Development History

Changes in v1.4.2:

• (Bugfix) Extra effort to avoid "Timeout" errors on some systems.
• (Bugfix) Restored the "alternative menu order" option, but renamed it to "new items at the top" and reversed the logic.
• (Bugfix) Fixed a sample display format that included unquoted '%' symbols, since '%' symbols are required to be quoted.
• (Bugfix) Calendar now copes with locales that don't have proper abbreviated day-of-week names (such as Bulgaria).
• (Bugfix) Broken link in help file corrected.
• (New) Warning message if Windows Resource Meter applet is not available.

Changes in v1.4.1:

• (Bugfix) Calendar year range of 1601 - 3999 was not properly enforced.
• (Changed) Some other minor changes to the calendar left/right control buttons.

This is the (almost) complete list of changes in v1.4 since the previous version:

• (New) Added DDE server to TCLOCKEX.DLL and 16 user-definable display elements.
• (New) Added TCSET.EXE to the project to support user-definable elements. Since the shell expands environment variables on the commandline, this can be used to display the contents of environment variables in TClockEx.
• (New) Added TCLOCKEX.CPL to add a "Clock" item to the Control Panel that brings up TClockEx Properties, with UI option to disable it.
• (New) Hotlinks to website and email.
• (New) Date ordinal element ('#') to display "1st", "2nd", "3rd" and so on.
• (New) Swatch internet time display element ('@' or '@@').
• (New) Booth mode that removes "TClockEx Properties" and some other options from the context menu.
• (New) Displays name and size of selected font.
• (New) Added "Calendar", "Resources" and "Menu" property pages and rearranged various controls to fit the new pages.
• (New) Added separate "auto-close" option to calendar so the window can remain open when losing focus without being topmost.
• (New) Calendar returns to the previously displayed month.
• (New) Calendar uses special cursors when cursor is over the next/previous month buttons.
• (New) Calendar can highlight certain days of the week (such as weekends). This was previously possible, but there was no UI support.
• (New) Font option for calendar. This was previously possible, but there was no UI support.
• (New) Added UI support for click/double-click settings on the clock window.
• (New) F1 on calendar window brings up help on Calendar topic.
• (New) Tooltip can display multiple lines (probably needs &= IE3 or something). Still an absolute length limit of 80 characters - nothing I can do about that.
• (Changed) Free RAM element is now formatted, for example "3,029 kB" instead of "3029 kB".
• (Changed) CPU and resource elements in the format elements menu are greyed out under WinNT as a reminder that they don't work with NT.
• (Changed) Resource elements in the format elements menu are greyed out if RSRC32.DLL is not available.
• (Changed) If RSRC32.DLL is not available, resource elements display as zero instead of blank.
• (Changed) DLL is now able to stop CPU monitoring when it is not required.
• (Changed) Moved some calendar context menu options to the properties dialog, but added an option to access the Properties dialog.
• (Changed) Enforced lower and upper limits (1601-3999) on the calendar's year range because some people were too curious... so yes, TClockEx is Y3k compliant!
• (Changed) Calendar first day of week can now be any day. This was previously possible, but there was no UI support.
• (Bugfix) Context menu accelerators work (I hope).
• (Bugfix) Clock panel now resizes when day changes to make sure that the panel width matches any changes to the day and month names.
• (Bugfix) Closing Windows applets such as Notepad sometimes caused the help file to close too.
• (Bugfix) Now ensures that the Properties window is not off the edge of the screen somewhere when it comes up.
• (Bugfix) TClockEx now loads properly with Traysaver installed on the computer.
• (Bugfix) Daylight savings transitions should (hopefully) work properly now, but there is the possibility of an occasionally flicker as a side-effect.
• (Bugfix) Day-of-year number was calculated incorrectly during February 2000.
• (Bugfix) Context menu on calendar window now only appears when the client area of the window is clicked instead of all the time. Right-clicking the title bar brings up the usual window context menu.
• (Bugfix) Context menu no longer comes up when right-clicking other parts of the taskbar (IE4).
• (Bugfix) LClick the calendar to scroll the month then RClick without releasing LButton, and the months continue to scroll even after both buttons are released.
• (Bugfix) Potential for overflow problems with CPU and memory load lines has been avoided.
• (Bugfix) Advanced properties: If memory indicator is off when the dialog is created, the "physical memory only" checkbox is not greyed.

Older Versions

Version 1.3.3 fixes just one bug that inadvertently found its way into the version 1.3.2 update: the taskbar auto-hide feature stopped working due to an oversight on my part. This fix is the only change from v1.3.2.

These are the most significant changes that went into v1.3.2:

• Fixed: If the clock display was narrower than all the tray icons and the taskbar was double-height, TClockEx would display garbage to the right of the clock. (As far as I can tell, this only affects Windows 98 and Windows 95 with Internet Explorer 4's desktop enhancements installed.)
• Fixed: For some non-English languages, the calendar window was too narrow causing the numbers and/or month names to run into each other. The calendar window size is now determined from the font size.
• Improved: Increased the time allowed for TClockEx to install because some people with slow computers were still having timeout problems.
• New: A single click on the clock brings up the calendar window; a double-click performs the same action as the "Copy" menu item (copy to clipboard).
• New: Calendar can now be made Topmost so it doesn't disappear by itself, and can save and return to its previous position. Also, added the ability to display week numbers on the calendar.
• Resolved: The "Divide Error" problem that some people were experiencing. It's not a problem with TClockEx, so I can't really call this a bugfix.
• Removed: The debug code that was added to a later release of version 1.3.1 in order to help solve the "Divide Error" problem. (It worked!)

Version 1.3 was a significant upgrade over all previous versions of TClockEx. If you have not already done so, you should upgrade to the latest version. Your reward for doing so will be access to these nice features (and more):

• Popup calendar
• Copy the clock to the clipboard
• Customizable tooltip
• More flexible clock formats, with extra information such as resources and CPU usage, week numbers, multiple display lines, etc.