Start Predefined Aquarium? - Page 2

Mountainmaster · 05-09-2002, 06:21 PM

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I will try to answer your questions.

memilm,
I would like to stick with the dropdownlist because of the small amount of space it takes in an already crowded window. For the same reason the exit button had to go, since it is not essential for the program.
Ending one program from within another is of course possible but requires a lot of coding, which would take me a long time to accomplish. Much longer anyway than it takes you to hit esc. Sorry, but not.
Tray icon and command-line: yes. Been there, done that before. Will be done after I solved the starfish options.

hpman77,
There was not enough room for the names under the pictures, but I solved that with tooltiptext.
Documentation would require more research than I would like to do right now.
I could not find a command-line option to start the aquarium in windowed mode.

James,
No luck so far with controlling starfish positions. If you just smack it to the glass from a grounded position it ends up under the sand, which is also funny. Maybe I'll just put it in that way. It seems to be able to crawl out fast enough.

Of course all of this still depends on whether Jim does not oppose to my registry tweakings.

James · 05-09-2002, 11:38 PM

What about asking ppl here to submit some binary values of starfish's position?
maybe y can predefine 10 diff positions and the only thing u can do is collecting all these 10 position values and make them available in ur program?
this way u don't have to wait ur starfish crawl on the glass and exit SSA and go into registry to recorde it's value repeately.....

I can submit some values if u like

memilm · 05-10-2002, 05:52 AM

I found that to end an application you need to call seven times the user32.dll (GetDesktopWindow,GetWindow,GetClassNameA,GetWindo wTextAPostMessageA,SetForegroundWindow functions)...

Mountainmaster · 05-10-2002, 09:58 AM

James,
Good idea, it would be helpfull if you could post some binaries for the starfish's position. But I have to say that I am not sure if I can finish this project. My program can write the position values to the registry correctly, but it has problems with short binaries. Right now if I write "1" as binary it shows up in the registry as 01 00 00 00 where it should be 01. When reading the StarfishOnGlass key the aquarium does not recognize it and changes back to default 00. Result: a floating starfish.
Since I use a registry module that was written by someone else, it could take a while to figure out what is going wrong.

memilm,
For someone who "cannot write programs" you know an awful lot about it. I must confess that I am not really a programmer either but I just like to toy around with Visual Basic. Most of the difficult code I use was copied and pasted from various internet VB sites. If you can get your hands on Visual Basic you will see that programming does not have to be more complicated than working with installation software.

James · 05-10-2002, 10:39 PM

Mountainmaster
I've spend around two hours to find out the following Hex values of 9 positions for the starfish on glass
plz refer to the image
A
ec df a7 c0 3d 83 32 c0 cd cc 8c bf
B
9c b3 94 c0 ed c6 12 c0 cd cc 8c bf
C
88 c0 67 c0 16 39 37 c0 cd cc 8c bf
D
0c b8 e7 bf 77 eb 4b c0 cd cc 8c bf
E
d5 31 12 bd 8f e7 42 c0 cd cc 8c bf
F
a7 68 b0 3f 73 cc 45 c0 cd cc 8c bf
G
81 2a 2b 40 fe 49 5c c0 cd cc 8c bf
H
a2 e4 74 40 99 42 42 c0 cd cc 8c bf
I
44 70 aa 40 75 b3 47 c0 cd cc 8c bf

The image shows the starfish at positon "I"

memilm · 05-11-2002, 12:18 AM

You can search on Msdn from Microsoft for keyword like close(kill) application. If not too easy to implement I'll try to ask somebody for code. I am sure that are enough free codes in internet for this action.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp

Mountainmaster · 05-11-2002, 08:50 AM

James,
Thanks, good work! But as I said I still have trouble writing binaries to the registry. I can now set the StarfishAllowedGlass and StarfishOnGlass, but not the position. I thought I had that working before but apparently I was wrong.
Here is a new version that switches the starfish on and off the glass, but in the process will bury it or make it float. I found that it can correct its position, so this does not need to cause any problems. And should the starfish get stuck anyway I included a reset button. (the reset button sets StarFishPos to 00, just like Morgans starfish-restore registry script)
memilm,
Killing an application is one thing but killing a 3D screensaver may cause serious problems. It has to go through its own unloading routines otherwise it can not reset video modes and other system settings.

