\CAFE the default location for CAFE Mod? I thought it was CAFEPortable or CAFEModPortable...
I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
Yeah, it was just "CAFE", as far as I remember.
Appinfo lists the publisher as "App Developer" & Pa.c
Otherwise, it's time for me to try eXpresso out and see if I prefer it over PFA.
I can say from experience that PFA is far superior. eXpresso only works when opening files from Explorer, PFA works even when opening from other apps (launching downloads from a browser, etc.)
AFAIK, PFA has one critical problem: if it crashes, those file associations are stuck there. eXpresso makes no file associations, so it doesn't have that problem...
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
Because I accidentally killed PFA's process the other day, then when I restarted it and did an add/remove cycle, it returned everything to the original state. No harm, no foul.
PFA is very crash resilient. It does not need to remain running to function, so it is designed to be shutdown after application of the settings. That means it can crash, you can reboot, whatever... and next time it is launched it will detect its state (applied or not) and act accordingly. It will also properly handle a system shutdown (the settings will be removed) if the app is running at the time of shutdown.
Wow, that's pretty good design!
Still prefer eXpresso though...
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
Hey, thanks
Where does PFA store the original associations? I looked through the Data directory while it was active, but didn't find anything...
Per user keys override system keys, so there are only backups if there are already user keys we want to replace (also since we can't guarantee Admin permission to modify system keys). In this case they are just renamed in the registry to temporarily move them out of the way.
A month ago I was talking to John about version control for our projects. It's due some time (John's just sorting out a few other things first then he'll get to it). Initially I just suggested appcompactor, installer, launcher, platform, and toucan, but then a bit later I suggested one for eXpresso. I haven't heard back from him about that specific idea, but I reckon that it's a project which should have version control - whether as http://code.google.com/p/expresso or as an item in the PortableApps.com project (you'd get an "expresso" repository in http://portableapps.hg.sourceforge.net/hgweb/portableapps/).
Then also you could stop this mad "release, release, release, release, release, release, release, release, release, release, release, release, ..." ad tedium process and just tell people to download Mercurial (or TortoiseHg if they're not needing portable use) and
hg clone http://portableapps.hg.sourceforge.net:8000/hgroot/portableapps/expresso
first time and thenhg up
to get the latest development version. (Release notes can also be a lot easier to maintain with version control and log messages).Also you should only increment the Development Test number if it's launcher or PortableApps.com Format packaging changes that you do. As soon as it's any change in eXpresso itself, increment the version number. (Personally I think you should just drop the Development Test number and just have "eXpresso 1.2.5.1 Development Test".)
I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
The eXpresso launcher is still undergoing a lot of changes, so dropping the Dev Test # will probably be confusing... IMHO we should keep that.
Version control would probably be a great thing, though, since the changes are fairly hard to track.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
except nobody would really want to go through the trouble of it. You'll have alot of whiners.
Version control is great, but only if people want to use it.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
You can still do regular releases. But if using SVN or Bazaar, you could use the friendly revision number (Mercurial only offers the revision ID, e.g. "48a5gb240c7f") in the version number.
I think I'd just label them "eXpresso 2.0 Alpha 1" etc. and increment the Alpha number with each release. The way KidSafe and eXpresso have been going is just reeeaaally confusing and doesn't get anywhere (linear version numbers at this stage of development tend to be a lot simpler than non-linear).
I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
you can tag stuff in Mercurial no problem, you can see examples of it in the Toucan repo.
may have completely misunderstood you here, but are you suggesting we store binaries in version control? If so I would have to strongly disagree that it is a good idea, it would fairly quickly bloat the repository and they are imposible to merge, for more info on this see the hg book.
Want to translate Expresso into my foreign language, and, maybe include it for a next release :). But, how to do this ?
Copy the App\eXpresso\locale\English.lng file and rename it to the appropriate language code; then, open the copied lng file and edit it. Like any other INI file, you'll need to leave the section names and variable names alone and just edit the values.
Here's a copy of the English.lng file; the values you're supposed to change are in italics.
Once you're finished, delete my notes; then, upload the translation to a site like Dropbox, Rapidshare, or Mediafire, and post the link here.
