Index
ButtonBar V3.30
Homepage: https://www.uwe-sieber.de
EMail: mail@uwe-sieber.de
Getting started
Edit Button or Mainmenu item
Edit a list of items
Edit Clipboard Menu
Edit Autostart / Autoclose Menu
Options
Problems
History
Getting started
ButtonBar works on Win2000, XP, Vista, Win7, Win8, Win10 and their Server versions. A mouse is required...
Win95/98/ME and NT4 worked before but are not tested since many years...
ButtonBar is made with Microsoft Visual Basic V6.0, so you need the VB6 Runtimes to run the BBAR.EXE.
Usually there are included with Windows. Just in case they are not:
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/vbrun60.exe
Start
When BBAR.EXE is started first time, you will see this small button near the upper right corner of the screen:
This button activates the main menu.
ButtonBar has three main functions:
A buttonbar for starting programs (that's the name comes from), the main menu for the same use, and the clipboard menu for putting short texts to the windows clipboard or execute small keyboard macros.
Additional functions are the Autostart and the Autoclose functions which starts programs when ButtonBar starts or ends resp. Autoclose worked with Win9x only.
To configure these, click on the button and go to 'Settings' or simply start to drag your favorite programs to the bar:
For all items you can define system wide hotkeys.
BBar V2.x supports Drag'n Drop:
You can drag files, shortcuts to files, folders and drives from Windows Explorer or any other program that supports OLE-Drag'n Drop on the bar.
Within the bar you can move and copy (hold down Ctrl) buttons. You can remove a button dragging it to something that wants to get it, e.g the trashcan or a textprocessor like wordpad...
The right half of the menu button selects the menu as target - the new item is added at the end.
Drag & Drop within menus isn't supported because the menus are simple Win32 menus.
Due to historical reasons BBar's postion is fixed as the Microsoft Office Shorcut Bar was back in 1994. You can only change the distance to the right border of the screen.
With parameter /NoConfig changes of the configuration are locked. So you can use BBar as start application for terminal server sessions. The user can start then only programs that you put into BBar.
Special Clicks:
Right-Click: Starts the program defined in the button's properties without looking for previous instances of it
Ctrl + Left-Click: Opens the button's properties dialog
Ctrl + Right-Click: Open a menu with "Add menu button", "Add button", "Edit button" and "Delete button"
Ctrl + Alt + Left-Click: Opens the button list
BBar V3.03 has finally program button sub-menus. To create one hold down the Ctrl key and right-click the bar where you want the new menu button and select "Add Menu Button" in the popup menu. The you can drag+drop other items into it.
If you hold down Shift BBar open a hole for 'click thru' if activated in the options.
If you have Windows Vista/Win7+ with active User Account Control - UAC, which is default, and you let run BBar "as Administrator" then you can start programs "as Administrator" without confirming a UAC dialog. The drawback is that you cannot drag'n drop items from the Windows Explorer, the Start Menu or the desktop to BBar because they all run restricted. Drag'n drop you can do only from an alternative file manager running "as Administrator" too, e.g. the 7zfm which comes with 7ZIP.
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Conditions:
BBar is Freeware.
Text for identification and for the tool-tip
A minus sign gives a separator.
The complete commandline to a program or a document;
Environement variables are resolved; You can use
%BBAR% for BBar's folder and %BBARDRIVE% for
BBar's Drive, e.g. 'D:'
*CLIP* and *CLIP2* open a clipboard menü
Seach the file for the commandline
If checked, BBar tries to activate an existing
window of the program you want to start.
So you can avoid to start a new instace of the
progam.
BBar tries to find it thru the commandline.
For BAT and PIF files you have to enter the
text of the titlebar.
BBar searche for a windows with a titlebar
thats starts or ends with this text.
You can skip this function by clicking the button
rigth instead left.
If 'Activate running program' is checked, BBar
tries to activate a window with a titlebar that
starts or ends with this text.
If this field is empty, BBar tries to find it thru
the commandline. Normally it works but not
for programs starte thru a BAT or PIF file.
Executes the commandline and gets the titlebar of
the started program window. Wait a moment
before you close the started program so BBar
can grab the text of its titlebar.
BBar makes this directory (folder) to the current
before it starts the program.
This icon will be shown on the button.
The list of icons you can choose for the button.
The first 200 icons are internal. At the end of the
list there are listed all BMP files from the folder
ICONS where BBar saves the icons it gets from
application files.
