Windows 7 Classic vs. New Start Menu

[Brunoooh]

Actually, it was only the first menu that wasn't in french I'll change the .ini file names + icon names and that should work

the shut down button does nothing at all... there's a little moment, when you've just clicked, where it seems like something's going to happen, but nothing happens

for now I've tested under a virtualPC virtual machine... I have another PC where Seven is installed "for real" but I wasn't able to use it the past few days... if needed (for comparison purpose) I'll test your program on that computer this week end

EDIT : Changing the icon names worked, but I noticed that there's no .ini file for "Shut Down" and if I change the shutdown icon's name to "Arrêter" : the program crashes... I guess it's because it must be the same name as somewhere in your program where it says "shutdown".
I've modified the name via you configuration tool but even though the french word is stored (it's the same when I open the tool again), your start menu keeps saying "Shut Down"

I've seen that you have an icon for "help", I suppose you plan on adding it to the menu later ? Will you also add "Network", "Printers" and "Start Menu & Taskbar" ?

Can you change the program's "main" icon to the start button look-alike ? I mean : the shortcut pined to the taskbar has the "orb icon", but clicking on it to open the start menu makes the previous '"xp like" icon appear in the taskbar (the one you used in previous versions)

BTW : is there some way to use prefetch or something similar to make the program launch a little faster ?

 

[Phantom]

this program is great I'm really grateful that you made it I have a few small things you may want to look into and see if they are feasible to fix.

one has been mentioned on my computer at least the shutdown button just makes the screen flash. nothing more

also when I click run I get a notification box saying that an unhandled exception has occurred and gives me the option of closing the program or ignoring it.

also I personally liked having a logoff button if you cpuld implement it I think it would be a good idea

and then this last one is probably impossible to fix easily but as this opens as a program it doesn't stay merely like an icon in the taskbar when opened but not a big deal. If you find a way to merely replace the startmenu it may fix itself. in the meantime you may want to put a link to that startkiller application you mentioned earlier to hide the real startmenu into your first post.


once again thanks for letting us use this program you've worked so hard on

EDIT:

just found if I ran program as administrator the run button worked but if I do that then I have to type the admin password everytime I want to open the startmenu which isn't a feasible choice

 

[thomasw234]

the shut down button does nothing at all... there's a little moment, when you've just clicked, where it seems like something's going to happen, but nothing happens

one has been mentioned on my computer at least the shutdown button just makes the screen flash. nothing more

Thanks both for letting me know. Seeing as some people are having problems with the current Shut Down dialog, I'll re-write something like the XP shutdown dialog (the one that appears as a drop down box - when fast user switching is disabled I think).

EDIT : Changing the icon names worked, but I noticed that there's no .ini file for "Shut Down" and if I change the shutdown icon's name to "Arrêter" : the program crashes... I guess it's because it must be the same name as somewhere in your program where it says "shutdown"

I'll look into that, thanks.

I've seen that you have an icon for "help", I suppose you plan on adding it to the menu later ? Will you also add "Network", "Printers" and "Start Menu & Taskbar" ?

If I can find out how to link to all of those, then yes I will add them by default. If you need them in the meantime, if you go to the folder where the program is installed, into the settings folder, you will see that there is a shortcut to the control panel. If you added links to Network and Printers etc... then they would appear on the menu.

Can you change the program's "main" icon to the start button look-alike ? I mean : the shortcut pined to the taskbar has the "orb icon", but clicking on it to open the start menu makes the previous '"xp like" icon appear in the taskbar (the one you used in previous versions)

Sorry I don't really understand what you mean Could you please post a screenshot? When I click the orb, it still remains as an orb, but with a lighter background (showing that the program is running).

BTW : is there some way to use prefetch or something similar to make the program launch a little faster ?

