266 replies to this topic

[Kanly]

I'm having a problem with the curse client (curse.com), when I try to load it to update addons for games, I get a message saying:

 

"An error has ocurred wihile attempting to load a standard Microsoft .Net library, with the curse client Xaml (UI). This is often an indication of a corrupted .Net installation.

 

We recommend visiting the Microsoft Download Center to repair your .Net installation. Would you like to go there now?"

 

the installer then goes thru the paces, nothing is really wrong with the installation. 

 

So once a week or so I have to uninstall BB, load onto explorer (ugh! it's so freaking ugly), and do my updates, reinstall BB and good to go for another week.

 

Any ideas what is actually going on?

[mojmir]

Mojmir do you think is possible to port some SystembarEx functionality to Blackboxbar?

I guess it's not that easy and I know that this kind of unification between the bars was discussed before, but I was wondering about it and wanted to ask because I really miss SystembarEX's mouse click behavior customization (or at least I miss being able to assign task close to the middle click )

 

dunno. maybe. in future.. do remind me from time to time

[mojmir]

I'm having a problem with the curse client (curse.com), when I try to load it to update addons for games, I get a message saying:

 

"An error has ocurred wihile attempting to load a standard Microsoft .Net library, with the curse client Xaml (UI). This is often an indication of a corrupted .Net installation.

 

We recommend visiting the Microsoft Download Center to repair your .Net installation. Would you like to go there now?"

 

the installer then goes thru the paces, nothing is really wrong with the installation. 

 

So once a week or so I have to uninstall BB, load onto explorer (ugh! it's so freaking ugly), and do my updates, reinstall BB and good to go for another week.

 

Any ideas what is actually going on?

 

i'd try to not to run bb as shell.. with recent versions of windows it's more and more problematic.

[tordenflesk]

I'm having a problem with the curse client (curse.com), when I try to load it to update addons for games, I get a message saying:   "An error has ocurred wihile attempting to load a standard Microsoft .Net library, with the curse client Xaml (UI). This is often an indication of a corrupted .Net installation.   We recommend visiting the Microsoft Download Center to repair your .Net installation. Would you like to go there now?"   the installer then goes thru the paces, nothing is really wrong with the installation.    So once a week or so I have to uninstall BB, load onto explorer (ugh! it's so freaking ugly), and do my updates, reinstall BB and good to go for another week.   Any ideas what is actually going on?

What's going on is the Curse Client being a piece of shite. Try using Minion instead: http://minion.mmoui.com/   ... or if you're insistant on using Curse, create a seperate user that has explorer set as shell and the curse client set to start on login. and if you want to be extra fancy you can have a batch file like this:

C:pathtoCurseClient.exepauseShutdown -L

so that once you're done with your addons just hit one key to log out of that User.

[Kanly]

What's going on is the Curse Client being a piece of shite.

Try using Minion instead:

http://minion.mmoui.com/

 

... or if you're insistant on using Curse, create a seperate user that has explorer set as shell and the curse client set to start on login.

and if you want to be extra fancy you can have a batch file like this:

C:pathtoCurseClient.exepauseShutdown -L

so that once you're done with you're addons just hit one key to log out of that User.

Yup, sounds good to me, setting up another user I think is the way to go... 

[xtp183]

bbFoomp with unicode support tested with the new build on Windows 7 x64, and works fine.

I tried loading it in the vanilla bblean 64-bit build and it didn't load. I'm guessing you lost compatibility when you added the unicode support, but it's a shame. Do you suppose you could tweak it a bit so that it also loads in vanilla bblean 64-bit?

[Enigma83]

Has anyone tried BB on Windows 10? I have, and still am. It works fine as the default shell but...............I still want to be able to use the Metro apps and other stuff that depends on Explorer. However, setting Explorer as default shell and trying to manually run BB after logging in doesn't work, it just hangs on a black screen. As I already stated at http://blackbox4wind...ge-10#entry2991, it also doesnt work to add startup Registry entries or adding a shortcut in the Startup folder, to get BB to load automatically. On Windows 8.1, BB would claim that it was being started twice if I tried to run it on startup if it wasnt the default shell. And if I manually run Explorer with BB set as default shell, the Windows 10 Start button and Taskbar appear, but clicking anywhere on the Explorer's Taskbar does nothing.