{MODERATOR NOTE: We are purging all these old versions of the picker. Please go to later pages to find the latest version.}

memilm · 05-11-2002, 12:14 PM

Probably can Jim implement a commandline option(to stop the saver or reload it) in the next version, or he can tell you what's happen when you set the new fishes and hit "esc"... and try to reproduce it...

Mountainmaster · 05-11-2002, 03:31 PM

And yet another version. I didn't want to waste James's hard work so I found a workaround. My app now calls regedit in silent mode to import the included reg files. Be sure to unpack them to the same directory as the executable.
The file has grown too large to attach because the picture James posted is included in the executable as you can see.
Download from here: http://home.wanadoo.nl/sfinx98/progs/picker.zip

James · 05-11-2002, 05:27 PM

Nice work Mountainmaster

and thx for what u did, I don't really mind if my work r wasted. but I know seeing starfish on glass without waiting is many ppl's wish.
The weird thing is that it seems doesn't work on my computer...
as I try to set the starfish's position, and then hit apply then hit launch button, the starfish remains where it were, it didn't change its position. But if I manually double click ur 10 registry files and apply them into the registry, it works, it seems ur program cannot appply the registry successfully on my system,
as I can see, ur registry file begins the header as "REGEDIT4" where WinXP's registry file begins with "Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00"
but WinXP can take care any registry file which start with "REGEDIT4" if u manually apply it.
so I try to edit the head myself and change them to "Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00" and STILL doesn't work, so this means it's not the head problem but somehow ur programe is a little buggy with WinXP Pro...:P
Well, I dunno what's going on in ur programe but it just didn't work on my system, weird.....I'll later try it on the WinME after I reboot back to WinME

Maybe u can ask memilm how did he port the registry, he's original one port the registry from a txt ini file.

Does anyone with WinXP Pro experienced the same problem or just me?

Any fish picker beta tester here? I saw there are many downloads of the attachment, but only few replies....

Swede · 05-11-2002, 06:01 PM

Same on my XP system...

Mountainmaster · 05-11-2002, 06:49 PM

My app makes a direct call to regedit.exe, maybe it has a different name in XP? If so can you tell me which? I could also call the regfile directly, but that way it is impossible to set the silent flag /s.
Why did that **** M$ have to change so many things in XP, it's a programmer's nightmare.

Swede · 05-11-2002, 07:27 PM

The WinXP regedit.exe has the identical name...

From WinXP helpfile:
"The registry in Windows XP, 64-Bit Edition is divided into 32-bit and 64-bit keys. Many of the 32-bit keys have the same names as their 64-bit counterparts, and vice versa. The default, 64-bit version of Registry Editor that comes with Windows XP, 64-Bit Edition displays only the 64-bit keys.

To view or edit 32-bit keys from the registry of a computer running Windows XP, 64-Bit Edition, you must use the 32-bit version of Registry Editor in the %systemroot%\Syswow64 folder. You must close the 64-bit version of Registry Editor before you can open the 32-bit version, and vice versa. There are no differences in the way you perform tasks between the 32-bit version of Registry Editor and the 64-bit version of Registry Editor.

To open the 32-bit version of Registry Editor, click Start, click Run, type %systemroot%\syswow64\regedit, and click OK."

Maybe this is a clue...

Mountainmaster · 05-11-2002, 09:06 PM

Swede,

You mean you have the 64-bit version? But I thought that only runs on an Itanium processor! http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/overview.asp
Or did this accidently sneak into the helpfile of the regular 32-bit version?
This is not really helpful I am afraid. Anyway I uploaded a new revision which also passes the working directory to regedit. I keep hoping.

BTW what happens when you type in the command line: regedit.exe /s x:\apppath\a.reg

where x is of course your drivename and apppath.... well, you get the point.

James · 05-11-2002, 09:58 PM

I tried
with regedit.exe D:\Documents and Settings\James\Desktop\Fish picker\h.reg
Nothing happend....checked with the value and it remains the same...no wonder why it doens't change at all

James · 05-11-2002, 10:08 PM

FINALLY!!
After so may trial of tests to figure out the problem...I finally know why.....

If u type
regedit.exe D:\Documents and Settings\James\Desktop\Fish picker\h.reg
windows will popup a dialog saying error becoz the path is incorrect, and reg cannot be imported
but if u type
regedit.exe D:\FishPicker\h.reg
it succefully imported the value after u click ok on a pop-up asking r u sure....

can u see the differernce?
YES, the path name!!!!! If any path name contains any space char, the path become invalid. and since the slient flag /s means slient, it won't report if it faild to import the registry.....