Thanks for the translation!
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
My French Translation is done.
If anyone has better one, suggest
Download : http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ynoznuurjtz
Great work, thank you!
For those downloading this, here's how to use it.
Make sure eXpresso isn't running; place the translation file in App\eXpresso\locale. Don't remove the files already there, just add this file to the locale folder.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
Wow, thanks
Well, just to comment on the eXpresso versus PFA...
If you really can't make a choice, choose PFA for now. It has a couple more features and a bit more efficient, at the moment!!!
wraithdu: By the time eXpresso's official, it'll kick PFA butt!
Hmmm, no comment
i ofen open files with single click in freecommander.I think it's convenient.But i can not do that with my portable applications as eXpresso has define.Can you please fix it.
Sorry for my bad english.
Cafe / eXpresso will never support single click activation. It would just never work right and would conflict way too much. Sorry.
This is really good for those who may not have access to HKCU\Software\Classes for some reason, such as me. (Yes, it does sometimes happen…) PFA is still good if you actually do have access to the required registry key, which I don't
Ignore silly users that PM you on IRC. What? You're one of them?
Huh? How don't you have access to that key? It's the current user's branch of the registry... even standard users have access to this key. Without access to your branch of the registry, I don't see how any application that relies on the registry would work at all!
I'm pretty sure he's just saying that the specific key is blocked? Not the enitre HKCU?
The logged on user has access to all of HKCU including Software\Classes, that's the point of it. PFA has been extensively tested and works fine under a user account.
Yeah, somehow, I don't have access to my HKCU\Software\Classes key (Stupid Windows)
Ignore silly users that PM you on IRC. What? You're one of them?
The standard Windows install shouldn't make HKCU\Software\Classes as restricted from the current user.
So, is this a work or school or public computer? Because if it is, then you got one seriously paranoid admin out there, if they locked that down!!
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
Yeah, it's my computer (well, really, my dad's), but I'm not an admin, I'm a regular user on this computer.
Ignore silly users that PM you on IRC. What? You're one of them?
Paid for Software more or less?
What You need is OSS!
Sweet!
Thanks!
***Update****
This is just an update for you guys so you know what's been going on
I'm looking through ConveyPortable for ideas on how it does it.
so sendto convey is almost finished, and theming is going to be a bit harder, but I've got the general idea.
Could you guys hold back on Locales though? I want to add some more GUI options first.
Originally posted under "PortableApp Development" I was encouraged to move this post to here.
The question:
Is there any way to make it where eXpresso only associates files on the portable-drive to the designated programs(ie run mkv on vlcportable)? That way, even if eXpresso is running, the hosts files on the hosts computer will not be affected, and still run on their own designated programs(ie run mkv on Media Player Classic).
Also, I need to be able to be able to allocate (if thats the right word) the file association so that it's already programmed/assigned upon plug-in. I don't know if I worded that right, but basically I don't want the user to need to assign the file(s), when they plug it in. They plug in the drive, portableapps platform auto-loads (as will eXpresso if necessary) and they are able to view and open one mp3 listed, one mkv listed, and three docs.
To gluxon: I thank you for your suggestion and I took you up on trying Xenon Portable (File Browser) but there seems to be a couple of problems. First, file types are missing in the file association options, namely mkv. Second, I went ahead and tried using an avi, just to see how the program works, but idk if Im doing something wron. It doesnt take. After associating the avi extention with VLC Portable in Xenon, AVIs still play in media player classic. I tried running the video with Xenon open, and without.
gluxon was trying to tell you that you'll need to use Xenon; it doesn't do anything with the host computer, IIUC, it just changes file associations for things you open within Xenon. Things you open within FreeCommander, Windows Explorer, or any other app will use either the host file associations or (depending on the file explorer) custom associations specific to that file explorer.
You can pre-create file associations very easily: just set the file associations ahead of time. eXpresso will store those, and you should be good to go.
Judging from your auto-load comment, you'll want to use the Platform's auto-run option (I believe it has one; if I'm wrong about that, just edit autorun.inf)
Unfortunately, there's no way to change file associations just on the removable drive at the moment; that's why gluxon suggested Xenon.
Cheers!
