Stay-Up 1.1 Instructions One of the big advantages of Windows is its ability to run many applications (programs) at once. You can fill the screen with dozens of applications and switch back and forth between them. Unfortunately, this can cause a problem. The forms (or windows) of the most recently used applications automatically move to the front of the screen, often hiding the older applications. If an application fills the full screen, it automatically hides everything else. Every time you use an application, you give it the focus, which moves it to the front of the screen. Suppose you want to be using a large application, like a paint program, but you occasionally want to use a smaller application, like a clock or notepad program. Every time you want to use the other application, you need to minimize the larger on to an icon to get to the smaller application. If you are running many applications at the same time, you can easily lose some of the applications amid all the forms floating around your screen and have trouble even finding it so you can bring it to the front. Stay-Up solves this problem. It allows you to mark any form in Windows. The marked forms will automatically come to the front of the screen at certain intervals (which you can set). When the forms come to the front of the screen, they do not grab the focus. That is, the program you are working on will still be the one receiving input from the keyboard or mouse. The marked applications will simply be visible over the currently running program, and you can give them the focus by clicking on them with the mouse when you want to use them. You can even minimize the marked applications to an icon. The icon will continue to float to the surface of the running application, by will be inconspicuous and not interfere with the program you are running. You can then bring them up and use them by clicking on the icon with the mouse. Installing Stay-Up To install Stay-Up in Windows, move all the files that come with Stay-Up (STAYUP.EXE, STAYUP.TXT, STAYUREG.TXT, STAYUP.GRP, etc.) to your Windows directory. DO NOT create a separate directory for this program. Run Windows. Click on Program Manager's Files option, then click on New. When it asks if you want to install a program item or group, select group. On the next form, ignore the Description box. Put STAYUP into the Group File box and click on the Ok button. Stay-Up will then be installed in Windows. Note: This program requires that you have VBRUN200.DLL in your Windows SYSTEM directory. This is a general purpose file required to run any program created with Visual Basic 2.0, and can be found anywhere that Windows shareware programs are sold or distributed. Because most people already have it and because it would substantially increase the size of the Stay-Up archive, it probably is not included with Stay-Up. Using Stay-Up When you run Stay-Up, you will first see a title page. Press ENTER or click on the Ok button to clear this page. You will then see the main form, which contains three button. These buttons allow you to create, delete, and activate the stay-up feature on any program. The buttons are explained below: Add Stay-Up - This button allows you to mark the forms that you want to stay on top of other applications. Before using this button, load any Windows applications that you will want to cause to stay on top of other applications. For example, if you want the Windows Clock program to always be visible, load this application by running it. If an application has several forms, make sure that the form you want to mark is visible on the screen. Once all the forms you want to mark are visible, click on the Add Stay-Ups button. The label on this button will change to Stop Adding. Now just click on any form you want to mark with the mouse. When Stay-Up registers that form, it will signal you with three quick beeps (which may sound like one long beep on some systems). You can then move on to the next form you want to mark and click on it. When you have marked all the forms you want to stay on top, you can end the marking process by clicking on the button that is now marked Stop Adding. The button label will change back to Add Stay-Up. You also can stop the adding function by clicking on either of the other two buttons. You can see why it is necessary to run the applications and display the forms you want to mark before clicking on the Add Stay-Up button. Once the Add Stay-Up button is activated, any form that gains the focus is marked to stay up. If you move through several forms in an application before you get to the form you wanted to remain visible, each of these forms would be marked to stay up when they received the focus. Of course, you can turn the Add Stay-Up function on and off if necessary as you display the forms. Also, you can minimize any of the forms to an icon before you activate the Add Stay-Up function. Clicking on the icon for the form will have the same effect as clicking on the full form. Delete Stay-Up - This button allows you to unmark forms that you have previously marked to stay up. The process is exactly the same as the Add Stay-Up function. To delete a stay-up, make sure the form you want to delete from the stay-up list is visible. Then click on the Delete Stay-Up button. The label on this button will then change to Stop Deleting. Then click on the form you wish to remove from the stay-up list. If the form is minimized to an icon, you can still click on this icon. When Stay-Up identifies the form you want to delete from the list, it will signal with the same three short beeps. You can then move on to the next form you want to delete from the list. When you are finished, click on the button that is now labeled Stop Deleting. You also can stop deleting by clicking on either of the other two buttons. Note: The Delete Stay-Up function simply removes the forms you click on from the list of forms you want to stay up. It does not stop the applications from running or delete it from windows. It does not even immediately make the form invisible or hide it. It simply tells Stay-Up that you no longer want that form to be moved to the front of the screen periodically. Activate Stay-Ups - This button begins the process of keeping the marked forms on top of other forms. Until you click on this button, the marked forms will not automatically move to the front of the screen. When you click on this button, the label on the button will change to Deactivate Stay-Ups. Clicking on this button when it reads Deactivate Stay-ups will turn of the function of keeping the marked forms at the front of the screen. It does not, however, remove them from the list of marked forms. Clicking on the button again will resume the stay-up function for those forms. Once you have activated the Stay-Up function, the marked forms will automatically move to the front of the screen. You can minimize the Stay-Up program to an icon if you like. It will still perform its function of moving the marked forms to the front of the screen. Do