Colonel O'Neill

Could the patch/fix/registry change for lockable taskbars be affecting SmoothText's operation? I haven't had time to reinstall 2000 SP4 to a VM yet, but I hope to have some time this weekend.

Loving the glow and that bluey gridlike skin. Am I right in assuming that the top bit of the orb is being drawn? But here's an issue I thought maybe significant: SP4's toolbars cannot lock. USP5's can. Is it a Microsoft hotfix or a custom patch?

Wow! Cool glow effect behind the time! Hope that's available for the window frames (for a you-know-what theme ) Couldn't SmoothText intercept the text painting calls to the Taskbar and pull it's own text output in the correct font? I'm no specialist in Windows API and system messages, but that's as far as I can reason about it. Btw, you are running SP4 , not USP5? Could it be something in USP5 that causes it to crash? Windows 2000 Pro SP4 Slipstreamed installed to VM, then VMTools, then USP5'ed. SmoothText causes explorer crash on first run. Taskbar translucency half works, but causes lockup. Oh, ViOrb works on Windows 2000, unless they've released a newer version which breaks compatibility.

Some dire news: I installed a fresh Windows 2000 Pro USP5 in a VM. SmoothText will crash explorer repeatedly. Will try to post logs soon.

Yes! When can we start testing the skinning engine?

Real-time blur is horrible on the CPU, especially without Vista DWM's, or WB6's DX accelerated drawing. But it can be faked on the taskbar region assuming one of a few things: 1. No windows will go under the taskbar. 2. It will not auto-hide (which moves and ruins the illusion). This is how WB6 does it (I'm pretty sure.) When the user loads a different wallpaper, it grabs the bottom 20px of the wallpaper (assuming Taskbar at bottom). Then it applys a blur to that 20px, which is actually a one-time thing and can be done by simply averaging adjacent values. Then it constructs the taskbar elements above this part using per-pixel alpha transparent PNG's. This gives the illusion that the taskbar hovers over the wallpaper and blurs it. However, it only works if the entire taskbar background can be one entire non-tiled image.

Nice! Just an idea about the taskbar background: automatically cut the bottom/top/left/right portion of the wallpaper, blur it, then set it as the background after applying the taskbar (alpha PNG or BMP) skin. WindowBlinds 6 does this as far as I know (As in the taskbar doesn't react to windows below it.) Plus, WB6 also just grabs a screen capture, blurs the proper section, applies the required blur, PNGs, text, shadow to the required section, and uses that piece as the Start Menu skin. It won't be consistent after moving anything behind it, but as soon as focus is lost, the menu is closed and therefore consistency is no longer an issue. Just thinking. I tried xplorer2 lite portable, and upon opening a dialog box (open/save sort I think or properties page) it threw a bunch of exceptions, which SmoothText caught (yay!). [ 335.212] [1092, 1108] - Caught exception when named object StandardBehavior tried to process message BehaviorMsg, completion status = "HandlingMenuMessage" [ 335.222] [1092, 1108] - Message = WM_PAINT, Window = #32768, WParam = $00000000, LParam = $00000000 [ 335.222] [1092, 1108] - Window parent chain: [ 335.232] [1092, 1108] - #32768 -- 393958 [ 335.502] [1092, 1236] - Caught exception when named object StandardBehavior tried to process message BehaviorWndProcRet, completion status = "HandlingDialogMessage" [ 335.512] [1092, 1236] - Message = WM_NCACTIVATE, Window = #32770, WParam = $00000001, LParam = $00000000 [ 335.572] [1092, 1236] - Window parent chain: I don't know if my OS is just falling apart, and it's time (which I don't have enough of due to IB Grrrr...) for a reinstall, or my random exotic programs are interfering with SmoothText. P.S. I honestly can say I have no clue what Rebar controls are, but am 86% sure I use them regularly. P.S.S. What are your thoughts about Alpha-PNG window frames like TrueTransparency?

Major bug: When the Daedalus Service is Started (services.msc) MS Word 2003 will crash and ask to recover my work and restart word. This will happen no matter what. Sometimes it will open to a new blank window, and further interaction with it causes the error. This is fixed by Stopping the Daedalus service from Services.msc. Anyone else having the same problem?