 

I understand that BB *was* *originally* meant to run as default shell, but the simple fact of the matter is that it only works well up until Windows 7. Introduce 8/8.1/10 into the picture, and minor but annoying issues start to occur. I just want the best of both worlds, with the convenience of BB loading *automatically* on startup, without hangs or black screens, or a "BB is already running" error, even though I'm not trying to run it twice.

 

I've gotten everything else satisfactorily cooperating with BB, in the apps not starting that I had problems with before (by adding exclusions for their EXEs to bbLean ignore list in its' config file). Is there really no solution to this problem? This is the only thing that pisses me off about BB, not necessarily Mojmir's build, but BB in general. Such a small thing which should be easily fixable and/or have a simple solution, but yet it doesnt because people are still stuck in the idea that BB "should" run as shell. It's all in the eyes of the beholder, some people want the best of BB and the best of what the latest versions of Windows have to offer. Even Mojmir himself admits to not running BB as shell. I'm already looking into other shells because of this.

 

I'd really appreciate some help!

[pitkon]

BB can't be run on top of explorer with full options. The best thing you can do is use a shell switcher/manager, like ShellOn or Carapace (we have a relative topic here) but I haven't tried it under 10 and not sure if it works like it should (tweaking the registry). It's worth a try.

[Enigma83]

I don't really care about full options, I know some stuff might not work right. What I'm simply asking is, how can I automatically run BB on top of Explorer at login, without having to manually start it? It's just retarded that I've tried using 2 official, documented methods for auto running an app at login (Registry and Startup folder), yet BB stupidly thinks I'm trying to run it twice, saying that it's already running. Well, no **** Sherlock, ya don't say, LOL. It seems the bigger issue is that, when I do this, either BBLean or BB or both, check to see if it's already running, resulting in it starting twice, without checking either the Startup folder or Registry beforehand. It seems so simple in theory to accomplish what I want, and yet so hard, because of the way BB is hardcodef, long before Mojmir created his build. I was thinking maybe there was some script I could edit to get BB to ignore itself running twice, or simply not run twice (on its' own) at all. I just want to make that error go away so I can use both the features of BB and Explorer.

[mojmir]

i can try that, i have win10 at home although i never tried to run it automatically.. i just never bothered, since it's just one click

[mojmir]

i did not succeeded to run bb directly, i.e. running directly c:fooblackbox.exe

 

what works is to create small batch that will run bb for you, something like:

@ECHO OFFTIMEOUT /T 2START "" "C:bbZero_develblackbox.exe"

(i think the timeout is not necessary but i'd like to run bb as last program)

 

 

and then you can either

 

A) put it in startup programs

 

simply copy the batch "C:UsersrootAppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuProgramsStartup"

or whatever the startup folder is.

there is one small issue, that bb tries to run the startup program again thus displaying the 'bb is already running message', because it really tries to run this batch again.

 

OR maybe [color=#0000ff;]better [/color]way is:

 

B ) via task scheduler

 

simply insert this batch into scheduled tasks:

• control panel / task scheduler (or hit start and type 'task sch')
• on left: select Task Scheduler Library
• on right: click Create Task...
• in the Create Task dialog:
  • General tab: provide a Name for your task
  • maybe check 'Run with highest privilegies'? (not sure, but personaly i like running bb as administrator. but i am not sure if this is what the checkbox means)
  • maybe select 'Windows 10' in 'Configure for...' (not sure if this has any effect)
• Triggers tab: click New... and select At log on
• Action tab: click New... and click Browse... and browse for the small batch you prepared earlier
• Conditions tab: uncheck Start the task only if the computer is on AC power
• Settings tab: uncheck everything i guess
  • uncheck 'Stop the task if it runs longer than:'
  • i am not sure what the first 'Allow task to be run on demand' really means

bit more complicated, but has no side effect of running bb twice as in the first case

 

if this works satisfactorily we can try to make this automatic, i.e. create some script or program to do this so that future generations have easier life

[junkie]

Hi mojmir,

 

I'd like to report a bug. Would you mind investigating (and hopefully fixing) it?

 

 

When transparency is enabled for BlackboxBar, the mouse clicks on solid surfaces fall through, i.e. don't do squat. But when transparency is disabled, you can click anywhere and it will be registered.

With transparency, you have to click on either text or bitmap pixels for the click to be registered, which is quite difficult, and counter-productive.