To add your selfmade icons create 16x16 BMPs
and copy them to this folder.
That's the default icon of the application or
the document you choosed. When you use
it, BBar saves it as BMP in the folder ICONS.
Defines the default windowstyle of the application -
ignored by some programs
Text for identification and for the Menu -
a minus sign results in a separator line
Text for identification
Browse for Working Directory
Browse for an icon from another file
If a program ignores the choosen windowstate
you can enable this.
BBar tries then to set the window state as soon
as the main window of the program appears.
By default the dialog font is "MS Sans Serif" which
is a bitmap font.
If Windows uses ClearType and you want this in
BBar too then activate "True Type".
[Blank Page]
[Blank Page]
a
Edit Button or Mainmenu Item
Name:
This text is used for the tooltips and for the list of buttons. If empty, BBar creates it from the filename.
A single minus sign results in a separator line. The other settings doesn't care then.
For menu items you can define menu shotcuts by adding a '&' char before the char that becomes the shotcut key. This char gets an underline, the '&' isn't shown. The shortcuts only works when the menu was opened by the system wide hotkey (see Options).
Commandline:
Here you can enter path to an executable program, a linked document or to an internet address. When the commandline is valid you see its icon on the right of "App's Icon".
Using the button "Browse..." you can search a file thru a common Open dialog.
If the application you want to add is currently running and visible you can use the 'Window Search Tool' to get its commandline: Simly grab the target mark with the mouse and drop it over the application window.
Privileges
Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003
With "As other user" you get a Windows dialog which asks for logon data of an other user account in whos context the program is started then. Microsoft has dropped this feature with Windows Vista.
"resticted" starts a program with the Administator group membership and some privilges removed.
Vista+ without UAC
"As other user" is deactivated because Microsoft has dropped this feature with Windows Vista.
"resticted" starts a program with the Administator group membership and some privilges removed.
Vista+ with UAC, BBar running with full privilegs ("elevated")
"As Administrator" isn't required and therefore deactivated.
"resticted" starts a program under the restricted UAC account, to do this, BBar charges the Windows Explorer with starting the program.
The setting for the process priority isn't available then.
Vista+ with UAC, BBar running under the restricted UAC account
"As Administrator" calls the UAC dialog and starts the program with full privileges ("elevated")
"resticted" starts a program with the Administator group membership and some privilges removed.
Priorität:
Priorität legt die Prozesspriorität des gestarteten Programms fest. Normal ist normal, hoch ist hoch, usw...
Window:
Here you can define the window style. Some programs ignore this setting.
Activate running program:
If this is enabled BBar tries to find a previous instance of the program you want to start. If it finds one, BBar activates its window instead of executing the commandline. When you click right on the button, this function is skipped. For identification of the previous instace, the text of itstitlebar can be used:
Titlebar to activate:
Here you can enter a text that is suitable for identification of the previous instance of program to start. BBar searches for windows whose title starts or ends with this text.
Without this text BBar identifies the window by its executable file.
With the button 'Get Titlebar' BBar executes the commandline, waits for the window and grabs the text of its titlebar. Wait a second before you close the executed program.
Working Directory:
BBar sets this directory to current before it executes the commandline.
Icon:
On the right of the label "Icon:" you see the icon that will appear on the button. You can choose icons from the list or the icon right off the label "App's Icon:".
In the list there are the about 200 internal icons and all icons from BMP files located in the directory ICONS.
The "App's Icon:" is the default icon of windows which is used in the Windows Explorer too. If you use this, BBar saves it as 2x(16x16) BMP in the directory ICONS. The right half of the bitmap is used as mask:
Missing image: bb_icon1.bmp results on cyan background in Missing image: bb_icon2.bmp
If you have an application for MS-DOS, BBar seaches for a PIF file with the same name in the same directory to get a better icon.
By means of "Browser..." you can select the default icon of another file or the content of an ICO file.
Hotkey:
Here you can define a system wide hotkey that has the same effect as a left click on the button..
Edit List Of Items
Choose Add to create a new item before the currently selected one.
Choose Edit to change the properties of the currently selected item.
Choose Delete to delete the currently selected items.
The order of items can be changed using the up and down buttons. It's possible to move more than one item at once by selecting them before as know from the Windows Explorer (hold down Ctrl or Shift key and click).
Program buttons and menu items can be arranged in up to 10 levels of submenus. Use the left and right arrows to change the level of the items (from a higher level to a lower level or vice versa).