not, however, exit Stay-Up completely by using the Exit function. That would stop Stay-Up from working. Stay-Ups function of moving the forms to the front of the screen does not affect the normal functioning of the marked applications, any unmarked applications, or Windows itself. The forms that are moved to the front of the screen do not automatically gain the focus (which would direct input from the keyboard or mouse to those functions). The forms moved to the front of the screen simply become visible and accessible. One note on positioning of marked forms: If two marked forms overlap on the screen, they will both try to move to the front of the screen. They will appear to fight each other to be on top. This will cause a distracting flick on those programs. It is therefore suggested that you avoid marking two applications that would appear in the same spot. Of course, you could always keep them minimized to an icon until you need them, and only bring one up at a time. Remember that Stay-up will bring the icon of a form to the front of the screen if the form has been marked. Options In addition to the three main buttons, there is also a menu at the top of the Stay-Up form. One of the items on this menu is options. These options are explained below: Refresh rate - This option allows you to set how often Stay-Up brings the marked forms to the front of the screen. For example, if the refresh rate is two seconds, Stay-Up will bring the marked forms to the front of the screen once every two seconds. If you change this rate to .5 seconds, Stay-Up would bring the forms to the front every .5 seconds, or twice each second. The setting that Stay-Up comes with (the "factory setting," so to speak) is two seconds. If you change this rate, the new rate is stored in the STAYUP.INI file, so Stay-Up comes up at the new rate each time you run it until you change the rate again. Bear in mind that Windows pauses for a tiny fraction of a second while Stay-Up moves the forms to the front. This is normally not even visible, but if you were to increase the refresh rate to several times per second, it might slow down Windows slightly. A rate of once every two to five seconds is usually a reasonable rate. Stay-Up Stay-Up - This function controls whether Stay-Up itself stays on top of other forms. You cannot mark Stay-Up to stay up the way you mark other functions with the Add Stay-Up button. You indicate whether you want Stay-Up to stay up with this option from the Options menu. This is a toggle function. That is, clicking on this item in the Options menu turns it off if it is on and on if it is off. It is marked with a check mark in the Options menu if it is currently on. It comes turned on when you first get Stay -Up (that "factory setting" again). If you change it, the new setting is stored in STAYUP.INI, so Stay-Up comes with your setting when you run it. Exit - This function in the Options menu exits Stay-Up. Remember that Stay-Up cannot cause other programs to move to the front of the screen once you have exited the program. Help There is also a Help item in the menu at the top of the Stay-Up main form. This has the following items: Instructions - This option displays this instruction manual using Windows NotePad. You can stop viewing this manual using NotePad's File/Exit option. Register - This function displays the handy registration form using Windows NotePad. You can use NotePad's File/Print function to print the form and send it in with your registration (hint, hint). This option will disappear from the Help menu when you register (see registration instructions below). About - This Help option displays the Stay-Up title page again. Registering Stay-Up Stay-Up is a shareware program, not a free program. You may use it for a one month trial period. After that, you are required to either pay for it (register it) or stop using it. Stay-Up will start displaying reminder notices (also called nag screens) after one month to help you remember to register the program. When you do register, you will receive a letter telling you how to turn off these reminder notices. Turning off the reminder notices will also cause Stay-Up not to display the title page when it is run and also remove the Register option from the Help Menu. You register Stay-Up by filling out the registration form and sending it along with $15.00 (in US $) to: David Leithauser Leithauser Research 4649 Van Kleeck Drive New Smyrna Beach, FL 32169-4205 Registration should be made in US dollars, drawn on a US bank. If it is not possible to make payment drawn on a US bank, a US postal money order or American Express money order is acceptable. As a last resource, US dollars drawn on a foreign bank MUST have the proper routing information at the bottom of the check. When you register Stay-Up (or any other shareware program by Leithauser Research) you are automatically registered for all future upgrades, even if the new-and-improved version has a higher registration fee than the version you registered. You are therefore free to obtain and use future versions of this program without paying any further registration fees once you have registered this program. When you register, in addition to the letter telling you how to turn off the reminder screens (and a clear conscience), you will receive a disk full of other shareware programs by Leithauser Research. You are free to try any of these programs to see if you wish to register these programs too. Distribution Because Stay-Up is a shareware program, you may distribute it freely. This means that you may give it to friends, pass it around at computer club meetings, post it on BBS's, and so on. The only conditions or restrictions are that you include all of the files that were in the original archive (STAYUP.TXT, STAYUP.EXE, STAYUREG.TXT, etc.) and that you not modify or edit these files. You especially may not leave out or modify the references to how to register this program. The only exception to this restriction on modifying or editing the files is that you may translate the documentation into other languages if you want to distribute this program in countries where English is not the primary language. The translation, however, must still contain the information on how to register this program. Bug reports, suggestions, comments, etc. If you have any problems with Stay-Up or wish to suggest any improvements, you can send your comments to the above address. You also can send EMAIL to the following addresses: Compuserve: 74046, 1556 GEnie: D.LEITHAUSER America Online: Leithauser InterNet: 74046.1556@compuserve.com Custom software The primary function of Leithauser Research is developing custom software to customer specifications. If you need a program you cannot find anywhere, or you have an idea for a program that you want to sell but do not have the programming skilled to write the program yourself, contact Leithauser Research at any of the above addresses (postal or EMAIL) with a description of the program you have in mind for a price quote.