 

bbZero 1.18 rc6

Windows 7 x64 SP1

 

Ps.

 

There are a couple of other annoyances I've stumbled into, I'd appreciate it if you'd look at them:

http://blackbox4wind...other-problems/

 

Thanks!

[mojmir]

ok i'll look at it

[Mykiel]

B ) via task scheduler

 

This is the path I took as starting bb via batch did not work for some reason.

I choose many of the same options you did in the task preferences, which I felt were the best options anyway, except for running the process as Administrator, and pointing to the blackbox executable instead of the batch file.

 

One thing I did note about starting bb as Administrator was that OneDrive, which spawned as a child process of bb (think that's the right term), did not like being started with elevated rights. Some apps I've used have had that issue when being started from an elevated explorer process. No biggy though.

 

(I'm running this on Windows 10 build 10240 - 64-bit. I'm going to test this on build 10525 later.)

[commit-sudoku]

there are a few annoying bugs ive run into on windows 10

 

sometimes bbzero crashes and wont respond on launch, ive found to get around this i open an instance of bbzero and open another one so that it gives me the "blackbox is already running" message and after i close the previous instance it works again

 

on windows 10, sometimes some of the metro apps randomly appear in the bar without me launching them and i have to close them

 

i cant seem to add ApplicationFrameHost.exe, the thing that contains the metro apps, to bbskin exclusions, and the bbskin title bar loads under the metro one so when i press close on the metro bar i actually press the minimize or maximize button on the bbskin bar

 

new tray icons dont appear in bbiconbox until i close bbzero and open it again

 

when closing bbzero and opening it again already running tasks dont appear in blackboxbar

 

edit:

forgot to mention, sometimes ShellExperienceHost.exe shows up in the bar with either the name "window" or as a blank task

[Enigma83]

How can I hide icons in the Taskbar/tray? I'm using NetSetMan to manage my network connections, and would like to hide the default wifi icon in Windows 7. But I dont see a way to do this on a per-icon basis.

 

Using Control Panel to hide icons in the taskbar works, but only if Explorer is default shell. If I try to do the same thing with BB as shell, I get a "Windows Explorer has stopped working, and faulting module name "taskbarcpl.dll". I tried adding exceptions for explorer.exe and taskbarcpl.exe in bbLeanSkin's exclusions.rc file, but same results still.

 

Thanks!

[Enigma83]

Forget what I said about the icons..............I figured it out. I just had to Shift + right-click on the tray area, and there appeared a menu for hiding icons.

 

But now, I'm wondering if it's possible to seamlessly use BB with another virtual desktops software like Dexpot or VirtuaWin. BB's virtual desktops support is a bit lacking in the features department, and both Dexpot and VirtuaWin have many more features as well as support for plugins (of which there are many for the latter).

 

I was able to get BB working with Dexpot by adding BB to a custom exclusions file, which enable Dexpot to switch to the different desktops without getting stuck on a black screen (which is what happens without the exception in place). The only issue with this is that all windows appear on all desktops regardless of which desktop you're on. This may be a Dexpot issue, but it is probably a pecularity of using BB as default shell, since Dexpot works fine with Explorer in this regard.

 

If any is interested, I also found a 100% free tool coded in Perl, which allows you to have an infinite desktop size, called InfiniteScreen (http://ynea.futurewa...inite_screen.pl). You can scroll your desktop limitlessly, as long as you have adequate RAM/CPU, and there is no limit to the number of applications that can fit on your screen. It's not a VD software per se, but interesting, and serves as an alternative to VDs (or a compliment, if you choose to use it like that). I initially had issues with InfiniteScreen moving BB's taskbar and sidebar when I tried to scroll, as well as desktop wallpaper "tearing"), but adding window class exceptions got around this and it's now working 100% perfectly.

 

Thanks again!

[mirc00]

Hello,

 

i just downloaded your newest build and i love it. Really good work dude, its awesome. I have one question tho, i use blackbox as default shell and have the BlackBoxBar set to be at top. With bblean 1.7 it was possible to have the bar always on top and all the windows (like google chrome) can only maximize from bottom until they hit the bbleanbar (so the bar always shows). But now, with your newest build, all the windows will maximize from bottom to complete top which either blocks out the BlackBoxBar or the BlackBoxBar is always on top which is not what i want. I hope you understand what my problem is and you maybe can help me. Thanks!

