SmoothText 1.1.8

[Tripo]

nice to see the progress.

The download link say 098 but is it the 099 version.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Ohh okay XD

[WildBill]

nice to see the progress.

The download link say 098 but is it the 099 version.

That's weird...just to be safe I reloaded the download link from MediaFire and updated it. Now it should be correct.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Okay, it's the right title now

Lots of m's in that URL

EDIT: Okay, 0.9.9 works, except it crashed explorer once and once only when it started. It showed the FastMM error log, but there hasn't been any problems since.

Just in case I'll attach the error logs.

EDIT2: There is still some sort of conflict with aMSN, which causes everything to lag and raises CPU usage considerably. But it doesn't crash anything.

Edited June 23, 2009 by Colonel O'Neill

[WildBill]

Check out this article on OSNews:

http://www.osnews.com/comments/21713

If only they knew...

Edit: I looked at the log and I'm testing version 1.0.0 to see if some changes help. In the meantime, has anyone tried skinning yet? I'm curious to see how it works for you.

Edited June 23, 2009 by WildBill

[WildBill]

You should get in contact with Blackwingcat, see if he has any words of advice. His blog is at http://w2k.livedoor.biz/ and he's doing some pretty crazy stuff with 2000. He also has it installed on three systems, which are listed on the left.

Is there an English version? I can't read Japanese...

Edit: Ah, I found the Google translate link at the bottom. That helps a lot. I was once tempted to learn French so I could read a site that has a lot of Windows 2000 fixes, but Japanese might be a bridge too far

Edited June 24, 2009 by WildBill

[Tripo]

has anyone tried skinning yet? I'm curious to see how it works for you.

not yet.

I did made a Skin but I Think I lost the files when reformatted.

But I will made a new and test to see if it works.

Thanks again for your fantastic work.

Edit:

I have now test The skinning.

Did make a taskbar background.

and the startbutton picture.

the taskbar did look good.

But the startbutton.

I think the size was to big so it did show it wrong.

did only see part of the startbutton.

But that was my button.

will test make some new picture to test with.

So conclusion.

1. Now it works.

2. It made it get very slow and the Smoothtext config window did not want to close like if it Freezed or something.

3. Did not get any error message.

4. Smoothtext it self without skinning works very good has just test it from yesterday until now. But it look promising. No crash or Explorer Restarts. Only crash/ Get very slow with skinning.

Sknning can it handle PNG and jpg or has it to be BMP or TGA.

i´m running it on my P4 3,0Ghz with 2GB ram.

Edit2:

I have now edit the ini file little and find some wrong in it I made.

So Will try it again and see if it works better.

also some suggestion.

1. Code the smoothtext in 2 .exe.

one the main exe running smoothtext so there is no form in it and no icon in systray.

the second .exe could be the config exe. That is started to just config the Smoothtext.

To apply the settings there need smoothtext to be restarted.

in that way you can reduce the code in the running exe and also I think you can reduce the resources smoothtext takes up.

Edit3:

it looks like this now.

but it is still slow when Skinning is on.

First to get it to work.

I must open a folder in explorer.

So I have a explorer window open.

Then start Smoothtext.

Explorer will freeze.

I prees CTRL + ALT + DEL.

The explorer window is not responding.

I close that process.

Now explorer restarts.

and smoothtext is working and skinning.

But it is still problem with taskbar button icons.

When they are iconized.

Don´t know if it is like that when not iconized.

and this problem is only there when skinning engine is enable/Override standard controls enabled.

Edit Again:

Then if you look at my picture.

there is grey borders.

Witch controll is the whole taskbar so the grey stuff is skinned.

Is it the rebar or witch is it.

Edit OnemoreTime:

I have now resized the pictures so they looks better.

And as you see not all icons are not working properly.

From left to Right.

Ffirst icon should be explorer.

second is ACDsee and as you see that icon works.

the third icon is Photoshop CS2 and it does not work.

and when Overide standard controls is enabled the back button text in explorer when browsing my hard drive is a mess and the address label text in explorer is on wrong place.

as in one other picture I posted.

but this last time Explorer was not as slow as the first time.

But I need to CTRL + ALT + DEL thingy with explorer to get it to work.

Edited June 24, 2009 by Tripo

[herbalist]

While trying versions 0.9.8 and 0.9.9 with the SeaMonkey browser, the browser would close with no warning or error messages. It seems to happen when I have 3-4 tabs open and am loading a page. The same thing happened when I tried it with K-Meleon. The pages seem to be rendering slowly and processor usage is at or near 100% for longer than normal. With a 366mhz Celeron, it's not unusual for me to see the processor reach 100% when loading pages, but with Smooth Text it stays at 100% for a significantly longer period of time.