Items that are one level higher than the next one lose their function. They are the root of the next submenu.
Of course it's not possible to skip a level in ascending direction.
Using the toolbar buttons you can put selected items to a file or the Windows clipboard or insert items from a file or clipboard.
BBar uses the known keyboard shortcuts of Windows:
Save: Ctrl+S
Open: Ctrl+O
Cut: Ctrl+X
Copy: Ctrl+C
Paste: Ctrl+V
Delete: Del
Edit Clipboard Menu
Name:
This text you will see in the menu and in the list of menu items. A single minus sign results in a separator line.
You can define menu shotcuts by adding a '&' char before the char that becomes the shotcut key. This char gets an underline, the '&' isn't shown. The shortcuts only works when the menu was opened by the system wide hotkey (see Options).
Text:
This text BBar puts into the Windows Clipboard. The theoretical maximum size is a bit less than 32KB.
Paste Automatically:
If activated, BBar causes the active program to insert the defined text. There are two ways to do it:
Simulate single keystrokes
With this setting BBar sends the text character by character to the active application. That's slow (about 800 chars/s), but the content of the clipboard stays untouched. Furthermore you can simulate keystrokes, so you can create small macros.
Keystrokes are defined in braces, e.g. {TAB} for the tabulator key. Right of the text box is a list of all availlable keys. On top there are about 25 fixed keys in english, then all other availlable keys as Windows named them. That differs depending to the regional settings and between Windows 95/ME and NT/2000/XP/Vista/Win7. A doubleclick on a item inserts it into the text.
{DELAY=100} isn't a key. It causes a delay of 100 Milliseconds. That's helpful for slow applications or if you have to wait of a dialog box. You can change the value when needed.
{TAB+WAIT} is great for safely jumping from textbox to textbox. It causes BBar to send the TAB key and wait until a new textbox becomes active.
The keys 'Shift', 'Ctrl' and 'Alt' takes effekt on the next 'real' key only. Thats applies to the Windows key {WINKEY} too.
If you want to insert a opening brace you have to double it because it's normally used to mark a special key like {WINKEY}.
Paste to Clipboard and simulate Ctrl+V
With this setting BBar copies the text to the Windows Clipboard. Then it either sends a WM_PASTE message to the active text control or it simualtes a Ctrl+V keystroke.
If you activate a clipboard item thru a hotkey, BBar has to simulate the release of the Ctrl, Shift and Alt keys before. This doesn't work sometimes if the hotkey uses Alt or AltGr only. No idea why, maybe because the Alt key has the hotkey function for the menus.
Hotkey:
Here you can define a system wide hotkey that has the same effect as a click on the clipboard item.
Auto paste sometimes doesn't work with hotkeys with Alt or AltGr only when pasting to a non standard text control (see above).
Autostart / Autoclose
BBar executes this entries when it's started or closed respectively. For Autostart you can enable a delay in Options which can be useful when the started programs hind each other.
AutoClose works under Win9x/ME only.
For the other items see here
Options
General
Start with Windows
If activated, BBar creates a link to the current BBAR.EXE in the startup folder if it doens't find one there. If deactivated it deletes all links that refers to the current BBAR.EXE.
Under Windows there are two active Startup folders: On for 'All Users' and one for the 'Current User'. BBar searches and deletes in both and creates in 'Current User' if applicable.
When BBar creates a link to itself, it adds the commandline parameter it has been started with to the link.
Don't show on startup until system is ready:
When BBar is ready to show the buttons, Windows may still be very busy with other programs from the Autostart folder.
If you activate this setting, BBar waits until there are no more new processes and windows created for one second.
Reload Icons on Change of Windows' color Depth
An old setting from the Windows 95 / NT4 times...
If the icons have strange colors after a change of the Windows color depth, this option can help.
Hold Windows Taskbar on top too
Some programs push themself in the foreground so BBar and the Windows Taskbar are not longer visible. BBar fights permanently against such programs to stay visible, so it can do it for the Taskbar too.
Hotkey list to Clipboard
Puts a list of all defined hotkeys to the Windows Clipboard. The names of the hotkeys may differ from these in the hotkey definition textbox.
Process Priority
When other programs cause heavy CPU usage, BBar may respond slowly. Setting BBar to 'high' priority can fix this in some cases. With 'High when active' BBar gets high priority when you move the mouse over it.
Buttonbar
Height
The height of the buttons can be 19, 20 or 21 pixel. Default is 20.