Exception log: [2546.221] [776, 772] - Caught exception when named object StandardBehavior tried to process message BehaviorMsg, completion status = "Checked Msg" [2546.221] [776, 772] - Message = $C19E, Window = WorkerW, WParam = $0001004E, LParam = $00000308 [2546.231] [776, 772] - Window parent chain: [2546.231] [776, 772] - WorkerW -- 131112 [ 56.081] [820, 928] - Caught exception in PostObjectMessage: assembling named object list, Message = BehaviorMsg [1815.100] [1108, 772] - Caught exception in PostObjectMessage: assembling named object list, Message = BehaviorMsg [1815.120] [1108, 1192] - Message = $C1A7, Window = MSNMSBLGeneric, WParam = $00020058, LParam = $000004E0 [1815.130] [1108, 1192] - Window parent chain: [1815.130] [1108, 1192] - MSNMSBLGeneric -- 262970 [3686.902] [1108, 772] - Could not send message DrawRedirectGetDC to named object Behavior,DrawRedirectBehavior

I meant versatile as in handling ICO files better than Daedalus (which leaves me with 24-bit and sort of defeats the purpose). ("32-bit icons don't seem to get extracted from ICO files, just EXEs and DLLs (no idea why)") Granted, Daedalus will probably replace RPL2K eventually, assuming development on it is still somewhat active. ("this project has been a closed one for quite some time") So for a bit of reference, maybe the last version of the file itself should be safely kept somewhere on the site? (This is the last refuge I found for it.)

Looking AWESOME Is it just straight stretching the bitmap over the button, or is it stretching/tiling zones like in WB skins?

I don't think it should be unstickied, not just yet... Daedalus is not as versatile as RPL2K. RPL2K is imho a rock solid program. ----------------- Second part of my post... Tihiy, if you remember at all, what conditions cause icons to revert to 16 (4-bit) colours? - Active Desktop - NetMeeting Remote Desktop My icons are returning to 4-bit every restart, but is remedied by a TweakUI icon cache repair.

Hey Wildbill, I tracked down the possible root of my explorer crashes, relating to some of the exotic software I run on this system. So I uninstalled them and all is happy. Thanks for putting up with my constant explorer problems

I'm running at 32-bit colour depth, with Tihiy's RPL2K.DLL for 32-bit icons. I know the taskbar can be made semi-transparent, Glass2K can do this except it only sets the transparency of the entire bar, not individual components. Explorer is highly stable now, even with override components on, and will usually survive an icon cache reset.

Definitely more stable! But I tried the TweakUI repair icon thing twice (with and without Override) and came up with three logs: [ 48.119] [1264, 1940] - Caught exception in PostObjectMessage: assembling named object list, Message = BehaviorMsg [1390.179] [1032, 1148] - Could not send message DrawRedirectInvalidateRect to named object Behavior,DrawRedirectBehavior [ 795.104] [1028, 1248] - Could not send message DrawRedirectGetDC to named object Behavior,DrawRedirectBehavior Also, shortcut menu's are broken: Screenshot EDIT: Transparent taskbar worked in Safe Mode, but locked up as soon as I opened a folder.

Ahh now it makes more sense. Wouldn't it be better to include the process name, because it might be relevant to the crashing program itself... Anyhow, I forgot to try translucent taskbar... EDIT: Translucent taskbar causes full system freeze. Today, explorer lasted two and a half hours before crashing, then explorer crashes continuously. And if you need some skinners, I'd be glad to help, although free time is a valuable commodity for me now. EDIT: I'm pretty sure at this point any exceptions aren't being caused by SmoothText; explorer crashes often even without SmoothText.

The Vista ones work perfectly and look great. Even on 2000! Except there's no way to add in the Copying Files/Moving Files/Deleting Files counter on it without sending the task to a third party program. However, I did come across this: Link That's ingenious! Dump the text on the AVI.

