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Christian Studer 2001-09-08 17:45
UltraMon 2.0 Beta 5 is now available for download.
New in this release:
- Smart Taskbar: manage multiple applications efficiently with a taskbar on each monitor
- UltraMon Desktop update: improved ease of use, stability and performance; new image style option - Stretch proportional
- UltraMon Shortcuts: shortcuts no longer use VBScript, this makes it possible to use them on systems where Windows scripting has been disabled for security reasons
- Windows XP support: XP is now officially supported. Support for the new XP look has been added, and the beta has been tested on XP
Release notes are available here.
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Your feedback is important: please post comments and bug reports to this forum or send e-mail to support@realtimesoft.com.
I would be especially interested to hear what you think of the new Smart Taskbar feature. Please test it for a few days and let me know what you think.
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For developers: the SDK and the Developer Edition will be updated to Beta 5 next week. None of the published interfaces have changed.
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I hope you enjoy the new release, and look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
Christian Studer
www.realtimesoft.com
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@hlon 2001-09-08 23:57
Hi, first up id like to say that 'dammmmmn' this is a nice new feature, hehe...ive yet to ply with the new desktop wallpaper part based on the tiling method we talked about in another thread, but ill get to that later :)
Right, ive discovered my first 'issues'....if i 'add taskbar' to monitor 1, all the buttons swap to it...fine...but if i close that new bar, they dont go back to the proper start menu, leaving all thsoe apps without buttons :P
(I assume you are somehow hiding the buttons, then simply flag them to be visable again when they return ? I use a utility called Wintime which can do a similar thing, it can alllow you to hide(and reveal again)apps and their taskbar button, either all at once or application specifically, in the press of a button combo
Its not so bad cause you can alt-tab to them and then they re-appear on taskbar fine...this is under Windows XP RC1 BTW, incase its a OS issue..ill have the time to install te final code early next wek and test on that.
Icidentally, if i close the taskbar on the secondary monitor, thos buttons DO go back to the windows tasbar (assuming no ultramon taskbar on primary).
Also, if i use ultramon to 'throw' a window to the 2nd mon, it goes to its taskbar, but throwing it back again to primary leaves the window without a button until task switched to.....er, thats odd, just did that same thing again and it worked perfectly...go figure :P
Well, ill see if that happens again and if so ill try post circumstances for it....ok, disabling and enabling secondary just made that same button dissapear for no reason from...but doing so again after id made sure everything had their button back did not, hehe.
Last thing about the taskbars...any chance of setting it up so they dont minimise when the 'view desktop' button is pressed ?
BTW, the Win XP Powertoys have a nice task switcher (and a nice user switcher noone i know can see to get working, hehe ) which actually gives you a thumbnail of the app you have selected for switching to, i suggest you all give em a try if your running it/when you get it.
Ok, now playing with the desktop wallpaper settings, hehe...suppose i may as well make this in one (rather HUGE, sorry :P ) post...works as i expected it to for individual monitoers, making a bmp up with each pic on it like a canvas sort of thing, and as i run different resolutions, each part is its own screens size when stratched.....however, for one picture across both screens there is somthing more id like to see (if possible, cause this is tougher than making an image from two different sized stretches as in above situation) in that if there could be the option to have the picture stretched to the size of the monitor it would be on at time...say a 19inch primary and a 17inch secondaryt like i have, for the part on the 19" to be its fulll size, and for the 17" to recieve the whole image by shrinking that part down proportionally instead of just cutting off the borrom part (take a look at the ultramon desktop section with 2 different sized monitos and one image tiles across whole desktop to see what i mean...the smaller one only diplsyas part of the image, meaning when looked at on the screens, its s totally different physical size and looks odd...hence why i manually make my own pics for soanned walllpapers).
Sorry about the length, hope its useful,. and once again, GREAT work.