When I started Process Explorer to watch what was happening, there were no usage percentages displayed while Smooth Text was running. I had to add Microsofts San Serif fonts to the ignore list to get percentages to display. I noticed when Smooth Text is running, PE's display refreshes slowly in bands or columns from the top downwards. Without it, the refresh is almost instant.

Rick

[Tripo]

One BUG with skinning is the transparency.

If I choose color key Pink for the start button.

And make a picture with that color that is specified in color section for pink 255,0,255.

Then it will still show that color So around the startbutton I got a box around it.

For my skin I can make it with right back color and not use the Transparent.

[WildBill]

To use a color-keyed image, you have to do something like this:

[color7]

ID=Pink <-- Note the name of the color (you can call it anything you want!)

R=255

G=0

B=255

[iMAGE0]

ID=PushButton

FileName=buttons.bmp

FrameOrder=HorzFirst

FrameCountingHorz=Increments

FrameCountingVert=Increments

FramesHorz=5

FramesVert=1

StretchRectTop=6

StretchRectBottom=6

StretchRectLeft=6

StretchRectRight=6

Transparency=ColorKey <-- This tells SmoothText that the image uses a color to designate transparency

ColorKey=Pink <-- This is the name of the color you use, it has to be whatever you used in the color's ID field

[Tripo]

To use a color-keyed image, you have to do something like this:

[color7]

ID=Pink <-- Note the name of the color (you can call it anything you want!)

R=255

G=0

B=255

[iMAGE0]

ID=PushButton

FileName=buttons.bmp

FrameOrder=HorzFirst

FrameCountingHorz=Increments

FrameCountingVert=Increments

FramesHorz=5

FramesVert=1

StretchRectTop=6

StretchRectBottom=6

StretchRectLeft=6

StretchRectRight=6

Transparency=ColorKey <-- This tells SmoothText that the image uses a color to designate transparency

ColorKey=Pink <-- This is the name of the color you use, it has to be whatever you used in the color's ID field

I have exactly like that.

Edit:

Sorry I did not have exactly like that.

I missed this part.

Transparency=ColorKey

Will test it.

Also I think the slowdown was first time smooth text was started.

Then it has been running in full speed.

So there is no slowdowns as I sad before.

The skin Engine is nice to play with.

There is many options to have it skinning.

Nice Work.

I did see that the start button sometimes flicker.

When pushed you will see the original button for a short while.

Edited June 28, 2009 by Tripo

[Colonel O'Neill]

I'm still having problems with Overriding Standard Controls...

The whole system just locks up (mouse still moves, no alt+tab or ctrl+alt+delete) needing a hard reset. No logs of any kind are left... I'm probably just going to aim for a fresh install of 2000, one of these days.

[Tripo]

I'm still having problems with Overriding Standard Controls...

The whole system just locks up (mouse still moves, no alt+tab or ctrl+alt+delete) needing a hard reset. No logs of any kind are left... I'm probably just going to aim for a fresh install of 2000, one of these days.

are you sure that ctrl+alt+del don´t work.

mine does the same when activeing overide standard controlls.

But when I use ctrl+alt+del and close an dir with it.

it works.

even next time I start Smoothtext it works.

So it feels that it is something with overrides standard with Making the new reg settings and making cache.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Ahh, you're right... Ctrl+Alt+Del does work. But any actions from there on don't do anything. Task Manager opens (sometimes) but no interaction is possible with anything. Attempting to log off/restart/shutdown fails halfway, and Ctrl+Alt+Del no longer works after clicking log off.

On the next restart, (with the Override Standard Controls registry key still enabled) launching SmoothText does nothing; no text smoothing, no crashes, but SmoothText's icon appears in the tray. No interaction is possible with the trayicon either. Nonetheless, I am creating a new nLite iso to install with, one that hopefully installs better than the last one.

[Tripo]

If I reset all settings for smoothtext.

And start it.

I must do this thing with ctrl+alt+del thing.

Even if I do a hard reset and not do the ctrl+alt+del thing.

look all settings for smoothtext is right.

And smoothtext does not work.

So I have to do the ctrl+alt+del thing.

otherwise Smoothtext will not work.

But when I have done that once.

then Smoothtext works great with overrides standard controlls.

as long as I keep the settings.

But if I made the settings in smoothtext and not the ctrl+alt+del thing.

smoothtext will not work even that the settings in the registry is right.

I can´t explain why But I need to do it otherwise I got the same Explorer freezes only thing that works is ctrl+alt+del.