WildBill

Here is a link to the Japanese resource files: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?vqrugm5togk

On Extras, do you have Override Standard Controls" checked? When you click Configure, what do you have checked in the popup?

What are .hdc files? The source files are huge.pas and windowmanagement.pas, and those are included with 1.0.9. You should be able to recompile them.

Boy, I don't know...what happens if you totally recompile it? Or are you doing that already?

Posted version 1.0.9 tonight. Just a couple of fixes, but every little bit helps. Enjoy...

Okay, let's try this. I had added a little bit of code to 1.0.5 that affected charsets. I just re-uploaded it with that little bit of code removed.

I made a small change to how it handles the localizer and reposted it (updated download link above). Would you mind giving it a try? I think the problem was that it was applying the translation before it had created all forms.

I haven't seen a problem with missing buttons. Can you post a screenshot so I can try to reproduce it?

What if you try installing Delphi Localizer (it requires installing MSXML 4.0). Would that let you rebuild the localizer files?

Okay, let's try again. Version 1.0.8 is up. I've regenerated the localization files and improved the app a little more.

Sorry about that. I just posted 1.0.7, which should help.

Wow, nice! Will it require KDW to run? I bought an app for my Palm Pre that teaches some basic Kanji. It also covers Katakana and Hiragana, but I haven't gone through those yet. I've picked up a few letters, though. Every once in a while I can recognize a word here and there on your site, but I'm still relying on Google translate. I'm finding the Katakana easier to deal with since it tends to just sound out English words, but to me there are a lot of symbols to learn. My major gripe is that it teaches things like family members, 1st grade Kanji, etc. but it only teaches the English meanings, not the corresponding Japanese words. Still, it's neat to see things like dates and automatically recognize the year, month, and day Kanji.

I've posted version 1.0.6, which has a handful of fixes. Highly recommended. Please let me know how this works for you

Nearly everything on the change log!

One important thing for NT4 users: it's important to set up font substitution for things like menus to come up properly:

FINALLY! I know better to claim that version 1.0.5 is perfect, but I think I've gotten rid of the major showstoppers and I feel comfortable enough with it to release it. I've updated the download link at the top and added the list of changes. With all that's new in this one, I could use all the feedback I can get. Enjoy, everyone. It's been a long road to get here.

Thanks for the feedback. The more feedback I can get the better, though I can't guarantee which parts I'd eventually implement. Of course, SmoothText is open source, so there's nothing stopping anyone else from submitting changes. I like the idea of using a real installer and I once investigated it, but I never settled on a good one. It would be nice if there was a free one that used Windows Installer. I originally created SmoothText before Tihiy discovered how to use the real ClearType. I'm not sure if I want to make the switch, since that's owned by MS. The way that SmoothText is architected it might be possible to let it switch back and forth between the two, but I can't say it's a high priority. Of course, we can always improve SmoothText's rasterizer, too. I definitely like the idea of integrating into the Display Properties popup, though I'd need some help with that since I've never done that before. Here's another screenshot to show where I am: I've been fixing bugs just about every day (including a major one that took me by surprise tonight). It's almost ready, now.

If we do an SP5 we definitely should add some new capabilities. Daedalus2 can certainly be added, for instance. There's an open-source WEP/WPA supplicant that works on Win2k, but it needs a little work (it tends to hog the CPU occasionally). It also needs a much better configuration GUI, preferably a Control Panel app. I'm not sure what else is out there, but I'm sure there's a lot that can be done to improve the OS.

Uploaded version 1.0.1, which has improved USB device detection and a button that shows what devices have been detected.

BWC: I've definitely been going to your site waaaaay too much; I spent a few hours last night looking at pages on katakana and now I can recognize ファイル as "File" (literally, fa-ee-ru). And now my brain hurts. Why couldn't it be something simple, like Spanish?

I'm still squashing bugs, but I've also added some new stuff. I've got rudimentary border skinning working, though I still need to refine it this week. I've also nearly completed a skin that will work on NT4 (shown here) and I have the beginning of another one. I don't know if I'll go to the trouble to complete both, but at the very least I want to have light and dark versions of the one shown here (needless to say, this is the dark version). Things are progressing very well, now, though; while there are occasional visual glitches, SmoothText 1.0.5 is largely bug-free now.

EZ install on KDW is a way of trying to get XP applications to work under Windows 2000 without actually replacing any system dlls in the system32 folder. You select the folder where the application's executable is, using the "refer" button. Select the dlls you want to use (e.g. kernel32.dll) and press the EZ install button. That transfers the modified dll to the application's folder, along with a wrapper dll. I did have great success with that while I was still using KDW (I've gone over to XP now ) It also creates .local files which go with any executables in the folder. I'm not sure what these do, but they are sometimes necesary for it to work. I was going through my Windows Internals 5 book today and it says that Windows uses the .local files to determine which DLLs to load from the application's folder instead of from the WINNT\System32 folder. It also says, though, that the mechanism doesn't work for permanently mapped DLLs or DLLs that they load. That said, blackwingcat is the real expert on how KDW works, of course.

I regularly check blackwingcat's blog, and apparently there is a new time zone update that can be applied to Windows 2000 with some fiddling. However, even with Google Translate I can't make heads or tails of the instructions. Would anyone be able to clarify what to do? http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=EUC-JP&langpair=ja|en&u=http://blog.livedoor.jp/blackwingcat/archives/1131813.html&tbb=1&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhhsNUqs5x5td1EVDpKWKOo5dFq8OQ#more

Most of the major bugs are fixed, and I decided to look into desktop icons. It turned out to be easier than I thought it would be...

Windows NT 4 support on SmoothText 1.0.5...note the skinning and the gradient-fill title bar I still have one showstopper that I'd like to fix. Also, I'm working on a simple skin (shown here) that will work on NT4. Actually, the only restrictions for NT4 are that you can't have any alpha-blended windows, such as start button overlays, tooltips, and menus. You CAN otherwise use alpha-blended skin images, though. P.S. Don't worry about the weird-looking calculator icon at the top. I have Daedalus off at the moment.