Balloon

[Mr. G]

Am I thinking correctly that you want a balloon that appears when you
minimize and stays there constantly until you restore the window?

Mr. G

[John Doe]

Is a system tray icon called a "balloon"?

Personally, I don't even need a window, but perhaps a window could
be useful. I have seen all sorts of options for how programs
implement system tray icons.

I would just have the program start minimized as a system tray
icon and never even use a window. But you probably won't find much
help for doing that. I'm sure 99.9% of examples would start with a
window.

If you provide a link, maybe I can help decipher the stuff. Or
maybe I can do some of the research (before making any
improvements to the hook).

Any sort of interface is unnecessary for recording here, but it would
be very cool to have a system tray icon that indicates when recording
and when numlock is on. Just thinking about it is fun.

[John Doe]

The reason I suggest using a system tray icon is because taskbar
buttons don't do anything except sit there (they aren't
programmable).

Conceivably... You can make clicking on the taskbar button start
recording. But that's not very useful for mouse clicks because the
logic dictates that the pointer must be unmoved to record a simple
click at current location (no mouse positioning). So you would be
prevented from starting your recording with a simple mouse click,
and that is common.

Yes, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to make your
window minimize to the system tray as an icon...

[John Doe]

BTW... If you want to minimize keyboard use, I wouldn't worry about
this particular task for the time being. As long as you don't have
any trouble making recordings. If you need to see a recording
indicator, you might want to just make your window always-on-top.

I don't think there is, but if I can think of some other way besides
a window or a system tray icon to indicate a recording in progress, I
will advise.

[Mr. G]

First the bad news. My new version doesn't work when you minimize the
window. I gotta figure out why.

The good news? I already got the notify icon going on. No bubble, just
an icon that looks like an LED. It starts off red, then turns green
when you hit the keypad Del button, then back to red. I think you'll
like it.

I do want to keep the window for other reasons such as having radio
buttons to choose the type of macro code you want to generate, i.e.,
Vocola, Dragonfly, or Command Browser. That will be for down the road,
but you may recall I mentioned this before on speechcomputing.com.
There could even be an application configuration file that saves your
default preference.

Another idea I'd like to use the bubble for is to show the currently
generated macro code. This could be toggled on/off with a button on
the window, so you wouldn't have to use it if you didn't want to.

I think we're making progress!
http://sdrv.ms/1hjv6Kz

Mr. G

[John Doe]

Mr. G <gregor...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> First the bad news. My new version doesn't work when you minimize the
> window. I gotta figure out why.
>
> The good news? I already got the notify icon going on. No bubble, just
> an icon that looks like an LED. It starts off red, then turns green
> when you hit the keypad Del button, then back to red. I think you'll
> like it.

I'm pretty sure it's called a "system tray icon". But "notify icon" is
what the project I reference below calls it too. That's the name of the
project "WPF NotifyIcon".

> I do want to keep the window for other reasons such as having radio
> buttons to choose the type of macro code you want to generate, i.e.,
> Vocola, Dragonfly, or Command Browser. That will be for down the road,
> but you may recall I mentioned this before on speechcomputing.com.
> There could even be an application configuration file that saves your
> default preference.
>
> Another idea I'd like to use the bubble for is to show the currently
> generated macro code. This could be toggled on/off with a button on
> the window, so you wouldn't have to use it if you didn't want to.
>
> I think we're making progress!
> http://sdrv.ms/1hjv6Kz

I will of course check it out.

I was looking around and found this open source project.

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/36468/WPF-NotifyIcon#hello

It's a collection of several projects that play nicely when added
to your project/solution, but I have no idea how to make it work.

But apparently you are beyond that point already.

[John Doe]

Mr. G <gregorys12003 yahoo.com> wrote:

> First the bad news. My new version doesn't work when you
> minimize the window.

It works if I switch to WordPad immediately after minimizing the
window. But it did fail permanently when I messed around with it.

