266 replies to this topic

[pitkon]

I treid to search for in on google and here on forum. Do you know where I can download BBMail ?

As in the case of everything else, build- and plugin-wise, in our Downloads section  http://blackbox4wind...e-mail-plugins/

[mojmir]

i just fixed the 'placement' menu in bbbar

[spysiuk]

i just fixed the 'placement' menu in bbbar

Great. That was fast Thank you.

[mojmir]

* fiddled with alpha and blackboxbar. it still does not seem right

* fixed the placement menu in bbbar

* merged modified bbpager supporting two-dimensional workspaces

* added item 'pinned in taskbar' into iconbox where the menu items 'desktop, quicklaunch, ...' are. these should reflect the programs 'pinned at task bar' as in win7 etc

 

 bbZero_1.18rc3.rar   18.75MB   175 downloads

[mojmir]

i tried two other mentioned bugs:

 

1) bbiconbox is (almost) working fine - after restarting my computer, I have no icons on autohided boxes. When I reload the plugin everything is working fine.

 

unfortunately this does not happen on my computer (i tried with desktop autohidden box).. i'd need exact repro for that

 

2) from asp_id : i reproduced that, debugged and it seems to me that the insert_path was refactored by someone who forgot to write piece of code, or suddenly died or something like that.

[spysiuk]

1) bbiconbox is (almost) working fine - after restarting my computer, I have no icons on autohided boxes. When I reload the plugin everything is working fine.

 

unfortunately this does not happen on my computer (i tried with desktop autohidden box).. i'd need exact repro for that

 

I'll try to play around with my configuration to see if I can trace why it's happening to me. In the meantime I've just found another reason for icons to disappear. If you install a application that adds shortcut to desktop (set to autohide) all icons from desktop box disappear. I've tested this twice, each time installing different applications.

The same goes for uninstalling the apps.

[mojmir]

just fixed that (and probably all similar "autohide & empty" bugs).

i simply disabled the optimization 'do not reload content if hidden'. in order to make this optimization work there has to be some callback 'on hidden' and 'on unhidden'. i do not see anything like that now, so easier to disable it right now.

[KillingSpree]

Hey guys, so I'm running Windows 8.1 and when I install rc3 and select "Set as Shell" then logout, it does nothing; just loads explorer. So I tried to use bsetshell.exe for all users to blackbox, but when I load into my account there is no shell at all. I opened task manager and ran blackbox.exe as administrator and it continues to be black. If I press on the blackness it says blackbox.exe isn't loading (similar to my first problem with rc2 that randomly fixed itself), and crashes. Multiple attempts at running it provide the same result. If I keep explorer as default shell and run blackbox.exe it will load it fine. Any help would be appreciated!

 

Edit: Installing rc2 and setting as shell works fine; back to blackbox! 

[pitkon]

Have you tried installing rc3 while on rc2?

[KillingSpree]

It wouldn't overwrite blackbox.exe because it was in use, so I was unsure how

[pitkon]

You could try deactivating Blackbox (killing process) or use an app like Unlocker

[KillingSpree]

Never knew about unlocker! Found a Windows 8 Alternative http://lockhunter.com/, Will try and update post with results!

 

Edit: Can't overwrite because of bbLeanSkinEng.dll running. Not sure what to kill.

Edit: Okay, after I installed over rc2 it gave me same results, just boots to explorer.

[pitkon]

Never knew about unlocker! Found a Windows 8 Alternative http://lockhunter.com/, Will try and update post with results!

 

Edit: Can't overwrite because of bbLeanSkinEng.dll running. Not sure what to kill.

Edit: Okay, after I installed over rc2 it gave me same results, just boots to explorer.

OK, I guess mojmir must see to that...

[mojmir]

KillingSpree:

few quick notes before i return to bed (have a cold, man's worst enemy)

 

1) installer and set as shell: this is kinda weird, because it's not (yet) implemented in the installer i think we see some placebo in action

 

the reason is simple - i got that working until the point "and now i just call bsetshell with some cmd args and there we are". but bsetshell is a gui only application. so i have two ways: make bsetshell understand commandline version or modify the registry in the nsis installer we are using. and there i stopped as they are usually more important bugs.

 

2) i tried to install as shell on win 8 (not sure which 8 or 8.1) few days ago and it quite worked. but i see you edited the post, so maybe you solved it?