Man, it's the stupid Windows problem not ur problem....@@
stupid M$

but is there anyway to solve this?
maybe u can try those programming forum and ask for a way to solve the path name problem

Swede
Try to unpack them in a folder with its path name has no spaces...
it'll work

Mountainmaster · 05-11-2002, 10:25 PM

Yes, I noticed it too. In winMe it also gives an incorrect path error in silent mode. I previously had the app installed in a dir with short name when I tested. But trimming the spaces does not help. I think I will have to dig up my dosname converter module, which will convert to something like: d:\docume~1\James\desktop\fishpi~1\h.reg
Maybe you could try that name for me?

Speaking of my dosname converter, you can download that here: http://home.wanadoo.nl/sfinx98/progs/dosnaam.zip

James · 05-11-2002, 10:34 PM

ha..I was going to post this solution and u already come out with that...nice one....
yes, this one works very well....

James · 05-11-2002, 10:50 PM

[off topic]
I really like ur dosname converter
it's really a nice little tools.....
u really like one of my friend who always likes to make himself some interesting modules onyl for fun.....he's a programming enthusiast....I guess u r the same rn't u?

anyway...I admire that....I also like to programming but not as enthuse as my friend
[/off topic]

feldon34 · 05-11-2002, 11:10 PM

James, which is why pathnames on Windows 95, 98, 2000, and XP should always have quote (") marks around them.

"C:\Program Files\Accessories\Windows NT\Wordpad.exe"

05-09-2002, 11:38 PM	#22
James Principal Engineer as SDET Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Was in Auckland, New Zealand, Now in Taipei, Taiwan Posts: 1,406	What about asking ppl here to submit some binary values of starfish's position? maybe y can predefine 10 diff positions and the only thing u can do is collecting all these 10 position values and make them available in ur program? this way u don't have to wait ur starfish crawl on the glass and exit SSA and go into registry to recorde it's value repeately..... I can submit some values if u like James C Chen Principal Engineer as SDET, Connected Services HTC Corporation 88 Section 3. Zhongxing Road Xindian District, New Taipei City 231, Taiwan www.htc.com

05-10-2002, 05:52 AM	#23
memilm Registered Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: germany Posts: 259	Restart screensaver I found that to end an application you need to call seven times the user32.dll (GetDesktopWindow,GetWindow,GetClassNameA,GetWindo wTextAPostMessageA,SetForegroundWindow functions)...

05-10-2002, 09:58 AM	#24
Mountainmaster Liopleurodon Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: 3rd planet Posts: 314	James, Good idea, it would be helpfull if you could post some binaries for the starfish's position. But I have to say that I am not sure if I can finish this project. My program can write the position values to the registry correctly, but it has problems with short binaries. Right now if I write "1" as binary it shows up in the registry as 01 00 00 00 where it should be 01. When reading the StarfishOnGlass key the aquarium does not recognize it and changes back to default 00. Result: a floating starfish. Since I use a registry module that was written by someone else, it could take a while to figure out what is going wrong. memilm, For someone who "cannot write programs" you know an awful lot about it. I must confess that I am not really a programmer either but I just like to toy around with Visual Basic. Most of the difficult code I use was copied and pasted from various internet VB sites. If you can get your hands on Visual Basic you will see that programming does not have to be more complicated than working with installation software. Last edited by Mountainmaster; 05-10-2002 at 03:42 PM.

05-11-2002, 08:50 AM	#27
Mountainmaster Liopleurodon Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: 3rd planet Posts: 314	James, Thanks, good work! But as I said I still have trouble writing binaries to the registry. I can now set the StarfishAllowedGlass and StarfishOnGlass, but not the position. I thought I had that working before but apparently I was wrong. Here is a new version that switches the starfish on and off the glass, but in the process will bury it or make it float. I found that it can correct its position, so this does not need to cause any problems. And should the starfish get stuck anyway I included a reset button. (the reset button sets StarFishPos to 00, just like Morgans starfish-restore registry script) memilm, Killing an application is one thing but killing a 3D screensaver may cause serious problems. It has to go through its own unloading routines otherwise it can not reset video modes and other system settings. {MODERATOR NOTE: We are purging all these old versions of the picker. Please go to later pages to find the latest version.} Last edited by feldon34; 11-26-2002 at 10:58 PM.

05-11-2002, 12:14 PM	#28
memilm Registered Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: germany Posts: 259	end or reload the saver Probably can Jim implement a commandline option(to stop the saver or reload it) in the next version, or he can tell you what's happen when you set the new fishes and hit "esc"... and try to reproduce it...

