TrayFish Docklet

The TrayFish - A system tray / icon notification area docklet for RK Launcher. This is still in BETA.

I programmed TrayFish in my spare time over the course of a month (most of that time spent battling with the abysmal MSDN search engine). Then, a few days before I was ready to release it, lightning struck my house killing my computer dead. D-E-D dead! It also took out my laptop, tv, tivo, ipod and Firefly dvds in case you were wondering. Luckily, I follow a regular monthly backup routine. Unluckily, the lightning zapped me right in the middle of that month so I lost a lot of my most recent TrayFish code. I've rebuilt it as best as I can remember and though this build is only about 90% of the way there, paranoia about natural disasters is prompting me to preview it now just in case.

A few things you should know:

- I will not be accommodating any feature requests. Due to financial considerations (including an appendectomy on Halloween that I am still paying for) I am unable to build myself a new computer just yet. I am currently using an eight year old Fujitsu Lifebook (P2-400, 128 megs, W98) just so I can surf and email at home. (Anybody got some spare computer parts they want to donate to a poor, lightning phobic programmer, haha ?) Anyways, it is pretty much impossible to do any real programming on this Lifebook so I cannot accommodate any feature requests should they come up.

- May be mildly incompatible with Y'z Dock. It works but you get an access violation when you exit Y'z.

- TrayFish currently only has a static display. UPDATE: Fixed.

- It's ugly and jaggy I know. Antialiasing, alpha-blend and themes? You guessed it. ZAP!

- While TrayFish does its best to display every app in the tray, some icons elude it for now. If that happens, you'll see a question mark instead.

- Tooltips? Zap. UPDATE: Fixed.

- The code to pass mouseclicks to the trayed apps is still a bit flaky. Though TrayFish does its best to pass on left, right and double clicks, it sometimes just won't take. In particular, utorrent right now can't seem to be doubleclicked to restore its window.

- Updates? Well, if real life doesn't throw me any more curve balls then maybe by February or March next year my fingers will be back tapping the keys like hamsters on crack again. Until then well, TrayFish is what it is.

TrayFish.zip

Attachment: TrayFish.zip

#430755

good stuff, I like it ! and it works for Yz Dock aswell

#430756

It´s only shows a big questionmark for me? (<- like this ^^)

EDIT: Ok, I found out, how it works... >_<

#430757

bummer about your surgery and the lightning. good luck with everything. (firefly: best show ever? maybe!)

#430762

hi man

what a f*ck the ZAP, sorry man.i feel it sometimes.

I like how your work goes. i like the idea on click and systray´s icons appear. so nice.

I am waiting for the next.

Thanks so much guy for share it.

good job.

#430784

good stuff, I like it ! and it works for Yz Dock aswell

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Dreadnaut: Unfortunately, I have just tested TrayFish with Y'z Dock and it seems it is mildly incompatible with Y'z at the moment (a fact you will see when you exit Y'z Dock -- an access violation error occurs). I suspect this is a problem with Y'z having been programmed with an earlier version of Visual C++ while TrayFish was done on a newer version (differing heap management strategies, I think).

#430918

Just tried it and at first couldn't see anything but a blue capsule. Figured that it might be a conflict with something else. Since I have ObjectBar, it also means I have Stardock's Trayserver installed. Went to WTM and stopped the Trayserver process. Tried TrayFish again and now could see several tray icons. Good start. Sorry to hear about what you went through but L.I.F.E. happens to each and everyone of us. The same thing happened to me a couple of years ago during my early stints with Aqua-Soft. Lost 3 PCs, 1 iMac, 2notebooks, 2 hubs, 3 printers, 5 televisions, 3 phones, 2 Firewire Digital Video Cams, and several other household appliances. I suffered a breakdown after that and couldn't bring myself to work for a while. (That was part of the reason I was offline for over a year). Anyway, I feel for you and wish you the best. If there is a way I can help spare a few bucks, PM me.