 

3) ad bbLeanSkin dll

most of the time this happens when you terminate blackbox improperly and blackbox skinning dll remains hooked into target process (like firefox, explorer).

 

what i do in these situations is i run procexp.exe from microsoft's system internal suite:

 

http://technet.micro...s/bb842062.aspx

 

 how_to_remove_locked_bbleanskingeng.png   86.78KB   0 downloads

 

personally, this p***s me off, mainly when debugging.

[KillingSpree]

Thank you mojmir, but no I was not able to get rc3 to work correctly for some reason. rc2 still works just fine. Rc3 just boots into a black screen(only if it's the default shell), if I click the black screen blackbox.exe stops responding.

[mojmir]

okay, will try with newer version... (last time i tried this was also something like rc2)

[mojmir]

seeing all the problems on win8 i start wondering whether it makes sense to run blackbox as shell.

 

this is maybe for another thread... but:

what is the motivation anyway?

 

speaking mainly of win7/win8:

from my point of view when i set my bb 'as shell' i loose some of windows functionality. first it's start menu (via ctrl+escape). i kinda miss that, mainly because of the windows integrated search. when i want to run some infrequently used app, this is usually the place i go. then there is tray, but this little twat seems to be problematic regardless of the way you install bb. and then there are these inexplicable small issues like nonworking 'open folder in explorer' menu items in visual studio. or lately all the weird win 8.x related bugs. fixing these issues will be probably hard and would require somebody who really knows win internals.

well it seems to me that explorer.exe is integral part of win and is futile to resist it like internet explorer

 

also maybe we could have third option in the install, that would set blackbox in 'runonstartup' or something like that, but leaving explorer on

[pitkon]

seeing all the problems on win8 i start wondering whether it makes sense to run blackbox as shell.

 

this is maybe for another thread... but:

what is the motivation anyway?

 

speaking mainly of win7/win8:

from my point of view when i set my bb 'as shell' i loose some of windows functionality. first it's start menu (via ctrl+escape). i kinda miss that, mainly because of the windows integrated search. when i want to run some infrequently used app, this is usually the place i go. then there is tray, but this little twat seems to be problematic regardless of the way you install bb. and then there are these inexplicable small issues like nonworking 'open folder in explorer' menu items in visual studio. or lately all the weird win 8.x related bugs. fixing these issues will be probably hard and would require somebody who really knows win internals.

well it seems to me that explorer.exe is integral part of win and is futile to resist it like internet explorer

 

also maybe we could have third option in the install, that would set blackbox in 'runonstartup' or something like that, but leaving explorer on

I think the motivation is that people using Win8 would love to switch to Blackbox because of Windows' shortcomings. After all, this is the point in using an alternative shell. As for the start menu, thank bbinterface for that, it can mimick almost anything. I personally don't like Windows' integrated search (I use third party apps for that) but different strokes...

[KillingSpree]

Personally I use it now because I like being able to alter anything; and the old shell was getting a bit stale. If you want search functionality back you should try out Everything(http://www.voidtools.com/). It's a way better search engine .. Yes it will definitely require hard work but I feel it is important to extend the option to Windows 8 users at least, even if it may be buggy because this will gain interest in the topic! Also I think running it ontop of explorer defeats the purpose of having an alternative shell.

[tordenflesk]

Explorer is for opening/moving/deleting files(and for launching bsetshell.exe). What is this silly notion of setting it as shell?

 

I'm a big fan of apps that do one/a few thing(s) and that one thing well.

 

For mojmir's examples:

 

Everything - File Search

Launchy - Run apps, ahk-scripts, control panel items, reboot/logoff etc.

BlackBox - Auto-hidden Sys-tray, Virtual Desktops, "windows" hot-keys and a menu for occational access to start-menu shortcuts/config of BlackBox.

 

I don't know much about the VS 'Open folder in Explorer' issue spesifically, but I see the issue in Firefox and I've fixed that by remembering where I download files and having a decent folder structure.

The use of that "feature" in most apps I see as a hotfix to PEBKAC. People who forget/don't know where they saved something aren't typically the kind of users who would replace their shell...

 

That said, I don't mind you not prioritizing Win8 at all. it's this generation's WinME/Vista. Get it solid on W7 first, then conquer the world.