Colonel O'Neill

Turning off Override Standard Controls on 0.8.1 eliminated Explorer related crashes. However, using 0.7.8, and with Override Standard Controls on, also did not show any Explorer crashing. Notably, 0.7.8 was the last version to not have taskbar options. (Note: 0.8.1 with Override On and Taskbar Off still caused Explorer crashes. Taskbar On caused worse crashing.)

No such luck with transparent taskbar. Plus it seems SmoothText was the cause of explorer crashing issues (even without taskbar alpha), memory could not be read/written, that sort of stuff.

I don't know if it's me reshacking MSGINA's pictures (side effect that the standard login dialog has shrunk vertically to about 50px high) My explorer is acting a bit crazy recently (random exceptions and crashing), and I was planning a rebuild soon, so, I'll try using my original MSGINA.DLL, or maybe later, a new build.

Hmm, maybe it's the amount of patching I've done to my explorer.exe and systemto get all that Vista jazz. The taskbar refuses to apply properly, and gets stuck as a grey bar, until I forcibly End Program Tree (if not, I think the texthook stays) on smoothtext.exe. Irregardless, I'm going to stick to my ObjectBar for a while. Also, did you turn off pop-up menu smoothing? Because it's not trying to smooth it anymore. But I digress, get well soon! Don't push yourself too hard.

Hmm 0.8.0 does not cause lockups, but there is no translucency. Probably my explorer is busted; it crashes sporadically. Can we get a screenshot of a working translucent taskbar?

LOL Same post times No idea why, but SmoothText with taskbar translucency on caused lockups on explorer.exe. Explorer CPU Usage went to 90+, and all programs stopped responding. Windows Security (Ctrl+Alt+Delete) did appear, but all actions from there were uneffective. Could only use the physical reset button on my computer. On the other hand, WinRAR is working perfectly now EDIT: My explorer is 5.0.3900.6920, 236 KB (242,448 bytes).

It's Unifont, and some random control characters from an exe file I opened. --------------------------------------------- Only thing I miss about SmoothText is the ability to force some pixel snapping in letters. The middle leg of the letter m is split more or less evenly across two pixels, lacking the crisp, defined strokes of ClearType. --------------------------------------------- SmoothText seems to be acquiring a wealth of new features, can't wait to get my hands on the next version!

I don't know if it's just me, or if the bug exists in other 2000 OSes, but I found a significant vulnerability in the security of Windows 2000. Can anyone confirm this: After resuming from Hibernate, there is a small interval between the presenting of the Windows wallpaper and the Workstation Locked dialog box. If the key sequence Ctrl+Alt+Delete is pressed in this interval, the Windows Security dialog box appears. The Workstation Locked prompt is still visible behind the Windows Security box, but is unaccessible. At this point, one can click Cancel from the Windows Security dialog, and is presented with the Windows desktop, without having to enter a password to unlock the computer. However, upon pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete again to access the Windows Security dialog box, the Workstation Locked window returns and prompts for a password. It may just be that my computer is too slow, and gives that interval... Anyone else seen this?

Yes, KDW and the XP DLL wrapper pack are good, just not as convenient. Too bad someone can't just jam the two together and make a KernelEx style extender for 2000.

Hey WildBill Just noticed a very strange phenomenon in Notepad. Some letters are being smoothed differently than others, in the same Notepad window. Oo But anyways, relatively minor problem.

It's kinda late so I'll keep my post brief: WinRAR bug fixed ^^ Have a look at TrueTransparency, it does alpha PNG on 2000, same with GlassToast, RocketDock, etc. ObjectBar replaces the taskbar with it's own, which you can do similarly, but with Alpha blending.

Windows 2000 is awesome². Personally, I don't think it needs security fixes by now, but support for it is dropping. It may just be my way of thinking, but if the human race doesn't survive in a million years, has everything all been for nothing? But seriously, enterprises and corporate computers probably still use Windows 2000 because of upgrade costs, so try pushing the SmoothText idea to them. Or make it well-featured and push it into the XP realm as a ClearType competitor (Microsoft won't like that.) Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt, innumerable times for whatever subject, program, etc. ------------------------------------- About tacking on skinning to SmoothText, I'll just ramble on about my opinion, so read it if you want: I thought for a bit about TClock, SmoothText, skinning in general, and came up with this notion: a bunch of little apps for skinning each item. For example, a program to skin buttons, a program to skin titlebars, a program to skin checkboxes, etc... That would be hard to crash all at the same time, and tie it into a central control program: very modular skinner. But to compensate for not sharing subroutines, and maybe a little less efficient resource utilisation, etc, maybe not a seperate proggie for every little component, but grouped as necessary. Anyway, that's just my two cents.

I used to use WindowBlinds classic, but that didn't give any alpha transparency for those Aero skins. So I switched to TrueTransparency and a skin called Aero Ultimate 7 Then Vista Icon Pack, then some custom ResHacking... I've been wanting to build a CD that has my custom DLL's integrated, so I might just copy my existing files and replace the ones on the CD. I found a program called GlassToast that skins balloon messages, but I don't think Windows 2000 has any of those.

Heh, it seems theres no better way to dither that gradient bar. Photoshop's diffusion works better sometimes, and pattern is better the other times. The 16 colour barrier is a real challenge, which is partially remedied in Windows Vista, and completely rebuilt for 7. So, maybe I'll put in a Windows flag in shiny chrome (meaning grayscale so I don't have to reduce the colors for the glowy bar). Yes I do know how to reshack NTOSKRNL, but I wanted to move the scrolled region up to the centre, and change the speed of the scrolling. Hoping to stumble upon the right hexcodes I need to change...