Flat Buttons
This gives the 'modern' coolbar effect. The buttons are flat as long as the mouse isn't over them. Flat buttons are one pixel less wide than the nomal buttons, so you save a bit of space.
Tool-Tips:
Here you can activate the tooltips for the buttons.
Automatic Fade Out:
When activated, BBar fades out when not used for a second. When you move the mouse pointer over BBar, it fades in. If you chosse '100% transparent' you have to move the mouse pointer to the top of the screen.
Not available under Win9x/ME/NT4.
Automatic reduce to 1 pixel:
When activated, BBar scrolls together to a 1 pixel line when not used for a second. When you move the mouse pointer over this line, BBar unrolls itself.
Softscroll:
This enables soft effects when BBar scrolls together or it corrects its position after Windows changed the screen resolution.
Restore delay:
If reduced to one pixel the BBar can delay the restore by the here configured time and check the mouse position again if it is still on the bar and if it has moved more than 3 pixels in this time. Then the bar is not restored.
Refresh exposed window:
When reducing to one pixel with softscroll, then BBar sends WM_PAINT and WM_NCPAINT messages to the exposed window to make it repaint the exposed areas. This prevents the scrolling from causing "grinding marks" on the exposed window. This was implemented for Windows 95 / NT4, probably it is no more required today
and might cause problems with some applications or on remote desktops.
Hole on Shift:
When the Shift key is preessed, BBar opens an elliptic hole under the mouse pointer so you can click things that would be obscured by BBar.
Autostart / Autoclose
Autostart Delay:
BBar can wait on startup some seconds before it executes the Autostart list. This can be useful when a program from Autostart should wait for the network or other services.
Autostart Pause:
BBar can wait between the execution of the Autostart-Items too.This can be useful when too much programs are loaded and they hinder each other.
Skip Autostart if since logon more than x Minutes:
When BBar is restarted it's normally useless to execute the Autostart list. This can be skipped with this option. Under Windows 9x BBar counts since Windows' start, under NT/2000/XP since Logon.
Skipping the Autostart can be done manually by holding the Shift key pressed while BBar start or by the /NoAutostart commandline parameter.
Skip Autoclose if closed manually
If activated, the Autoclose function is skipped if you close BBar manually.
Show items in menu
If activated, the Autostart and Autoclose items are shown in the main menu for manual execution.
Misc
Maximizer:
Fixes an annoyance of the Internet-Explorer:
When you rigth click on a link and choose 'Open link in new window', the new window isn't maximized even the old one was maximized.
In detail:
Thru a shell hook BBar gets a message when a new window is created. Then BBar checks if:
- the new and the previous window have the same windows class
- both starts or ends with the same text
- the old windows was maximized and the new isn't
- the new window has a maximize button
- the new window has the same data for the 'WindowPlacement'
If the windows meet these conditions, then BBar maximizes the new window.
Menu
3D-Effect:
If activated, the icon of the selected menu item gets a 3D frame. If deactivated the selection bar is drawn with full width of the menu.
Fix problems opening the main menu
When you click on the bar normally BBar gives the focus back to the window that was active before to aviod the flashing of its titlebar. This causes the menu to close immediately in some situations. One of them is when the Babylon Translator leaves an active but invisible window on the desktop or a visible window with zero size...
I hope my latest workarounds fix this, if not, activate this option.
Hotkey:
Here you can define a system wide hotkey that opens the menu.
Icons:
Here you can delete all unused icon files which BBar created before in its icons folder.
Distance from right screen border:
By default BBar calculates this disance by determining the width of the Windows title bar buttons (min, max and close). Just in case you have an extension installed which puts an extra button there, you can move BBar manually to make space for it.