I've no idea how a prefetch style thing could be implemented. I understand the concept, but not how to do it. .NET seems so much slower than other programming languages. When I make the next release, instead of compiling it for debug, I will compile for release, and hopefully that should optimise the code to make it faster.

also I personally liked having a logoff button if you cpuld implement it I think it would be a good idea

You can add one yourself, by making a link to logoff.exe, placing it in the program directory. Then making a 6logoff.ini text file, and in that text file, write the name of the link. Tricky to do though, so I will include logoff by default in the next release.

and then this last one is probably impossible to fix easily but as this opens as a program it doesn't stay merely like an icon in the taskbar when opened but not a big deal. If you find a way to merely replace the startmenu it may fix itself.

Sorry, I don't get this either

in the meantime you may want to put a link to that startkiller application you mentioned earlier to hide the real startmenu into your first post.

Good idea, I'll do that after I finish posting this.

once again thanks for letting us use this program you've worked so hard on

Thanks for both of yours feedback. I'm busy all this week with exams, so it's probably going to be 7 days before I start coding again

Thanks,

Thomas.

 

[Brunoooh]

... double post, sorry

 

[Brunoooh]

Sorry I don't really understand what you mean Could you please post a screenshot? When I click the orb, it still remains as an orb, but with a lighter background (showing that the program is running).

Here's the screenshot you requested : on the left : before I click on the orb, on the right : just after clicking on the orb... which is replaced by the other windows icon
Link Removed due to 404 Error

As Phantom said, I also have a brief flash of light when I click on the Shut Down icon, then nothing... I'm 100% ok with your suggestion of putting back the XP-style pop-up to shut down, I actually like it better than the window used in Vista and Seven

Anyway, good luck for your exams, and don't worry I'll wait patiently for your next update

 

[thomasw234]

Here's the screenshot you requested : on the left : before I click on the orb, on the right : just after clicking on the orb... which is replaced by the other windows icon

Ahhh, I see now Hopefully should be an easy fix!

As Phantom said, I also have a brief flash of light when I click on the Shut Down icon, then nothing... I'm 100% ok with your suggestion of putting back the XP-style pop-up to shut down, I actually like it better than the window used in Vista and Seven

So I've been working on the shutdown dialog, and have come up with 2 alternate versions. One is a Vista / Classic XP Style, whilst the other is XP Style. Thought I'd post a couple of screenshots of them. Both are fully working, with customizable texts (for different languages).

Anyway, good luck for your exams, and don't worry I'll wait patiently for your next update

Thanks!!

Thomas

 

[thomasw234]

v0.8 release

Version 0.8 is out. Changes include:

* 2 new start menu dialogs to choose from
* Totally new configuration program - much easier to use than the previous one
* New icons

In version 0.9 (and certainly before 1.0) I am working towards:

* Getting the program to run when the original start button is pressed.
* Speeding up the program significantly, by having a small application running in the background.

 

[Phantom]

thanks for the logoff button and getting the shutdown working. I was wondering though if you planned on making all the options available in the real shutdown box. you know sleep switch user... some of them aren't all that important but switch user is useful sometimes

 

[Brunoooh]

Thanks for this nice new update !

A just had a few minutes of testing, here's a short list of what I noticed (I'll test further tomorrow and post more details) :
- The icon remains the orb even after launching the program
- I can shut windows down with your menu, but the 3 icons are named "log off / stand by / restart", shouldn't it be "stand by / shut down / restart" ?
- The icons have changed, they are no longer gif but ico, some look better, for some I liked the previous versions better (like "programs" for example)
- I can't save changes to the settings, I get an error message (I'll post it here tomorrow)

Thanks for all your hard work, I'm looking forward to 0.9 and 1.0

 

[Phantom]

Brunooh have you tried running the configuration program as administrator. I had to do that before it would let me save settings

 

[thomasw234]

I can shut windows down with your menu, but the 3 icons are named "log off / stand by / restart", shouldn't it be "stand by / shut down / restart" ?

I've no idea why, that shutdown dialog is supposed to read the contents of asShutdown.inf. I've just checked out both the installer and non-installer, and both show Standby, Shut Down and Restart for me

The icons have changed, they are no longer gif but ico, some look better, for some I liked the previous versions better (like "programs" for example)

That's fair enough, I'll try and find the ico's of the old icon set for you tonight. I nicked them all from imageres.dll.

