Test by @Macarlo
Screenshots by NamoCapture

 Hi All.
Several Windows 95/98 users requested and I decided test RipBAR 2000 on Windows NT. Here is an useful enhancement for your desktop, totally customizable. Runs fine on my NT4 SP6 Server.

New Features

§       RipBAR items now have a "style" property that you can set in that item's properties dialog. This lets you set each item to be normal size, double width, double height etc... Styles also include "Caption right" so that item names appear next to their icon. For some of the tools, this is especially convenient because it means that more information can be displayed.

§       "Preferences" has been renamed to "Options" in RipBAR's main menu because that is the term most modern applications use these days. Both the new Options dialog as well as Item  Properties dialogs have been revamped and things are generally more consistent. For  instance, the Clock and Memory tools now have Property dialogs like any other item.

§       The Clock tool now has an analog display format. The Performance tool now has a Histogram display format.

§       There is a new Group Navigator tool which you can enable from the Display page in the Options dialog. This will place a "banner" at the top of the bar which displays in large  text the name of the group you're currently in. When you click on this banner, a menu drops down -- allowing you to quickly navigate to any other group. It can be used in addition to, or instead of the group tabs.

§       There is a new Sounds page in Options that allows you to assign sounds to a wide variety of RipBAR events. Though there are quite a number of choices listed, only a few of the events are "hooked up"... we'll get this done for the next beta.

§       There is a new Color page in Options that allows you to assign colors to individual RipBAR display components -- so you're no longer limited to having RipBAR's display  match the Windows standard. You could have a black bar with green highlights for instance. There are about 10 display components that can be customized -- most of them except for some of the border colors are hooked up and working. If you have suggestions for other customizable display components, let us know.

§       There is a page in Options labeled "Advanced" where we'll list and allow users to modify advanced settings -- settings that were often hidden before. None of these settings are hooked up yet. Probably for the next beta...

During the installation you are asked about several customizations

§       There is a Themes page in Options. Themes are convenient ways of storing custom color and font settings. From this page, you can load and save Themes. When you load a theme, your colors will change as will the fonts (and font colors).

§       When you right-click on an item on the bar (assuming it is an application or document), there  is a new "Target Object" menu item. When you select this, RipBAR will display the Windows Explorer context menu for that item. If for instance, the RipBAR item were a text file, there would be options to edit the file, delete the file etc.

§       You can now assign Notes to categories and in the Notes Manager, you can choose a filter so that you can view notes of belonging to a given category. Of course, you can add and edit your own categories.

§       You can now specify that a note's alarm is recurring... a number of recurring options are available.

§       Notes no longer have a menu bar... simply right click in the body of the Note and you'll get the menu. This means notes eat up a little less screen real estate.

§       We've added a new type of RipBAR item: Projects. Projects are items that you can place on the bar and when you click on them, they pop up a menu that displays all the items that the Project contains. So it's now easy to create groups of things that you don't often need access to-- and they don't take up extra room on the bar. The help file has complete information.

§       In keeping with the new Projects feature, when you drag a folder to the bar,  RipBAR will prompt you for what action to take. (e.g. Create a shortcut to the folder, create a new Project, create a new Group) The help for this dialog contains more information.

CONTACT AUTHOR

Jonathan Carroll
149 Allancroft Road
Beaconsfield, Quebec
CANADA, H9W 2P6

SoftDesign
softdesign@iname.com
http://softdesign.simplenet.com

@Macarlo, Inc.
@Macarlo's Shareware & Web
OS/2
Java Lobby Member
Java Site Accredited

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