History
V3.30 (01 Jan 2020)
Bugfix: BBar often disappeared under Windows 10 without a good reason
Bugfix: Sometimes BBar not topmost after active screensaver
V3.29 (21 May 2016)
Bugfix: Current directory of BBar's drive was set to BBar's ICONS folder
V3.28 (16 May 2016)
Bugfix: Sometimes wrong menu width
Bugfix: Sometimes the buttonbar disappeard for no reason
V3.27 (24 August 2015)
Bugfix: Windows search tool did not work
V3.26 (12 August 2015)
Bugfix: Flickering on Alt+Tab under Windows 10 fixed
New: Timeout on starting a programm increased to 10 Seconds
New: Default distance from right under Win10 is 150 pixels because GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXSIZE) does not deliver useful data since Windows 8
V3.25 (29 June 2014)
Bugfix: Moving a button to a newly created menu button moved the wrong button if the menu button is left from the moved button
V3.24 (16 April 2014)
Bugfix: Starting a program "As Administrator" brought a minimized UAC dialog blinking in the taskbar
V3.23 (31 March 2014)
Bugfix: Starting a program "As Administrator" did not work
New: The ButtonBar Ctrl+Rightclick context menu has now a "Add menu button" item which creates a new button with one separator in its menu which is removed when the first real item is added by drag+drop
V3.22 (26 March 2014)
Bugfix: Somtimes Buttons mixed up after moving them up or down in the button list
New: Strl+Alt+Button-Click opens the button list
V3.20 (09 Feb 2014)
New: "Magic Strings" *CLIP* and *CLIP2* as commandline open the Clipboard Menu or Clipboard Menu2 resp.
New: Programm "resticted", with active UAC and BBar running elevated, starts a programm under the restricted UAC account; Without UAC it starts the program with the admin group membership removed (so far done under XP only, I don't know why I did not under Vista+)
New: Default distance from right under Win8 is now 110 pixels because GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXSIZE) does not deliver useful data
V3.18 (18 May 2013)
New: On startup BBar sets the working dir of all local drives to their root
V3.17 (07 April 2013)
Bugfix: Pasting of clipboard entries with option "each char with simulated keystroke" works now with Thunderbird and Seamonkey eMail
Bugfix: Hiding of BBar when playing videos fullscreen more reliable
Bugfix: Dropping a button into a button menu with a sub-menu end up in wrong position
V3.16 (14 Feb 2013)
Bugfix: Hotkeys incorrct assigned after moving a button
V3.15 (17 August 2012)
Bugfix: BBar flickers under Windows 8 when a 'new style' tool window covers BBar
V3.14 (13 May 2012)
New: Distance from the right screen border can be adjusted in the Options dialog
New: Dialog Font can be changed to True Type for getting ClearType effect
V3.13 (09 April 2012)
Bugfix: BBar got invisible on some Windows
V3.12 (19 March 2012)
Bugfix: Buttons above 100 had no icon in the button menus
V3.11 (17 March 2012)
New: When reducing to one pixel then BBar sends WM_PAINT messages to the exposed windows to make them redraw the exposed areas and prevent "grint lines". Made for Win9x/NT4, seems it is no more required today and might cause problems with some applications or on remote desktops. Optional now, see Options
V3.10 (16 March 2012)
Bugfix: BBar caused (again) the Windows XP error 'The WIN16 subsystem has insufficient resources to continue running' when running 16bit applications
New: If reduced to one pixel the BBar can delay the restore and check the mouse position again if it is still on the bar and if it moved too fast. See Options
V3.09 (12 March 2012)
Bugfix: CPU-load if BBar is wider than the screen
Bugfix: Button menus opened on wrong position if BBar is wider than the screen
V3.08 (8 Dec 2011)
Bugfix: Error when moving a button into a button sub-menu
V3.07 (9 Nov 2011)
New: Cleanup for unused icon files
Bugfixes: Many bugs fixed
V3.03 beta (9 Sept 2011)
New: Button sub-menus (creation in the settings only, once existing drag'n drop works)
Bugfixes: Many small bugs fixed found since 2009
V3.00 beta (9 Jan 2009)
New: BBar is Freeware now
New: Executing programs with limited privileges
New: Executing programs under different account or 'As Admin' under Vista/Win7
New: Executing programs with selectable process priority
Bugfixes: Many small bugs fixed found since 2006
V2.99 (11 Feb 2006)
Bugfix: BBar caused the Windows XP error 'The WIN16 subsystem has insufficient resources to continue running' when running 16bit applications
Bugfix: The button "Get Titlebar" has never been activated
Problem: I ran out of 2.xx version numbers ;-)
V2.98b (Nov. 11 2005)
-Bugfix: fixed theoretical freeze changing the screen resolution
V2.98a (Okt. 24 2005)
-Bugfix: V2.98 was an debug version that writes an endless growing BBar.log. V2.98a deletes it.
V2.98 (Sept. 28 2005)
-New: Option for setting BBar's process priority
-Bugfix: Some small fixes
V2.97 (Aug. 23 2004)
-New: New parameter /NoConfig to prevent changes of the configuration
-Bugfix: Black buttons when BBar is started without INI - good start for new users...