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@hlon 2001-09-09 00:00
Just one thing i forgot to slot in...a way to enable/disable the new taskbars other than in the options, because if you turn them all off, i couldnt find any way to get them back other than go into options, disable it, then go back and enable it again.
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@hlon 2001-09-09 02:02
new solution to dissapearing buttons after adding and closing an ultramon taskbar on main monitor - use the right click context menu of another tollbar to add the icons from monitor 1 to that bar, then uncheck the monitor 1 part again and then all the missing monitor 1 buttons apear at once on the main taskbar again.
PS - any chance of getting colour control for the taskbars ? Cause at moment i got one grey and one lue taskbar, hehehe :P
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Christian Studer 2001-09-09 04:22
Thanks for the feedback.
Task button on wrong taskbar: integration with the Windows taskbar still needs improvement, especially on XP.
Fitting an image stretched across the desktop to each monitor: I'll consider this, one problem I see is making it work with all possible desktop configurations.
Taskbars and View Desktop: I'll look into this, but hiding them is the default behavior for desktop toolbars.
Enabling/disabling Smart Taskbar: I'll add a menu option for this in the next release.
Taskbar look on XP: the goal is to have more or less the same look as the XP taskbar. I'll work on this for the next release.
The following issues are bugs and will be fixed in the next release:
- tasks don't get added to Windows taskbar when closing an UltraMon taskbar
Christian Studer
www.realtimesoft.com
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@hlon 2001-09-09 05:23
On your first point, im not sure if im just not reading it right or if youve misunderstood what i said...at no point has there been a button in the wrong place, ists just that if i enable then disble a ultramon taskbar on monitor 1, the burrons dont re-appear on the actual taskbar unless i take one of the 2 ations from my above posts. If i clsoe the secondary monitors ultramon taskbar though, the buttons DO transfer to the task bar.
On your 2nd point, yeah i can quite see how it could raise a few probems, encountered an annoyance when i moved the allignment of my monitors and will need to redo my wallpapers if i keep it that way, hehe. Anyway, im quite happy to continue resizing them manually where i see the need.
Point 3. When you say desktop toolbars do you mean think like quicklaunch, as mine survives a view desktop fine ?
Point 4. Thx, i thought maybe i was being stupid like the last time with the ultramon wallpaper settings :)
Point 5. Also great, and would this include make the buttons stand out instead of being flat (well, theyre flat normally, and stand out a bit as they get highlighted when hovered over)? It doesnt really bother me, either way is fine, and theres many luna-like skins that implement flat buttons, its just that having them both different jumps out at me for now :)
Point 6, bugs, as i noted at the start, buttons from taskbar2 transfer back on close, its just if i use an ultramon taskbar on the main window instead of the windows taskbar that they fail to transfer back.
Oh, and on the previous mention of problems with buttons after moving windows between monitors with ultramon, its working perfectly since that one problem...probably means it was related to opening and closing a taskbar for monitor1 and losing buttons.
Its taken me a couple hous to get used to the buttons being over here instead of the primary, but now that i am, its very cool..kudos :)
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Christian Studer 2001-09-09 06:24
3) I just tested this again, and actually Quick Launch and other desktop toolbars do remain visible. On my Win2000 system, UltraMon taskbars also remain visible, I'll test it on XP as well
5) yes, the idea would be to have 'real' buttons, like the XP toolbar
Christian Studer
www.realtimesoft.com
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@hlon 2001-09-10 00:26
3) Definately dont stay in view here when view desktop is used, on RC1, ill test it in a couple of days on the gold code.
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Tom 2001-09-11 23:48
In WinXP build 2600 if you bring up the Ultramon desktop settings it just crashes out.
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Christian Studer 2001-09-12 00:18
I'll look into this as soon as I get XP final, so far I only tested on RC2, seemed to work fine.
Christian Studer
www.realtimesoft.com
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@hlon 2001-09-12 05:24
Ive tested it on RC1 and now The gold code 2600...works fine here.
BTW, the smart taskbar still minimises on show desktop under the final build.
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