Disk Usage Taskbar Application?

[Glenn9999]

Would you mind sharing the version you're using now?

Attached to this post. The biggest change is that I moved the display text to a message box, which should show all the text that is needed. Left-click the icon to get that. That might change to the HTMLHelp Textbox API depending on what works best for it. As well, I might add a display option (bytes, MB, GB). But I think overall, clicking to get it instead of using the hint text will be a lot better.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Glenn9999

[tomasz86]

Well, as you're saying now there are no problems with displaying all partitions properly.

Although I did like the idea that you don't have to click on anything to get the information

You can't choose where on the screen the message pops up, or can you?

[Glenn9999]

Although I did like the idea that you don't have to click on anything to get the information

You can't choose where on the screen the message pops up, or can you?

Actually this is one of those things where it gets hard to pick an option because of the number of good options available (style/kind of window, placement of window, and so on). The question always is what the best option is. That said, I posted the latest version is here. I used the HTMLHelp API on this and it looks about like the text hint does. It'll go away if you click elsewhere or it will go away on its own if you wait. It shouldn't have any text limit either. Only thing is the program doesn't work too well if I make it come up on mouse movement, so I left it work as left click.

If that option works, I'll probably add a display options menu to it and then call it done.

Edited December 8, 2011 by Glenn9999

[tomasz86]

Actually it doesn't work properly now

1. I normally use "two-lined" taskbar and I get this:

2. When taskbar is slim then I can see this:

Still it only shows two out of four partitions. It's Windows 2000 here.

Edited December 8, 2011 by tomasz86

[Glenn9999]

Still it only shows two out of four partitions. It's Windows 2000 here.

Edit: Nevermind. I switched what I was using to something that should be more generic, and hopefully should work right for you. The window should appear directly next to the taskbar. Also got the configuration part started/done. There's a menu you can go into to select the kind of units you want it to display. Here's the latest.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Glenn9999

[tomasz86]

Hmm, it's still almost the same as before...

When taskbar is higher, the situation is exactly the same (the window is "covered" by taskbar) and when taskbar is normal it shows up to 3 partitions now.

Edited December 8, 2011 by tomasz86

[JedClampett]

Thanks for the update Glen. I have installed the version from post #20 on my Win XP SP3 laptop, and it works fine.

Under the settings it would be nice to set the pop-up info box as sticky, and also to be able to set the update interval in seconds, so the drive info is updated every n seconds?

Would you be willing to release this as a GPL project please? I think it would be a good way for others to learn how to put together a simple Windows application - a bit like the famous 'Hello World' test program - or is there something like that already?

Jed

[Glenn9999]

When taskbar is higher, the situation is exactly the same (the window is "covered" by taskbar) and when taskbar is normal it shows up to 3 partitions now.

I loaded up my Windows ME VM and found it performs similarly there. It turns out the API call to find the Taskbar (SHAppBarMessage with the ABM_GETTASKBARPOS message) fails in the 9X API. I don't really have any documentation on it (it's too old to download, evidently), and don't find anything similar, so can't say how to fix it. Might have to go back to the message box for the 9X class API.

Under the settings it would be nice to set the pop-up info box as sticky, and also to be able to set the update interval in seconds, so the drive info is updated every n seconds?

I can definitely put a time out option in the config for how long it takes the Window to disappear. The other part of the suggestion would have to be researched.

Would you be willing to release this as a GPL project please? I think it would be a good way for others to learn how to put together a simple Windows application - a bit like the famous 'Hello World' test program - or is there something like that already?

I can look into doing it.

[tomasz86]

Thank you for checking & finding the cause of this problem. Until you can find a way to solve the problem (or not?) I'll stick to the message box version

[xpclient]

@Glenn9999, that's nice work. Can you beautify it please like use a nicer pie chart icon for the EXE and tray (from shell32.dll?) and make the tooltip background also white like Windows 7/Vista tooltips? And also make the tooltip stay until we click outside? I have many drives and it disappears before I can go through all of them.

Edit: I found another free space indicator here: http://subsimple.com/download/DiskFree.zip

Edited January 11, 2012 by xpclient

[Glenn9999]

Is there any interest in more development of this app I posted in here?

[Glenn9999]

I revisited this recently, since I learned enough to make it handle the way I want now.

 

 

Single click to bring up the drive size display window, which should show a relatively unlimited number of partitions.  This window should appear next to the system notification tray, where ever you have the task bar.   Single-click to turn it off.  As you use the system, the window should stay in the forefront while you use it for other things.

 

Check "Settings" to set the units it uses (bytes, KB, MB, GB), along with the period in milliseconds that it uses to update the stats.  (Yes you can copy something to a drive and watch the partition info change on the window.

 

"Load on Startup?" makes it so the system loads the program upon startup.  Clicking the option again should remove it.

 

As this was a simple little program to do a single task, hopefully this will be enough and there won't be any problems.  But if you try it, let me know.

driveinfo.zip

Edited November 18, 2015 by Glenn9999