-Bugfix: Some small fixes
V2.96 (May 20 2004)
-New: BBar opens a hole for 'click thru' when the Shift key is pressed
-Bugfix: no more freeze on click when the active application is frozen (Win9x, NT4)
-Bugfix: Some small fixes
V2.95 (Jan. 1 2003)
-Bugfix: Some small fixes
V2.94 (August 25 2002)
-New: Maximizer enhanced - is perfect now ;-)
-Bugfix: Macros with Shift+WinKey locked the Shift key
V2.93 (August 1 2002)
-New: Configurable pause between the execution of the Autostart-Items
V2.92 (July 25 2002)
-New: Drag'n Drop from the Startmenu of Windows 2000 and XP works
-New: Window Search Tool for getting commandlines of running applications
V2.91 (Dec. 27 2001)
-Bugfix: Crash when configuring Buttons, Mainmenu etc.
-New: 'Force Windowsstate' and 'Maximizer' work under Windows XP (that's the new BBar.DLL is for)
V2.90 (Dec. 12 2001)
-Bugfix: Pasting items from the clipboard didn't work under some circumstances under Windows 9x/ME
-New: new item {TAB+WAIT} for macros to safely jump between textboxes
-New: in the lists of items you can copy, cut, paste, load and save items
-New: the names of key of the numpad has changed; they must be entered new; for it the keys '/', '*', '+', '-' of the numpad work now
V2.89 (May 3 2001)
-Bugfix: Error caching more than 80 menu icons
V2.88 (April 24 2001)
-Bugfix: Crash when the text of a clipboard item starts with a number > 2147483647
-Workaround: MS-Outlook crashed when BBar pasted text
V2.87 (April 16 2001)
-Bugfix: Small fixex depending the window handling
V2.86 (April 9 2001)
-Bugfix: 'Maximizer' function doesn't longer work on windows without maximize button
V2.85 (March 30 2001)
-New: 'Maximizer' function for 'open link in new window' in Internet Explorer and Netcape6
-Bugfix: Hotkeys didn't work after cancel of the Options dialog
V2.84 (March 20 2001)
-New: Small fixes and improvements
V2.83 (March 15 2001)
- Bugfix: Since V2.81 Clipborad items was pasted twice in some applications
V2.82 (Mach 14 2001)
-Bugfix: Since V2.52 sometimes icon erased from buttons
V2.81 (Mach 11 2001)
-Bugfix: In V2.80 crash when editing a button or menu item second time when option 'activate running program' is checked
V2.80 (March 3 2001)
-New: Clipboard items can be pasted without using the Clipboard (should I rename it?); Then you can simulate keystrokes which makes it possible to create small keyboard macros
-New: Defining hotkeys, BBar warns if the hotkey is already used by another item
-New: Drag & Drop can be disabled
V2.76 (Feb. 22. 2001)
- Bugfix: New buttons added by external drag'n drop caused destroyed buttons when using flat buttons
V2.75 (Feb. 14. 2001)
- Bugfix: New buttons added by external drag'n drop got a wrong icon and sometimes a wrong hotkey
V2.74 (Feb. 2 2001)
-Bugfix: Hotkey for opening the menu was lost when the Options dialog opens
-New: Alphablend effects under Windows 2000
-New: Behavior of the tooltips like standard tooltips of Windows (scroll and blend effcts)
-New: Some optimations for Windows 2000
V2.73 (Jan. 22 2001)
-New: Workaround for crash of Outlock 2000 (and others maybe) when BBar sends a WM_PASTE message to its RichText20A text control on Autopaste of a clipboard item. Now BBar simulates a Ctrl+V keypress.
