Another Button Bar (v1.0a) 12/93 by Light at the End of the Tunnel Software ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About the program ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Howdy! This Windows utility was produced due to unhappiness with similar products "out there". What it does is take a Windows program group and turn it into a grid of icon buttons that resides on the Windows desktop. Anytime you want to run a program, you simply click the button with the icon that corresponds to the application you wish to run. My unhappiness with other programs was based on either their lack of flexibility on how the grid of buttons looks or their inclusion of superfluous features that get in the way of an otherwise elegant concept. Thus, Another Button Bar was born. This program was originally produced as a Visual Basic programming exercise for myself to learn how to decipher .GRP files and use API. The complete source is available on CIS in the MSBASIC forum. Search on the keywords: BUTTON LAUNCHER SOURCE or look for TKBAR.ZIP. This program is free but if you find it useful, drop me an e-mail and let me know how you like it. If i get enough response i might produce something else useful for Windows. And if you REALLY like it, and reside in Seattle and are looking to hire a PC programmer who wants to relocate... Enjoy, Tim Koffley [ Compuserve: 70334,16 ] [ America Online: Tim Servo ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Installation ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Important Note: This program requires VBRUN300.DLL which is not provided but is available in most, if not all, Windows forums online. Copy TKBAR.EXE to anywhere you want (on you hard drive). All of the .VBX files belong in the Windows system directory, usually C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM. Then use Program Manager to create a new program item for TKBAR.EXE. If you want to run the program interactively just use TKBAR.EXE. This brings up a dialog that allows to you select a .GRP file to load as a button bar. If you're not sure exactly which group is in a file, just click the button labeled "Show Name" and the full group name will be displayed at the top of the dialog box. Alternately, since TKBAR accepts a .GRP filename as a command line parameter, you can setup an association for .GRP files using the File Manager. Under the File menu is a choice called Associate. Enter GRP for the file extension, then Browse to find TKBAR.EXE. Now you can just double-click on a .GRP file in the File Manager and it will launch a button bar for that group. Once you've set up an association, you can have Windows load a group of your most-used icons/programs each time you start Windows. To do so, edit the "Run=" entry in the WIN.INI file. For instance, "run=c:\windows\mostwant.grp" will bring up that group when you start Windows. If you want additional button bars to load, just add them after the first file name and separate them with commas. You could also do the same sort of thing with an item in the StartUp group. Just make a copy of the icon for TKBAR.EXE and place it in the StartUp group and specify a .GRP file as a command line parameter for the program item's properties. Each group of buttons you launch will remember its most recent configuration so you don't have to reposition it every time you load one. In case you need to modify it, Another Button Bar keeps its .INI file (tkbar.ini) in the Windows directory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Configuring ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once the buttons are on the desktop, you can click with the RIGHT mouse button on any of the active buttons to popup a menu. Click "Configure" on the menu to bring up a configuration dialog. Here you can set exactly how you want the grid of buttons to look by specifying the number of rows and the number of columns in the grid. You can also specify if you want the window to always be on top of every other window by checking the "Always On Top" check box. The configuration is forgiving within reason. You cannot configure a grid to have insufficient buttons for all items in the group. Also, Another Button Bar does NOT czech to see if your configuration will create a window larger than your current display screen size (you can't anyway). Windows itself takes care of that situation and you may not see some of your buttons. When in doubt, use that big lumpy thing on top of your neck. There is one condition that may occur that we don't czech and that is in the event you change your display driver to have a smaller screen size than a previous driver. If you had a window of buttons near the edge of the larger display it may be hidden when you switch to the smaller screen size. In that case, just delete the .GRP entry from the TKBAR.INI file and the next time you load it it will default to the upper left corner of the screen. i didn't see any point in catching that exception when you would, most likely, not appreciate where the window got repositioned, so do it yourself! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Added Bone-us! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- As an example of Another Button Bar's usefulness, we've also included a handy little program to exit Windows. If you're like me, you get tired of having to close Program Manager and then say that it's "Ok" to exit. WINEXIT.EXE is a program that just exits Windows without all the fuss. Set up a program item for it in one of your program groups that you turn into buttons. Then, when you want to exit Windows, just click on the button. Easy! We've also included extra icons for the Exit program in case you don't like the default. All of the files for WINEXIT are contained in WINEXIT.ZIP. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Version history ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 11/93 Initial release. 1.0a 12/93 Fixed medium-sized bug that would freeze machine. Got rid of APIGUIDE.DLL. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer ------------------------------------------------------------------------- No warranty exists, either express or implied. No liability is assumed for any damage or loss resulting from the use of this program. This software is provided as Freeware, i.e. it is free of charge. You owe no money for the use of this program. As such, i make no warranties or guarantees regarding its use and performance. i'm reasonably confident that the program will not cause harm to your PC or any files residing on it, but in the event of a breakdown in cosmic probabilites, we are not responsible. In the extremely unlikely event that it does cause harm, please let me know so that i might prevent the program from causing any further damage. Also, if something occurs that appears to be a major blunder, feel free to let us know. Hi-Keeba! Tim Koffley