Well, I think one flaw in the font adjusting algorithm is that raising the gamma makes black on white text thinner, and lowering the gamma makes white on black text thinner. I think what should be done is applying the gamma adjustment to the alpha channel (the amount the text mixes in with the background). That would make text thicker or thinner as necessary. I think the hook does differentiate programs, for example, it cannot hook higher level processes such as Kaspersky Internet Security and the Windows Security dialog. Also, the way the Tuning profiles would work is based on the font. Because by classifying under processes, each process could use a multitude of fonts, instead targeting a specific font and it's particular reaction to tuning would be more effective.

Explorer font bug is gone, fonts are the right width now. I completely understand your reasons for not forcing correct character placement; the text becomes harder to read. The given width modifier gives more flexibility, but shouldn't be restricted to the 80-120% range. I'll get an animation of the menu problem soon. Great work!

Hmm... WinRAR doesn't seem to like SmoothText very much. While extracting an archive (any archive) WinRAR still refuses to work unless the mouse is moving over it's window. Or when I am pressing or holding down a button. This behavior does not occur when SmoothText is not running.

Wow! SmoothText 98, there's a thought. This morning, I started up my XP virtual machine (which has ClearType on), I personally found SmoothText to be MUCH more aesthetically pleasing. Granted, SmoothText needs to be tuned to the right settings, at which point it looks great. But, that's a great feature to have over standard ClearType. ===================================================== One very minor glitch: (Rarely is a serif font used on a computer monitor, as it is often more difficult to read.)

Hmm... I don't know if this could be attributed to SmoothText... Had the strangest lock-up ever. Explorer locked up hard, taskman opened. Was unable to interact with any window, except the Windows Security dialog. From there, I logged off. While logging off, Windows showed the End Task dialog for almost every open window/process. Firefox, CTrayServer, MP_Wnd_Hooker, CiceroUIWndFrame, Word, MSN, explorer, etc. It's probably not SmoothText, but just a heads-up.

Progress has been great. There's still the odd place where SmoothText can't seem to hook itself into... And some things that will oscillate between smoothed and non-smoothed based on mouse hover...

Word Selection Menu I have MingLiu in the exclusion list (among other Asian fonts). Unfortunately I don't have any NT4 discs... Best combo for me: Energy 6/Gamma 1.40 --- No perceptible slowdowns. Are you using the function I posted above? I notice that the Gamma slider will affect text differently based on background color (since you gave that nifty tri-tone). Unfortunately, it won't make text crisper at all colours...

Agreed. The fourth position seems to provide the crispest results without introducing too much colour distortion. EDIT Addition: It seems the Word 2003 bug was attributed to SmoothText. The fonts that I told to exclude did not exhibit the same behavior.

It might qualify as some form of contrast adjustment... In theory it should be able to adjust the the weight of the text. I'm assuming SmoothText has to process each pixel individually after it stretches the font 3x horizontally. As SmoothText processes each pixel from the stretched font, it would have to condense it into either an R, G or B value in one of the destination pixels. As it does this, it looks up a weighted value to use in place of the original. For example: Original R,G,B values: 0 63 127 Look up each of the R, G, B in the table. 0 ==> 0 63 ==> 95 127 ==> 191 Resulting R,G,B valuse: 0 95 191 - (Note made up numbers) This means the resulting pixel would be lighter. Hope that made some sense. EDIT: Oops didn't notice you introduced that feature in 0.7.1. It does work, except at the left side it adds a lot of colours (trippy). At the right it's blurry. My method doesn't pick processors, except it's probably not as fast as any MMX implementation.

True, we (those who can use new bootloaders) should be concerned; occasionally my 2000 fails to boot; complaining about system hive being corrupt. As for the Starting Windows graphical progress bar part, my progress bar starts out half way (weird) and does get stuck at 75% often. And a 9.0 MB SYSTEM hive? My current SYSTEM hive is 2,948KB. My repair SYSTEM is only 932KB. Could it be too much slipstreaming? Honestly, the 2003 loader occasionally fails to resume from Hibernate in 2000. So after downgrading back to the XP loader, Hibernate resumed almost always. Maybe speeding up Hibernate is the way of the future?

Tabs are A-OKAY An uhoh on the explorer menu bars. They are thinner than the others. (The menus themselves have thinner text as well.) The thin text is not unlike the IE bug posted above. Any pop-up menu from explorer has the same expanding then shrinking text on hover as before. AND all explorer menu's have thinner text. Oo And as for the adjustable thickness of the text: I do believe I came up with a solution (speed not guaranteed): Whenever the weighting is changed, SmoothText would then calculate a lookup table between 0 and 255 of integers. Each R, G, B value would be then weighted accordingly. The lookup table is to make it more efficient by avoiding calculating each pixel on the fly. The lookup table is calculated with the formula: y = x(1-((c(m-x))/m)) Where x is the input value, c is the scale factor and m is the maximum (255). infinity < C < infinity, When C = 0, the function above becomes linear, and the input value = output value. This is the standard as it appears now. When C < 0, the text is bolder, when C > 0, text is thinner. If C > 1, then the low end is cut off.