V2.72 (Jan. 20 2001)
- New: Forcing of the windowstate of started programs works too if the main windows of the program isn't visible initially (e.g. Netscape 6)
V2.71 (Jan. 14 2001)
- New: After Autopaste of clipboard items BBar restores the old clipboard contents partwise (Text, Richtext and EMF)
- New: Output of a list of all hotkeys to the Windows Clipboard
- New: Autopaste works with Hotkeys too that uses Alt or AltGr only
V2.70 (Jan. 8 2001)
- New: system wide hotkeys for all items
- New: system wide hotkey for opening the main menu and hotkeys in the menu
- New: activation of running program instances works with several instances by repeated clicks
- New: Autostart and Autoclose items can be shown in the main menu
V2.67 (Dec. 9. 2000)
- Bugfix: search for running programs didn't work under Windows 2000
V2.66 (Dec. 6.2000)
- Bugfix: Behavior of flat buttons was faulty in some situations
V2.65 (Dec. 5 2000)
- Bugfix: BBar not visible under certain circumstances
V2.64 (Dec. 4 2000)
- Bugfix: endless messages if PSAPI.DLL missing under NT4
V2.63 (Dec. 3 2000)
- Bugfix: search for running programs didn't work if parameters in commandline
- New: can find running insances of 16bit programs in NT4 and Win2000 too
- New: Flat buttons
V2.62 (Nov. 21 2000)
- Bugfix: search for running programs didn't work if LFNs in path
V2.61 (Nov. 20 000)
- Bugfix: search for running insances of programs started thru a BAT or PIF file didn't work
V2.60 (Nov. 19 2000)
- New: can find running insances of programs to start thru the commandline; a titlebar isn't longer needed. 16bit application under Windows NT4 and 2000 are exceptional. Here a titlebar is still needed. NT4 users need Microsoft's PSAPI.DLL . Unzip it to SYSTEM32 or BBar's folder
- New: windowstate of started program can be forced
- New: environement variables like %WINDIR% are evaluated in commandlines
V2.55 (Nov. 12 2000)
- Bugfix: after closing games BBar sometimes scrolled away until it crashes; now it doesn't scroll anymore
V2.54 (Oct. 8 2000)
- Bugfix: Internet links with "<https://>" work now
- Bugfix: fixed some minor issues
V2.53 (Sept. 26 2000)
- New: button separators
- New: 'Stay OnTop' improved and more compatible with games
V2.52 (August 30, 2000)
- New: compiled with VB6 by default
- New: used compiler is shown in the info dialog
V2.51 (July 4, 2000)
- New: commandline can be an internet link
V2.50 (May 8 2000)
- New: Menu with Icons
- New: Menu with Submenu in up to 10 levels
- New: serveral small improvements and fixes
V2.07 (Feb. 22)
- Bugfix: option to fix problems with the main menu under Win98
- Bugfix: GDI memory leak under Windows NT scrolling the icon list
- Bugfix: some dialogs wasn't set to foreground
- Bugfix: imported settings hasn't been saved immediately
V2.06 (Feb. 15)
- Bugfix: somtimes overlooked the change of the screen resolution
- New: consideration of system colors
- New: less problems in 256 color modes
- New: less problems with Windows setting 'Large Fonts'
- New: Workaround for grafic drivers that have problems handling large bitmaps
V2.05 (Jan. 23)
- New: Internal changes and maybe bugfixes
V2.04 (Jan. 21)
- New: 'Hold Taskbar ontop too' improved
V2.03 (Jan. 19)
- Bugfix: An old limitation to 10 buttons was still active
V2.02 (Jan. 17)
- New: Free- and fullversion aren't longer separate
- Bugfix: Problems using an alternativ INI file
V2.01 (Jan. 5 2000)
- Bugfix: Crash when starting a nonexisting program from the menu
V2.00 (1999)
- Changed to Visual Basic 5.0: MSVBVM50.EXE (included with Win98 and NT4 SP3)
- Drag'n Drop for buttons
- Direct edit, add and remove of buttons
- Horizontal scrolling when the bar is wider than the screen
- When Windows screen resolution is changed, BBar corrects its postition immediately
- On click of a button, the active window stays active
- Settings are saved to an INI file instead of the Windows registry
- On update I increase the version number but the build number is real
Of course V2.0 accepts ALL settings V1.0 saved in the registry
Problems
Access right under NT/2000/XP
ButtonBar needs write access to its BBar.INI and two other files created in the same folder.
Resource Leak under Win9x
On some Win9x there are problems with system and user resources that goes down when the VB5 compiled version of BBar runs. Windows shows then dialogs with the fat System font and soon it hangs.
I've no idea what's wrong here. On my Win95, 98, 98SE I have no problems.
The VB6 compiled version doesn't have this problem.
Main Menu disappears immediately
In some situations the main menu disappears immediately after you clicked on the menu button. If this happens, simply click right on the button. To fix this problem permanent, you can enable the option 'Fix problems with the main menu'.
Strange Colors
Please ensure that Windows runs in Hi- or Truecolor mode.
If you have an old ATI Rage card, please do not use the 24bit mode, use 32bit instead.