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
I actually think, due to the way eXpresso works, it should be pretty easy to change it so that it only activates on the drive it's run from. I'd even do it myself, but I'm not familiar with AHK so...
Im really sry, but Im not following. . .
On the first paragraph I get the impression that I need to use Xenon, and that with xenon "it doesn't do anything with the host computer" files. But then Im seeing two contradictions, the first in paragraph two encouraging me to use eXpresso, and then paragraph four stating "no way to change file associations just on the removable drive".
Also, in Paragraph one you said "it just changes file associations for things you open within Xenon" leading me to think that the user in going to be forced to open Xenon, and then open each file through Xenon, but then in paragraph two you state that with eXpresso "You can pre-create file associations very easily".
Im not trying to argue, Im just trying to figure out which program I need to to use to meet my needs and how to do it. I really appreciate your time and help.
to Bruce: Id love to know how to do that too ^_^
I'm saying that Xenon Portable meets all your needs
Until I finish with some other eXpresso stuff, I might be able to implant that feature
For now, you can use Xenon Portable when you want a portable file associator for your drive.
Actually, there is a way. I didn't think of it until I thought of it late at night
Get the window title, and if it starts with the targeted drive letter, then it'll associate
Example: B:\Documents\Video\SomeFile.mkv - Explorer (almost typed explorer as eXplorer :P)
I can see if I can get that feature in, but right now, I'm putting Convey and Theming as first priority.
kk, I am really really sorry, but Im doing something wrong. Im under the impression that "Get the window title, and if it starts with the targeted drive letter, then it'll associate" refers to Xenon, but Setting>File Association Editor only allows me to association the extensions. I thought it might be a stretch, but i even tried adding the location of the file in question "F:\Documents\Videos\Full Metal Alchemist - 42.avi" as an extension, but that didn't do anything. I also tried eXpresso (just in case), but that didnt work either.
I want to try this out, but I guess the instructions seem a bit vague to me. sry.
He was referring to how he was intending to program it into eXpresso, not Xenon. You just seem to be getting confused because there's two different trains of thought going on here. In any case, the Xenon associations work by associating extensions, yes. eXpresso does also, but in the future it might support associating only stuff on the portable drive. Right now it doesn't, though.
oki doki. thank you
Getting the window title seems hackish and makes too many assumptions about how Explorer works (especially since eXpresso allows you add custom window classes). Also, pretty sure Explorer only puts the name of the current folder in the title bar by default, not the full path (unless you manually change the setting). Wouldn't it be safer to get the full path of the file you're opening and match that against the drive letter eXpresso is running from? That's what I was originally thinking.
Oh yeah >_
***Update 2****
1.3 is being skipped. I'm doing something completely new and AWESOME for 1.5, and I've already included a bunch of code that I'm too lazy to remove just for a quick 1.3 release.
Theming is crazy hard :/
I want to see if I can get opinions on how people think this should work.
Here's the file structure I'm using.
As you can see, there's a bunch of extra icons in it. I thought that since there's a bunch of empty space to the right of the tray menu, why not add them with icons? It also makes theming more flexible.
And yes, I have two running.ico's up there
The default icon for the current theme is going to be used as the theming submenu
Here's what I'll be using for that
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic21991.html
Starting from 1.5, eXpresso will be using the original icon from NeoRame. I accidentally used the wrong one in the first place. But Mr. Magical's icons will be renamed and be put into a theme called "TEA"
That way, the people who liked the name "TEA" (Temporary Extension Associator), will be able to have that back
But mainly because Mr. Magical's Icons look like poisonous tea
Here's Default's Theming package. Anybody want to make some suggestions before it's official?
http://bensawsome.com/downloads/store/users/gluxon/eXpresso/Default.7z
I like the new icons. No complaints from me.
Will 1.5 have the "only associate stuff on your drive" feature, also? If so that might give me a reason to consider eXpresso relevant again. Either way I'll still prefer PFA, but I'll definitely keep eXpresso around if that feature makes it in.
It might
Depends on how hard it'll be for me
Edit: Yep, I'm making it an official feature of 1.5, it's not in alpha 1 though
Okay. 1.5 Status.