> The good news? I already got the notify icon going on. No
> bubble, just an icon that looks like an LED. It starts off red,
> then turns green when you hit the keypad Del button, then back
> to red. I think you'll like it.

Yeah, it looks great.

> I do want to keep the window

The window is not in the way, and the shortcut can be set to start
the program minimized. And since I use the Windows 8 taskbar as a
long Quick Launch toolbar (the way it is now meant to be), the
program icon sits there whether the program is running or not.
Because of that, there is no noticeable difference whether it
includes a window or not.

--

[Mr. G]

>The window is not in the way, and the shortcut can be set to start
>the program minimized. And since I use the Windows 8 taskbar as a
>long Quick Launch toolbar (the way it is now meant to be), the
>program icon sits there whether the program is running or not.
>Because of that, there is no noticeable difference whether it
>includes a window or not.

Interesting. I ordered Windows 8 about a year ago and it horrified me.
I ordered Start8 and a similar program that actually works with Actual
Window Manager which is what I use to set up my three 27" and one 30"
monitor.

I got my monitor setup working in Windows 8, but generally I remain
mystified and confounded at Microsoft's attempt at forcing a touch
interface on mouse users. I don't believe I'm just stuck in an old
paradigm either, but I'm sure I could maybe use the environment
occasionally if I learned a little more. I've got Windows 7 set up
with all my stuff, so I rarely boot into Windows 8.

Mr. G

[John Doe]

Mr. G <gregorys12003 yahoo.com> wrote:

FWIW... Recently I noticed that Windows 8 will automatically boot
to the desktop after pausing at the start screen if you put an
instance of File Explorer (formerly Windows Explorer, formerly
File Manager) in your startup folder. I always use the file
manager, so that's a no-brainer.

I came from Windows XP, it was time to upgrade.

[Mr. G]

>FWIW... Recently I noticed that Windows 8 will automatically boot
>to the desktop after pausing at the start screen if you put an
>instance of File Explorer (formerly Windows Explorer, formerly
>File Manager) in your startup folder. I always use the file
>manager, so that's a no-brainer.

Thanks for the heads-up...and your updated code.

Mr. G

[John Doe]

Actually...
Don't mess with it.

I'm not sure which version of all the ones on my disk to upload that
includes those tiny changes. I think none, since they just aren't
compatible.

I need to be aware of differences (like the different sound file
references) in the DLL, since I've been copying code back and forth
from many different versions. I'm still getting familiar with it (and
the changes), been active for one week.

Somehow I broke both of the recording indicators, but you can correct
that. I will stay in the DLL as much as possible.

I will keep whatever seems important uploaded to my Sky Drive.
Hopefully the "Date modified" column is useful.

[Mr. G]

No worries. You can just wait until you are sure, as I don't have time
to do much with it right now anyway.

I'm not sure how you like having the separate project containing the
sound files as resources. We can always add more sounds to that if we
want to.

I realize that you very likely have all the sound files in a separate
dedicated place on your hard drive so you can use them on the fly with
voice macros, but it seems to me nice to have a separate DLL that will
contain any sounds the program uses so that when/if we distribute it
to anyone else, there won't be loose sound files that could get lost
by the user accidentally deleting them or whatever.

Mr. G

[John Doe]

Mr. G <gregorys12003 yahoo.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure how you like having the separate project containing
> the sound files as resources.

If that means the release version will include all of the sounds
in a single file, IMO that is better.

But if the sounds must be in individual files in the release
version, if possible instead I would put the sound files in the
main program folder and reference them very easily without a path.
Like this I think...

PlaySound("doedit1.wav",NULL,SND_FILENAME);

Seemed to work in a brief test (before this stuff started). But
I'm not sure. I suppose a program looks for any files in its
program folder.

[John Doe]

But this type of stuff doesn't have to be done at this point in time.
As long as it works.

No, I'm not worried about the sound file code.

[Mr. G]

>If that means the release version will include all of the sounds
>in a single file, IMO that is better.

Yes, that's what it means.

Mr. Anderson