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TClock3 0.3.5


WildBill

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Well, I'm not sure what I want to do re: WB importing so I decided to upload what I have at the moment. This has some internal registry changes and WILL be somewhat incompatible with current installations (meaning you have to go in and set some things). Overall, though, it's a much better program internally and will enable some more features in the future.

Known bugs:

- Quitting TClock3 can crash some programs. My Palm HotSync Manager doesn't like it when I quit TClock3, for instance.

- Halos do NOT work correctly. If you import a skin that uses them, make sure to turn halos off.

I edited the top post with the new download link (0.3.3).

Edited by WildBill
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well first of all, i think going with selfmade skins is much better then wb skins, imho.

The wbskins come with more then tclock needs, so its big, when there is no need really...

i will look at this new release, thanx again man.

oh btw, did you see you got a sticky now?

i thought it was appropriate so i asked for it! hahaha

now i dont have to search anymore for your posts.

damian666

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Limited tests on my Win98SE quickly revealed two major issues, that weren't present in previous builds:

- 100% CPU usage all the time

- quicklaunch icons were all shifted to a clickable menu, while their original taskbar space was empty and not skinned, except for incidental bitmap overlaps.

Systray icons still hidden, still crashes on exit.

I reapplied the BoostMauve theme, as some elements were not skinned anymore due to changes between versions. No start menu skinning, no advanced skinning like halos, etc.

Currently I'm sick, can't test more thoroughly, sorry.

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Well, WildBill, if you're creating TClock for community, and not just for yourself, then i have an advice...

drop all features and code you don't need or want!

That's how i usually do. Don't listen to anyone whining.

Release really stipped down version which is stable and only then start adding features.

As a programmer, i can say that your TClock3.dll code is insanely **** overfilled with features and API which:

0) Don't have sense under Win2000.

1) Duplicate functionality is already present in Win32 API.

2) Don't make sense at all. Let me explain:

try
hDC=GetWindowDC(hwnd)
....
finally
ReleaseDC (hwnd,hDC)
end;

How can this code fail? If NT user32.dll is trowing exception at GetDC(), it means your process is extremely badly corrupted and you should just fail hard. If you're tough, check it for <>0 and that's it.

Personally, i believe object-oriented code is harder and worser to manage when you're dealing with hooks.

Wrapping everything in try..except is a bad idea (in all means), better, rewrite main things in flat non-object code, you'll gain speed and simplicity.

I'll suggest you rewriting your code and splitting it into several pieces:

- TClock3Test.exe: why 2,6 MB has to be loaded always? You need just hook loader and icon in system tray (or clock hooked). Split them into TClock3Loader and TClock3Settings.

- TClock3.dll: well, split it at least into 2 dlls: one which gets loaded into explorer.exe only and other into all processes.

Get rid of hooks if you can safely hook API.

Some boasting maybe, but that's how LameSkin is used:

- 30 KB for skin loader, loads bitmaps into shared memory(only startup process);

- 60 KB for shell hooking (30% of its code is actually for taskbar skinning);

- 32 KB for process hooking (15% of its code is actually for window skinning);

- 52 KB skin metrics/drawing API for every process;

- 24 KB for 32-bit icons (consider this as an equivalent for font smoothing) for every process;

So, it is 32+52+24=108KB and PB compiler sucks. Usually with loaded skin memory usage increase is under 2MB.

You can do the same! If you don't want WB skins, use Windows XP msstyles format (it is FAR better than WB ones in terms of simplicity and standartization, and i believe it can't be restricted to Windows XP) or extracted bitmaps with ini file like i do.

You can read a bit of LameSkin skin format if you like:

http://tihiy.ahanix.org/lame/

Note it does not contain advanced taskbar skinning features :(

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well, i think i have to agree with tihiy on this, not that i know anything about this stuff, but hee...

it sounds like reason.

and i do think there are to many features in tclock3.

cut it down, really man do that

damian666

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  • 3 weeks later...
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Hee-hee. It appears to be another fork of TClock2, like mine is. It will be interesting to see where it leads. I'm not sure if I've seen it before or not. I think the author asked me if we wanted to collaborate, but I'm not sure. I don't spend nearly as much time on this as I'd like so my memory is hazy.

It's not that hazy! :)

Yes it's (yet another) fork of Two_toNe's TClock2, development on it has been stagnant for over a year as I've been tied up with work. It's still written in C and comes with both 32 & 64bit versions.

I don't recall what it was that I'd offered to help with either ... but I do vaguely remember doing it.

:)

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I've been using tclock2 on my win2k install for years now, feels wrong without it.

Was looking at this one, and I wanted to suggest a feature that would make me upgrade:

tclock should be able to track multiple timezones like FoxClocks:

http://www.stemhaus.com/firefox/foxclocks/

It feels silly to have a plugin inside firefox just so I can mouse-over the corner and see what time it is for my friends around the world. Makes much more sense to be able to do it via a mouse-over of the system clock, no?

post-169373-1205535431_thumb.jpg

Thanks for considering!

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