I'll start with the Bad News
Bad News: Convey is still dysfunctional. But I'm not that afraid since the Convey Portable source is all I need to repair it
I also can't find out how to use MI.ahk at all. But INI reading and theming works perfectly.
Good News: I've made a huge leap. I successfully created a "Theme" and Convey sub-menu, that works like the locale sub-sub-menu. It doesn't conflict with anything, and successfully stores last theme info, and changes tray icons.
1.5b1 should be approaching very, very, very soon
I can't give a specific release date though... sorry
I'm ditching the NSIS launcher, so eXpresso's file structure will be more like the PortableApps.com Platorm's.
Bugs:
The above is just some stuff for me. I'm afraid I'll forget all this when I go to sleep
Two of them are features that need to be worked on more, and the other two are minor bugs with the new file structure.
Okay, for those of you who are REALLY anxious... I'm bored. Here's eXpresso 1.5 Alpha 1.
THIS IS ONLY FOR TESTERS, DO NOT USE REGULARLY, BE AWARE OF BUGS ABOVE. THIS IS NOT AN UPDATE
There's also a reason why this isn't offically posted :/
http://bensawsome.com/downloads/store/users/gluxon/eXpresso/eXpressoAlph...
Haven't done any thorough testing yet, but one thing I noticed right off the bat:
http://stashbox.org/792369/eXpresso_blackBg.png
The eXpresso icon looks weird against a black background. It's fine against white, but as you can see from the screenshot above, any other color background makes it look really weird and unrecognizable.
Second, it appears you're still using the old "poisonous tea" icon for eXpresso in the PA.c menu, and the app itself appears to be compiled using that icon as well. Are you going to change that?
Edit: Just found a bunch of places where it still says "Cafe" instead of "eXpresso". So you might want to do a search-and-replace on it.
Actually, I think it looks cooler like that
I don't know what I'm going to do with the eXpresso exe icon. Mr. Magical's icon releates to the program better than NeoRame's. It has the eX dipped in red goo. So I think I might leave it with Mr. Magaical. I might change it to the blue .eX icon for the menu though.
I'm pretty sure I've cleared all CAFE to eXpresso stuff. Could you please be more detailed?
Thanks
[Edit: Lang problems fixed :)]
The "Cafe" I found was in the Edit Extensions dialog. I didn't look very deep, but that one popped out at me almost immediately.
Edit: Found another one. The Type and Run dialog has "Cafe" in the title bar. I'm sure there's more, too. Like I said, just do a find and replace on "Cafe" to "eXpresso". Simple and painless, rather than having to sift through the source manually trying to fix them all.
Yeah, I've found no traces left of Cafe, well other than the stuff in the credits.
I've opened every file eXpresso uses, and I know the Replace function. :/ None of them contain cafe in it but the comments section at the top. (Giving credit to original)
Mine says eXpresso at the top of Type and Run, and at the Edit Extensions dialog. I've also searched all the lang files too.
Just downloaded 1.2.5 Dev Test 5 in the OP, and you're right, no "Cafe" to be found. However, the 1.5 alpha you just posted has lots of "Cafe" everywhere. Really weird. Check it out and see for yourself.
Uh... I'm clueless.
Alpha 2 is almost ready anyway, I've gotten the Menu icons fix. I need to make a small theming bug fix quickly.
The information thing is still broken. It seems that if I want it to read the App\Docs\Information.txt, the name of the item in the menu changes to App\Docs\Information
These status updates are fun to write
Good News: I've found that the MoreInfo function was a custom function made probably by the original devs. It was in info.ahk, so yeah, I look dumb right now.
The Menu Icons works perfectly and very smoothly. I've almost got the Information menu section all patched up... and everything's going nice
I've also added something useful, you can now press Win+Alt and RightClick to show the tray menu, for people who have their tray menu disabled.
I have to thank Bruce too. I found a bunch of Cafe in some .ahk files. He was right. I think they happened from when I was merging Wraithdu's source with mine.