 

//Nevermind, i found it, it was called "Set Desktop margin". Niiice!

[jaksco]

Thanks a bunch for this!

 

Loving rc6. My only issue is bbCalendar won't focus with plugins (it won't go to top when I click on the desktop). Also the settings won't reload if I try to manually edit the settings file of bbCalendar.

 

Thanks

[Cea]

I face two issues with latest bbZero:

•   bbZero freezes when accessing a sub-menu,
•   background picture mechanism is reacting in a weird manner.

 

Laptop : Lenovo - Win7 Pro x64 - Graphic : NVidia Quadro K1100M + "internal" Intel HD 4600

 

[font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"][color=#b22222;]1. BLACKBOX FREEZES[/color][/font]

[font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"][color=#b22222;]   ================[/color][/font]

 

I second Enigma83 for that issue (note that my laptop have the same NVidia+Intel graphic card couple):

 

"The main symptom seems to be that BB locks up when I right-click on the desktop and try to scroll the menus, particularly on the system/control menu."

 

(actually, ONLY System/Control menu do freeze BB on my side)

 

and:

 

"The mouse remains responsive, but I have to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del like 5+ times before the menu to choose Task Manager comes up."

 

(Actually Ctrl+Alt+Del brings the Task manager almost immediately on my side).

 

 

This happens whether BlackBox is set as shell or not:

 

Set as shell : KO

started under bbLean (i.e. bbLean, upon request, unloaded first) : KO

started under explorer : KO

different styles : KO

 

bbLean (1.17.1 x64) DOESN'T have that issue on the exact SAME computer and the EXACT same STYLE (well, prolly a little bit adapted on bbZero from bbLean).

 

bbZero DOESN'T have that issue using the same style + same installation (x64) on another computer using an ATI/AMD Radeon HD7570 graphic card (not an NVidia).

 

 

[font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"][color=#b22222;]2. BSETROOT/BACKGROUND WEIRD ISSUE[/color][/font]

[font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"][color=#b22222;]   ===============================[/color][/font]

 

I'm also facing an issue with bSetRoot.

 

If, in my style file, I set it to any background picture (e.g. [font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"]rootCommand: bsetroot "backgrounds/3colours/blue01.jpg"[/font] - with or without ") or any gradient RGB (e.g. [font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"]rootCommand: bsetroot -gradient diagonalgradient -from rgb:3f/00/00 -to rgb:48/48/48[/font]), THEN when I start my session either from booting up the computer or log out/log in, my default picture viewer runs and shows the background picture created as: 

 

[font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"]C:Users<my_user_id/name>AppDataRoamingbsetroot.bmp[/font].

 

The background (of my desktop) is however properly displayed and remains displayed as expected.

 

If I switch Style (picture or gradient), the [font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"]C:Users<my_user_id/name>AppDataRoamingbsetroot.bmp[/font] picture is updated/created with the current setting I switched to but the picture viewer software is not run again.

 

If I set the background as a solid color (e.g. [font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"]rootCommand: bsetroot -solid rgb:77/90/aa[/font]), THEN it briefly (1/10th second) displays the proper background filled in with the solid color I set and then it displays a grey background. It remains grey. I tried several RGB color to check if there was a particular setting that would trigger that behaviour, but all the settings I used did the same : proper background for 1/10th second, then it switch to the same "mid-"grey background. NO "[font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"]C:Users<my_user_id/name>AppDataRoamingbsetroot.bmp[/font]" file is created nor updated with [font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"]-solid[/font]. A color picker software indicates the grey is [font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"]RGB:70/70/70[/font] ([font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"]HTML:464646[/font]).

 

On the same laptop running bbLean (1.17.1 x64), the BMP is created when it is set as picture / gradient, and not when set as solid (same behaviour as in bbZero). However, The BMP is NEVER displayed automatically in my picture viewer software when bbLean starts. Moreover, the [font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"]-solid[/font] setting properly displays a solid-colored background as expected.

 

With my second computer (ATI/AMD Radeon graphic card) using bbZero, there are NO .BMP created whatever the setting of [font="'courier new', courier, monospace;"]bsetroot [/font](picture/gradient or solid). All three settings are properly displaying the regarding background.

 

 

Any idea of anything I could do to help to fix those issues ?

 

Thanks in advance and happy XMas to everyone!