I can't save changes to the settings, I get an error message (I'll post it here tomorrow)

It modifies a file in the program files directory (assuming you're using the installer version). It does need to be run as admin, as suggested by Phantom.

Thanks for all your hard work, I'm looking forward to 0.9 and 1.0

I know I said I'd try and make it work when the start button was pressed. However, I've been doing my research, and C# (the language it's written in) is not capable of doing that. If I knew how to program C++ I'd be ok, but I've no idea

On the plus side - I've found that I can hopefully speed up the load times significantly (to the point where it's nearly instantly). I know several people are finding that it's slow to get started.

One final thing. I'm getting emails from people with debug data (which I asked for). It seems Microsoft have decided to deny access to C:\User\UserName\Documents\My Music and Pictures etc, which causes the program to crash. Does anyone have any ideas what I could make the documents folder do (ie which folder to display)?

Thanks for all your input again!!

Thomas.

 

[Brunoooh]

Great tip about running the configuration tool as admin : it worked like a charm ! Thanks

Obviously it's getting close to the exact thing I was dreaming of

I haven't got any good suggestions for the document menu... because I don't use it (actually in my present windows Vista I've blocked storing recently opened documents and programs)... Can you simply get a shortcut to c:\user\user (and not go as far as documents, music, pictures) ?

Sorry about the shutdown pop up, I think I might have tried to translate it, then put it back in english, and forgot I made an error before posting (it was late ), still I have a few requests about that pop-up :
- I can't put the exact translation because I can't get the french letters ( "ê" in "Arrêter", and "é" in "Redémarrer") to show
- Is it possible to erase the "Icons by deletek" ? I mean it's important to give credits where it's due, but maybe a readme file would be fine, it gives an "amateurish" look to an otherwise very "professional" look (well IMHO at least)
- as a personnal wish, I'd like to see "log off" removed from the main start menu and placed in the shut down pop up, instead of "stand by", but that's personnal, I never use stand by except the automated one after a long period without use

Finaly, is it possible to change the order of the items in the settings subfolder ? after translating them the control panel is no longer on top, maybe you could use names starting with a number as you did for the main menu ?

I'll wait for you next post to get the original icons (if I remember right "programs", "documents" and "settings" are the only ones differing from before (or from the Vista classic start menu, which I'm looking at right now ) but don't give yourself too much trouble, I'll surely find them somewhere if needed

 

[Phantom]

well you were talking about what was listed in the shutdown box and in mine I use the drop down box one and it shows log off restart and shutdown only

 

[thomasw234]

As promised (just extracted from shell32.dll in Windows XP).

Thomas

 

[thomasw234]

Still I have a few requests about that pop-up :

- I can't put the exact translation because I can't get the french letters ( "ê" in "Arrêter", and "é" in "Redémarrer") to show

Yeah the reason this is happening is it's using the ASCII character table (just English characters). I have already fixed this for the 0.9 release (although not intentionally I must admit!)

- Is it possible to erase the "Icons by deletek" ? I mean it's important to give credits where it's due, but maybe a readme file would be fine, it gives an "amateurish" look to an otherwise very "professional" look (well IMHO at least)

When I contacted 'Deleket' about using the icons, I sent a screenshot of what the dialog would look like - I had already put the "Icons by deleket" stuff, and he said that it was appreciated. I might remove the "Click here for more info", but I'm not prepared to totally remove the credit totally from that window.

- as a personnal wish, I'd like to see "log off" removed from the main start menu and placed in the shut down pop up, instead of "stand by", but that's personnal, I never use stand by except the automated one after a long period without use

The stand by doesn't work anyway I think you're right about changing it to log off. Personally I use the drop down shutdown dialog (if you've not seen this, there's an option in the config program).