Bad News: There pretty much is none, other than that Convey is still very dysfuctional, scratch that, it's barely 3% done
Regular News: I'm planning on possibly adding Glass to eXpresso? The todo.txt file mentions that the Type and Run dialog should be cleaned up and made less ugly. I think rearranging it around and adding Vista/7 Glass to it would make it look incredibly awesome
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic31236.html
I'm posting a new forum topic for eXpresso 1.5 Alpha 2 probably in a couple days. I want the 1.5 release to be perfect
Please put an option in to disable glass; some of us don't like the RAM usage (remember the Compiz discussion? ), and I'm not terribly delighted with the whole transparency thing in the first place as my vision's not the best.
Thanks!
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
I was already going to do that
So.. fine, I admit it, I love EyeCandy.
But blank screens also amaze me.
Assuming Aero is already enabled on a system, a given window uses the same amount of VRAM (yes, VRAM, not system memory) regardless of how much glass it does or doesn't have. So RAM usage is a poor argument for not adding additional glass to a window.
I'm also not sure I understand all the hating on Aero and similar systems. Do they facilitate useless eye candy? Of course. But don't forget the main goal of compositing: to offload all the display stuff away from the CPU and main RAM onto the otherwise underutilized graphics card. That increases overall performance rather than hindering it, and the minute you go full-screen, all the resources in use by the DWM are relinquished to the full-screen app until it closes.
RAM usage is a relatively minor argument on my end; the bigger thing is the transparency. I've got eye trouble that makes semi-transparent windows difficult to work with. I'm trying to "play along" by turning my contrast & brightness all the way down, etc., but transparent windows are impossible to work with like that.
Fortunately, most apps have a transparency option so I can turn that off, but I wanted to be sure eXpresso wouldn't force that.
Lest someone accuse me (justly) of being "out to get" eye candy: the problem here isn't glass (I'm still on XP, so I doubt I'd have the ability to use it anyway); the problem is hard-to-see transparent windows, which would probably be the XP equivalent of glass.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
Yeah, transparent (actually translucent) windows are bad, I don't know why so many devs think they're a good idea. Glass however has the opposite purpose: The chrome is generally rendered as glass so as to get out of the user's way and highlight the window's actual contents, which is almost always what you want to focus on.
The problem comes when glass is abused simply because it looks cool (WMP 11 on Vista is a big offender, and the Add Gadget window would be the prime example) and used for some--or worse, all!--of the actual client area of the window rather than just the chrome.
So sure, Aero could be put down as eye candy, but the vast majority of its features actually have a practical purpose. This is in contrast to, say, Compiz, which seems to be designed to be eye candy first and practical... well, just about never.
Be prepared to see Glass overuse in eXpresso then
And I'm removing the option to disable it! Muhahah!!!! (Just Kidding :P)
Edit: I've sucessfully added glass, only it looks horrible without glowing aero text. So that's the next step
Is the download link at the top of the page for the latest version/beta? Or will that be released soon?
Also, was wondering if you had decided if you would include that "USB Exclusive Paramaters" feature in the future?
Edit:
I went ahead and downloaded from the link provided at the top of the page, again not sure sure if this is the most recent updated version. I know that there was a lot of back and forth about the appearance of "Cafe" as opposed to "eXpresso", but I couldnt follow if the CafeMod was a fix to this or not, but when I add a new extension, a prompt appears above the tray icon that says
Cafe:
A new association has successfully been added.
Please excuse me if this has already been addressed.
I love this app gluxon, its magically fantastic ^_^
Thanks for testing
Yep, the associate only on USB feature will be in 1.5
Just not in Alpha 2
Also, As mentioned up here I mentioned that Bruce was right, there were a couple cafe stuff left. This isn't in the 1.2.5 release since it probably happened when I was re-merging source for 1.5
I have to thank Bruce too. I found a bunch of Cafe in some .ahk files. He was right. I think they happened from when I was merging Wraithdu's source with mine.
1.5 Alpha 2 (Stable) will be arriving today in a new thread
"Alpha 2 Stable". That's an oxymoron if I ever saw one.
lol
I'm naming it Alpha because it's incomplete. Glass is still doesn't look good (text has to glow, and that's complicated), convey isn't even implanted, and all I've done for the associate on drive only is add the gui for it
And it's stable since all the above features are disabled and some other new features are working like a charm, and regular users can use it regularly.