#430927

Unfortunately, I have just tested TrayFish with Y'z Dock and it seems it is mildly incompatible with Y'z at the moment (a fact you will see when you exit Y'z Dock -- an access violation error occurs)...

I could click on the docklet, see the tray pop up, click on the icons and use their right-click menu.

Only thing, there were something like 5 network connection icon No exceptions raised when I closed it !

#430928

GameBoyzGB - That's very kind of you to offer, thank you.

Dreadnaut - Well good for you. It's nice to hear something's going right finally. I must confess that I tested it on my brother's computer but I neglected to check the version of Y'z he had. As for the 5 network connections, thanks for telling me - it's on my todo list. Out of curiosity, how many should you have? And if the answer is just one, if you do a Properties on it how many items do you have listed in This connection uses the following items? Finally, try opening up Task Manager then clicking on TrayFish. Icons galore.

#431026

It´s only shows a big questionmark for me? (<- like this ^^)

EDIT: Ok, I found out, how it works... >_<

aqua_yack: just unzip the file and put the "TrayFish.dll" to RK_Launcherdocklets

remind that you must put the "trayfish.dll" into a new folder in the docklets folder

it's just like that:

RK_Launcherdocklets[trayfish]

then you put the dll file in to the new folder:[trayfish]

#431134

This is the network connection bug:

The one that is circled is the only one that reacts to clicks,

there should only be one Network Icon.

Probably TyayFish is pulling all the status icons from the Network Connections Trayitem.

#431163

I have the same network bug, not a big problem, because of the quality of the docklet.

I really like it. Keep it up, and don't worry

#431488

I like it!

this is what RK launcher needs to win all other dock's ...

keep the nice work!

#432345

Again, thank you for the kind words and feedback. It's a terrible oversight on my part, I've had network connections hidden since day one and never had wireless so I missed this bug. Although the system tray is actually just a toolbar, it is the undocumented stuff in the toolbar that the docklet has to interpret to recreate the tray. As it stands, what you are seeing is a graphical representation of the raw data, pretty much. You'll have to excuse me if I'm oversimplifying and telling you stuff you already know. I used to work in tech support and now have a bad habit of speaking to the lowest common denominator.

UPDATE: I've added filtering for invalid network connection icons (and task manager too). Let me know if this fixes the issues with the duped icons.

#432639

Yep, It works!

Thanks!!

#432824

Works better now. Just a couple of question mark icons for AveDesk and nVidia. Now if you can find a way to make it work even if Stardock's Trayserver is running, and if you can make it user skinnable, your app should be perfect then.

Thanks for this.

Cheers

#432854

Well, it seems it's not completely impossible to write code in just notepad. Very Zen, very existential and also very possible. Lotsa new stuff. Try it out and tell me what you think.

#433482

keep it coming! it's better now!

can you make it fade in faster? and if you need skins or orther gfx stuff please conntact me!

jamon@beotel.yu

small reference =) http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/424710...h+age_scale%3A5

#433492

woah woah

it froze my computer for like 10 seconds before things like asploded with all the delayed events I had triggered

never gonna touch that again

#433965

Netlimiter is also showing a questionmark.

Anything you need to get behind those questionmark apps?

Great tool so far, I like it a lot and have been waiting for something like that for ages. Thanks a lot!

#434371

im converting my new windows to mac as we speak but i dont know how u start up this dll with RKLauncher??? any suggestions of how to add it?

as usual as u ask you work it out

#435225

Great docklet preview! Very useful. I've just installed it and so far so good... Is there any icon for it? For now I'm using the rocket one (RK Louncher), but if there is already a more specific one I'd like using it.

Keep the good work and thanks!

#438188

Just tried it, I really like it! No problems with it working.

#440823

I just get a big question mark, What I am doing wrong ?

Thanks

#440860

The default icon is a black & white question mark, you can change that if you want. But to get access to you taskbar minimized items, you just left click on the big question mark and a small capsule will pop up

#441114