Finaly, is it possible to change the order of the items in the settings subfolder ? after translating them the control panel is no longer on top, maybe you could use names starting with a number as you did for the main menu ?

Hmmmmm, I'll have to think how that'll work, but essentially, yes, I will do that for the next release.

Thanks all once again for your excellent feedback!!

Thomas.

 

[Brunoooh]

Thanks for the icons, I've added them, there's only the documents ico that I've extracted from Vista's imageres.dll (in case others might like it I've attached it to this post)

I understand your reasons about "deleket", maybe it would be possible to make the size of that text smaller (maybe make it ajustable in the configuration tool ? even maybe de-activable but active by default ?)

BTW is it possible to change the background picture in that pop-up, I like it the way it is, but maybe it could be nice to have the option to select something else ? (providing it's the right size,format,...)

Once again I'm looking forward to your next update, considering your last post it should be almost the finished product

 

[thomasw234]

I understand your reasons about "deleket", maybe it would be possible to make the size of that text smaller (maybe make it ajustable in the configuration tool ? even maybe de-activable but active by default ?)

What about I keep the text full size, but it only gets displayed the first 5 times the dialog is shown? By that time, people will have noticed the credit.

BTW is it possible to change the background picture in that pop-up, I like it the way it is, but maybe it could be nice to have the option to select something else ? (providing it's the right size,format,...)

Yeah I don't see why not, I'm not really happy with that background image, but I'm by no means a graphical designer person. I just nicked it from the Windows 7 login screen.

Once again I'm looking forward to your next update, considering your last post it should be almost the finished product

I've cleaned up a lot of the code (it was very messy and disorganised), so there should be small improvements in speed now. I'm currently working on having CSMenu running in the background, which means when the quicklaunch icon is pressed, it loads much quicker than it did before. I *might* consider making this an option, depending on how much work it will be, because I understand that not everyone will want it running in the background all of the time.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Thomas.

 

[Brunoooh]

What about I keep the text full size, but it only gets displayed the first 5 times the dialog is shown? By that time, people will have noticed the credit.

That option sounds great, actually you could even get it displayed the first 10 times : enough to notice the credit and not too long lasting on a daily use

As I said I'm personnaly fine with the shut down background image, but considering how easy it is to change the icons in your menu I though some might like to be able to customize that too, so it's cool if you can do it

About the code running in the background, I'll use it as soon as it's available. I understand your concern about letting people choose weither they want it or not... however I don't know anything about coding, but it doesn't seem like your program is heavy on memory and CPU use, so I guess it won't bother anyone

Keep up the good work !

 

[ClairePeo]

My documents

Hello,

Can somone tell me how to get Windows 7 to display the file photo, when you click on the file in my documents or my computer please?

I've been in all the menus that i can think of but i can't find anything that will let me do this,

I'm sure im being dim, but any help would be great

Thanks

 

[thomasw234]

Sorry ClairePeo, you're posting in the wrong place!

CSMenu v0.9 is still under development, incase anyone thought I'd forgotten about it and moved on (normally I would have had about 3 releases in the time since v0.8 was released ).

Here is the changelog so far:

Change Log:
===========

1) CSMenu now runs in the background, and hides when not in use. The taskbar icon isn't CSMenu, but a program which sends a message to it, telling it to become visible again.

2) Fixed bugs which meant menu's which weren't currently being hovered sometimes lost focus, and because unusable unless the menu was closed down and restarted

3) All code has been tidied up. Makes little difference to the user, but it means I was able to spot some bugs that may occur.

4) Folders reorganised a bit (in Program Files)

5) XP Style shutdown dialog can now have the background altered. Place a JPG image in the graphics folder called "shutdown_background.jpg", and it will automatically be used.

Also, I'm working on a new style of menu, as requested by someone. It will by no means be replacing the existing main menu, but *might* be an option in v0.9. Or I might just scrap it - it's quite slow! See the screenshot attached for a preview.

ToDo:

1) Sort out the documents folder

2) Allow folders to be rearranged

I'm not sure when the next release will be!

Thomas