Copyright: (C)1994, J.C.A. Gremmen


TRUEyesyesyesyesIntroductionDesktop Icon Hider HelpDIH19/05/94


Introduction

Desktop Icon Hider (DIH) is a tiny program which hides icons of minimized applications you don't like to see on your desktop. Whenever an application is minimized, DIH will remove the icon associated with that particular application from the desktop. DIH will not remove every icon though but only those ones that have a class name which occurs in the 'HideClass' section in the DIH.INI file.
Starting from version 3.0, DIH even allows you to hide its own icon. This way you have full control over all iconized applications on your Windows desktop.

General:

(un)Hiding a minimized application
Setup dialog box
License agreement
Credits

Technical reference:

Setup DIH
What's new in v3.10

This program is copyright © 1993-1994, J.C.A. Gremmen.


Setup DIH

The installation of DIH is very easy. The first thing you have to do is select or create a directory and copy DIH.EXE together with DIHHOOK.DLL to it. If you like to access this help file from within DIH you can copy it to the same directory. If DIH can't find this help file, the help command will not be available in the system menu.
You also need to copy CTL3DV2.DLL to your Windows system directory. If you are running Windows on a network, copy CTL3DV2.DLL to your Windows directory. Don't copy this file to the same directory DIH.EXE is in otherwise DIH will not run!

There are 3 ways to run DIH:

Just run it.

Add DIH.EXE to the end of the 'LOAD=' line in your WIN.INI file. If your path doesn't include the directory of DIH, make sure you specify the full pathname.

Install DIH.EXE as the last entry in the Startup folder of the Program Manager.

The program will load itself as an icon at the bottom of the screen and hide all icons that have a class name listed in the DIH.INI file.
The program is designed to only allow one instance of itself to run at a time.

See also:
What's new in v3.10


License agreement

By possessing or using Desktop Icon Hider (DIH), or software that is based substantially upon DIH, or has been derived from DIH, you agree to the following conditions:

You accept that DIH nor its author is responsible for any damage caused to your computer or its accessories, and even if it is responsible, it isn't. It was probably a virus that you missed. Or maybe the nextdoor neighbour's kid or the neighbour himself was playing with your computer again.... you never know!

You cannot accept a charge for distributing DIH, other than the cost of the medium it is distributed upon.

Please send bug-reports, suggestions, remarks or donations to the address below. You can also use this address if you like to know more about future releases of DIH. If you like to distribute this program with some magazine, please let me know so I can send you the latest version.

J.C.A. Gremmen
Postbus 153
5080 AD   Hilvarenbeek
The Netherlands
E-mail: jeroeng@blade.stack.urc.tue.nl


Credits

Desktop Icon Hider is a product based on a program named CLOAK written by P. Moore. The only thing version 1.0ß of this program has in common with CLOAK is the outside appearance. The program has not been disassembled, every line of code is my own design!

I'd like to thank the following people who contributed to this program:

P. Moore, for donating his program CLOAK to the public domain.

H.W.A.M. de Beer, for his suggestions and for inventing new bugs.

G.G.C. -the busy man- Klemans, Yes... this help file is very helpfull indeed.....?

J. Bastiaans, for definitely not wanting this help file.

And... last but not least... Myself!

See also:
What's new in v3.10


What's new
What's new (updates from v3.0)

Added possibility to quick access functions like setup, help and freeing icons by pressing: CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-+ (+ on the numeric keyboard).

Removed the worst grammatical errors from this help file.

See also:
Setup dialog box


(un)Hiding a minimized application

Hiding a minimized application

To hide a minimized application, select 'Hide icon' from the system menu. The system menu is a popup menu that appears when you click once on the DIH-icon (the thimble). The mouse cursor will change into a thimble and the text associated with the DIH-icon shows 'Hide...'; you are now in icon capture mode. Select the minimized application you'd like to hide by placing the mouse cursor over the icon and pressing the left mouse button. DIH will not hide the application until you release the left button. If you didn't select an icon, DIH displays an error message. This also happens when you reach the limit of 16 icons. To exit the icon capture mode, press the right mouse button or press ESC.
DIH will re-arrange the icons (if activated) on the desktop right after you've selected an icon to hide.

Un-hiding a hidden application

To un-hide a hidden application, choose one of the applications shown in the 'Icons' submenu. The 'Icons' submenu can be found in the system menu or in the menu that appears when you press CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-+ (+ on the numeric keyboard). The selected application will be activated and restored to the position and size it had before it was minimized, if possible. Some applications cannot be restored because they can only be run minimized (just like DIH). These applications must be restored by activating the icon in the 'Icons' submenu while holding down one of the shift-keys. DIH will not hide these applications again until you restart DIH.

See also:
Setup dialog box


Setup dialog box

Statistics

The statistics show the number of icons currently hidden. This version of DIH can hide up to 16 icons.
'Icon list saved' tells you whether all class names of the icons currently hidden are stored in DIH.INI. If all class names are saved then every icon in the 'Icons' submenu should have a checkmark.

Switches

If the 'Auto icon arranging' checkbox is checked, DIH will arrange the icons on the desktop. If you keep a lot of icons on the desktop for a long time, it's best to turn this switch off.

If the 'DIH icon at lefmost position' checkbox is checked, the thimble icon (if visible) will always be at the leftmost position at the bottom of the screen.

If the 'Use module icon' checkbox is checked, DIH uses the first icon from the applications module instead of a copy of the icon you see on the desktop whenever it tries to hide a minimized application that has no window icon.
Some applications (animated icons for instance) draw the icon themselves. If you want a copy of that icon to be shown in the 'Icons' submenu, turn this switch off.

If the 'Hide DIH-icon at startup' checkbox is checked, DIH will hide the thimble at startup. If you turn this switch off, the thimble will remain visible.
To toggle the thimble on/off press: CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-SPACE.

Buttons

The 'OK' button keeps the changes you made in the setup dialog box but doesn't save them.

The 'Cancel' button discards all changes made in the setup dialog box.

The 'Save' button saves the changes you made in the setup dialog box, saves the class names of all icons currently hidden, and keeps the changes made.

See also:
Introduction