No exceptions so far! Can't wait to see some awesome skinning in 2000! I wonder if you could just port UberSkin's engine to 2000 + AlphaPNG's of course ;D Oops: A few exceptions in a row produced this: TextHookLog-832.txt [ 49.391] [832, 512] - Caught exception when named object DrawRedirectBehavior tried to process message DrawRedirectBeginPaint, completion status = "" Plus a longer log TextHookLog-1324.txt Also, are the numbers appended to the end Process ID's? P.S. I know I've edited this a bunch of times but whatever. SmoothText is causing some funny behavior in Firefox 3.1 b3... Just to let you know.

Heres another exception log: TextHookLog-956.txt [3481.636] [956, 1252] - Caught exception when named object StandardBehavior tried to process message BehaviorWndProcBefore [3481.666] [956, 1252] - Message = $0407, Window = tooltips_class32, WParam = $00000000, LParam = $0006FC8C [3481.676] [956, 1252] - Window parent chain: [3481.676] [956, 1252] - tooltips_class32 -- 131196 I don't think explorer crashing is SmoothText, it's probably just my explorer. Update: Huge other log:

About 20 seconds after starting 0.8.5, I got this explorer exception: [ 93.645] [872, 1140] - Caught exception when named object StandardBehavior tried to process message BehaviorWndProcRet But this always happens when changing SmoothText versions without restarting. I'll shut down today and add results tomorrow. P.S. "255 characters should be more than plenty. So was 640K." ------------------------------------------------------------------- EDIT: No problems after restart. Rebuilding icon cache using TweakUI is problem-free. EDIT2: At least until my Explorer died after trying out the Entbloess for Win2000 program. I think my Windows Explorer is failing. The first instance is perfect until it crashes for some reason, then theres no end of the exceptions until a restart.

So far, no Explorer related crashing yet. Most notably, restarting Explorer in any fashion starts a string of exceptions. When SmoothText starts with Windows at boot, nothing goes wrong until some errant program (occasionally, but not always SmoothText) kills Explorer. Then subsequent starts of Explorer are plagued with exception errors until a restart. But so far, no crashing with 0.8.4! Also I noticed MsgBox dialog boxes were being smoothed, but the message abruptly ends after around 255 characters. (ImageShack isn't cooperating today so I'll just upload it here.) Felt particularly mac-cy today.

(Good News)³ 1. Explorer no longer crashes when using Override Standard Controls. (usually) While writing this Explorer had a nasty crash again. [ 757.129] [604, 1252] - Caught exception when named object StandardBehavior tried to process message BehaviorWndProcBefore 2. Explorer no longer crashes when applying Translucent Taskbar. 3. Explorer-originating pop-up menus don't jump back to unsmoothed on hover. (Okay News)¹ 1. Taskbars don't become translucent. This is on both an unpatched SP4 (no UR1) and my up to date Frankenexplorer (SP5.1). So, definitely an improvement. Don't worry about me too much Wildbill For the moment, both my Taskbar and Titlebars are replaced by third-party software. (OB and TT).

Does Daedalus suffer from the same drawbacks as Tihiy's RPL2K.DLL? Such as reverting to 16 colour icons when: - Active Desktop is on - NetMeeting's Remote Desktop is on - Places Bar on certain file open/save dialogs. EDIT: It apparently will not freak out when Active Desktop is on. It does cause floating point errors in many programs. - A bit of weird behavior that was remedied by a re-install. Same red tinged alphas while dragging icons. Alt+Tab is also not 32bit. It seems like 98 is now better than 2000 at 32-bit icons.

While Override Standard Controls was on, I almost always experienced an Explorer exception error using TweakUI to "Repair Icons". The icons refresh and flash once or twice, and subsequently Explorer would vomit all over itself. Still no luck with translucent taskbars. Tried using an original Explorer from an SP4 installation (non reshacked) and still the same effect (and crashing too). Does it matter what version of Explorer.exe it is?

I encountered the same situation with a particularly old Fujitsu Lifebook. Booting with a DOS floppy and using one of the DEBUG CMOS clearing commands, found on the Internet, got rid of the password and reset every setting. Fujitsu states that the Lifebook had to be brought to them for BIOS reset, and there were no specific workarounds until I found the DOS DEBUG way.