05-09-2002, 06:21 PM	#21
Mountainmaster Liopleurodon Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: 3rd planet Posts: 314	Thanks for the feedback everyone. I will try to answer your questions. memilm, I would like to stick with the dropdownlist because of the small amount of space it takes in an already crowded window. For the same reason the exit button had to go, since it is not essential for the program. Ending one program from within another is of course possible but requires a lot of coding, which would take me a long time to accomplish. Much longer anyway than it takes you to hit esc. Sorry, but not. Tray icon and command-line: yes. Been there, done that before. Will be done after I solved the starfish options. hpman77, There was not enough room for the names under the pictures, but I solved that with tooltiptext. Documentation would require more research than I would like to do right now. I could not find a command-line option to start the aquarium in windowed mode. James, No luck so far with controlling starfish positions. If you just smack it to the glass from a grounded position it ends up under the sand, which is also funny. Maybe I'll just put it in that way. It seems to be able to crawl out fast enough. Of course all of this still depends on whether Jim does not oppose to my registry tweakings.

05-11-2002, 12:18 AM	#26
memilm Registered Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: germany Posts: 259	You can search on Msdn from Microsoft for keyword like close(kill) application. If not too easy to implement I'll try to ask somebody for code. I am sure that are enough free codes in internet for this action. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp

05-11-2002, 05:27 PM	#30
James Principal Engineer as SDET Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Was in Auckland, New Zealand, Now in Taipei, Taiwan Posts: 1,406	Nice work Mountainmaster and thx for what u did, I don't really mind if my work r wasted. but I know seeing starfish on glass without waiting is many ppl's wish. The weird thing is that it seems doesn't work on my computer... as I try to set the starfish's position, and then hit apply then hit launch button, the starfish remains where it were, it didn't change its position. But if I manually double click ur 10 registry files and apply them into the registry, it works, it seems ur program cannot appply the registry successfully on my system, as I can see, ur registry file begins the header as "REGEDIT4" where WinXP's registry file begins with "Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00" but WinXP can take care any registry file which start with "REGEDIT4" if u manually apply it. so I try to edit the head myself and change them to "Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00" and STILL doesn't work, so this means it's not the head problem but somehow ur programe is a little buggy with WinXP Pro...:P Well, I dunno what's going on in ur programe but it just didn't work on my system, weird.....I'll later try it on the WinME after I reboot back to WinME Maybe u can ask memilm how did he port the registry, he's original one port the registry from a txt ini file. Does anyone with WinXP Pro experienced the same problem or just me? Any fish picker beta tester here? I saw there are many downloads of the attachment, but only few replies.... James C Chen Principal Engineer as SDET, Connected Services HTC Corporation 88 Section 3. Zhongxing Road Xindian District, New Taipei City 231, Taiwan www.htc.com Last edited by James; 05-11-2002 at 05:37 PM.

05-11-2002, 06:01 PM	#31
Swede Registered Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Karlskrona, Sweden Posts: 172	Same on my XP system... 4x / F C Am G F C Am G // Chorus: 3x /F C Am G F C Am G//

05-11-2002, 06:49 PM	#32
Mountainmaster Liopleurodon Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: 3rd planet Posts: 314	My app makes a direct call to regedit.exe, maybe it has a different name in XP? If so can you tell me which? I could also call the regfile directly, but that way it is impossible to set the silent flag /s. Why did that **** M$ have to change so many things in XP, it's a programmer's nightmare.

05-11-2002, 07:27 PM	#33
Swede Registered Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Karlskrona, Sweden Posts: 172	The WinXP regedit.exe has the identical name... From WinXP helpfile: "The registry in Windows XP, 64-Bit Edition is divided into 32-bit and 64-bit keys. Many of the 32-bit keys have the same names as their 64-bit counterparts, and vice versa. The default, 64-bit version of Registry Editor that comes with Windows XP, 64-Bit Edition displays only the 64-bit keys. To view or edit 32-bit keys from the registry of a computer running Windows XP, 64-Bit Edition, you must use the 32-bit version of Registry Editor in the %systemroot%\Syswow64 folder. You must close the 64-bit version of Registry Editor before you can open the 32-bit version, and vice versa. There are no differences in the way you perform tasks between the 32-bit version of Registry Editor and the 64-bit version of Registry Editor. To open the 32-bit version of Registry Editor, click Start, click Run, type %systemroot%\syswow64\regedit, and click OK." Maybe this is a clue... 4x / F C Am G F C Am G // Chorus: 3x /F C Am G F C Am G// Last edited by Swede; 05-11-2002 at 07:30 PM.

05-11-2002, 09:06 PM	#34
Mountainmaster Liopleurodon Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: 3rd planet Posts: 314	Swede, You mean you have the 64-bit version? But I thought that only runs on an Itanium processor! http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/overview.asp Or did this accidently sneak into the helpfile of the regular 32-bit version? This is not really helpful I am afraid. Anyway I uploaded a new revision which also passes the working directory to regedit. I keep hoping. BTW what happens when you type in the command line: regedit.exe /s x:\apppath\a.reg where x is of course your drivename and apppath.... well, you get the point.

05-11-2002, 09:58 PM	#35
James Principal Engineer as SDET Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Was in Auckland, New Zealand, Now in Taipei, Taiwan Posts: 1,406	I tried with regedit.exe D:\Documents and Settings\James\Desktop\Fish picker\h.reg Nothing happend....checked with the value and it remains the same...no wonder why it doens't change at all James C Chen Principal Engineer as SDET, Connected Services HTC Corporation 88 Section 3. Zhongxing Road Xindian District, New Taipei City 231, Taiwan www.htc.com

05-11-2002, 10:08 PM	#36
James Principal Engineer as SDET Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Was in Auckland, New Zealand, Now in Taipei, Taiwan Posts: 1,406	FINALLY!! After so may trial of tests to figure out the problem...I finally know why..... If u type regedit.exe D:\Documents and Settings\James\Desktop\Fish picker\h.reg windows will popup a dialog saying error becoz the path is incorrect, and reg cannot be imported but if u type regedit.exe D:\FishPicker\h.reg it succefully imported the value after u click ok on a pop-up asking r u sure.... can u see the differernce? YES, the path name!!!!! If any path name contains any space char, the path become invalid. and since the slient flag /s means slient, it won't report if it faild to import the registry..... Man, it's the stupid Windows problem not ur problem....@@ stupid M$ but is there anyway to solve this? maybe u can try those programming forum and ask for a way to solve the path name problem Swede Try to unpack them in a folder with its path name has no spaces... it'll work James C Chen Principal Engineer as SDET, Connected Services HTC Corporation 88 Section 3. Zhongxing Road Xindian District, New Taipei City 231, Taiwan www.htc.com Last edited by James; 05-11-2002 at 10:18 PM.

05-11-2002, 10:25 PM	#37
Mountainmaster Liopleurodon Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: 3rd planet Posts: 314	Yes, I noticed it too. In winMe it also gives an incorrect path error in silent mode. I previously had the app installed in a dir with short name when I tested. But trimming the spaces does not help. I think I will have to dig up my dosname converter module, which will convert to something like: d:\docume~1\James\desktop\fishpi~1\h.reg Maybe you could try that name for me? Speaking of my dosname converter, you can download that here: http://home.wanadoo.nl/sfinx98/progs/dosnaam.zip Last edited by Mountainmaster; 05-11-2002 at 10:29 PM.

05-11-2002, 10:34 PM	#38
James Principal Engineer as SDET Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Was in Auckland, New Zealand, Now in Taipei, Taiwan Posts: 1,406	ha..I was going to post this solution and u already come out with that...nice one.... yes, this one works very well.... James C Chen Principal Engineer as SDET, Connected Services HTC Corporation 88 Section 3. Zhongxing Road Xindian District, New Taipei City 231, Taiwan www.htc.com

05-11-2002, 10:50 PM	#39
James Principal Engineer as SDET Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Was in Auckland, New Zealand, Now in Taipei, Taiwan Posts: 1,406	[off topic] I really like ur dosname converter it's really a nice little tools..... u really like one of my friend who always likes to make himself some interesting modules onyl for fun.....he's a programming enthusiast....I guess u r the same rn't u? anyway...I admire that....I also like to programming but not as enthuse as my friend [/off topic] James C Chen Principal Engineer as SDET, Connected Services HTC Corporation 88 Section 3. Zhongxing Road Xindian District, New Taipei City 231, Taiwan www.htc.com

05-11-2002, 11:10 PM	#40
feldon34 Forum Administrator Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 10,938	James, which is why pathnames on Windows 95, 98, 2000, and XP should always have quote (") marks around them. "C:\Program Files\Accessories\Windows NT\Wordpad.exe" "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman