ProEject

If you are currently developing portable freeware or planning to do so, use this forum to discuss technical implementation, seek out like-minded developers for partnership, or solicit interested users for beta testing.
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guinness
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Re: ProEject

#61 Post by guinness »

Sorry for not replying sooner I was away all weekend. Now most are wondering why didn't you improve the GUI with your own ideas, well simple, the idea wasn't to have the GUI initially but because someone requested it I decided to create a GUI version too. The original idea was just to improve what was already available :mrgreen:

So I'll be releasing Beta 5 in the next couple of days as I tidy up the code and add some new ideas I've had floating around for a while ;)

And for those wondering how many Beta releases until Stable, well once everyone is happy ProEject is Stable & has enough features.
1. in "TIP_4" I think you have missed %PROEJECTDRIVE% at the beginning..
FIXED! (Beta 5)
2. I think %PROEJECTDRIVE% may contains also :\ characters in it, to simplify translations (and eventually extract only drive letter if you need it in the code)
FIXED! (Beta 5)
3. could you set a smaller minimum size? than you could use current one as default ratio, but allow to reduce the GUI to 3 columns and 2 rows of icons..
FIXED! (Beta 5)
4. you could add support to Eject (physically open) CD/DVD drives..
FIXED! (Beta 5)
5. is it correct that Clean and Close actions work also with CD/DVD drives?
FIXED! (Beta 5)
6. why Exclusions is an empty tab? Edit: I saw it allows to add exclusions from right-click context menu.. you could add a text (at least if exclusions is empty) that reports to right-click to add exclusions..
FIXED! (Beta 5)
7. could be interesting to add an option to show the list of keys that will be cleaned, to ask a confirmation.. in this way the user knows exactly what will be removed (I'm not a fan of cleaning apps that don't report me what they do)..
FIXED! (Beta 5)
8. to avoid antivirus false positives, I think you may distribute your apps without UPX compression..
FIXED! (Beta 5)
Thanks Lupo73 for the suggestions :mrgreen:
I found a visual glitch with too long translations.
FIXED! (Beta 5)
I agree with Lupo here. Buttons would be easier to discover than a context menu.
FIXED! (Beta 5)
I suggest an Add button.
FIXED! (Beta 5)

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Lupo73
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Re: ProEject

#62 Post by Lupo73 »

guinness wrote:The original idea was just to improve what was already available
Yes, but I think with a great GUI you could make ProEject a fusion between EjectUSB and USB Disk Ejector! :D

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Re: ProEject

#63 Post by guinness »

Yes, but I think with a great GUI you could make ProEject a fusion between EjectUSB and USB Disk Ejector!
Isn't that what I've done already? :) I don't want to create a GUI like USB Disk Ejector as I want to have a unique look.

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Re: ProEject

#64 Post by Lupo73 »

Of course.. I think you can keep the best from both these apps and do even more.. a simple and complete GUI, with strong features also in command line mode.. a flexible software for all users!

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Re: ProEject

#65 Post by guinness »

ProEject (Beta Release 5)

Thanks to Lupo73, spicydog & SYSTEM for the ideas included in this release.

Changelog:

Code: Select all

- ADDED: + & - buttons to the Exclusions ListView. (Thanks to Lupo73 & SYSTEM)
- ADDED: ListView to show what will be cleaned, this is optional via the Settings GUI. (Thanks to Lupo73)
- ADDED: Message shows when no Exclusions have been set. (Thanks to Lupo73)
- ADDED: Support for CDROM Ejection. (Thanks to Lupo73)
- FIXED: Compiled EXE is not compressed with UPX. (Thanks to Lupo73)
- FIXED: Error with TIP_4 in language file only. (Thanks to Lupo73)
- FIXED: Reduced the minimum size of the GUI, but this is as small as it will go without messing up the ListView. (Thanks to Lupo73)
- FIXED: Replaced %PROEJECTDRIVE%:\ with %PROEJECTDRIVE%. (Thanks to Lupo73)
- FIXED: Small problem with checkboxes not being saved correctly.
- FIXED: The 'About' button now shows the 'About' in the Settings GUI and not a new popup.
- IMPROVED: Detection of drives, now it will Clean & Close RAM drives and CDROM drives too. (Thanks to Lupo73)
- IMPROVED: Language strings.
- IMPROVED: Settings.exe in the Extra's folder which was provided by spicydog.
- IMPROVED: The GUI interface for long strings (Thanks to SYSTEM)
- REMOVED: Exclusions button.
Most of the above was done yesterday, the thing that took me the longest was refining the code :)

I've pretty much added everything now that has been suggested by joby_toss, spicydog, Lupo73 & SYSTEM apart from
7. you could consider to show device properties with tooltip, to see them easily (if you prefer adding an option to disable it)
this is because I feel tooltips are ideal for small text strings instead of large strings like it would be used in this case.

I will be updating the website documentation as suggested by webfork in the next couple of days.

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Re: ProEject

#66 Post by Lupo73 »

Great! I'm testing it now..

Some other notes (I can't stop me ^^ ):
1. the bar with Settings and About buttons is visible only after a first opening of Settings from context menu..
2. about tooltips, you could consider to show at least the device name and type only (to easily understand what device is.. and you could use the parameter to center the tooltip, to make it looks better, like a subtitle)..
3. I think Refresh button could be removed from device-selected context menu and keep it only in device-unselected context menu (only a minor changes, but I think is a intuitive solution used also by Windows and simplifies the two context menus)
4. CDROM ejection works fine, but after the message of correct ejection appears also an error message to report that it is not a removable drive and so cannot be ejected (maybe a minor bug)
5. Settings and About buttons may need to be a little longer, to better support translations

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Re: ProEject

#67 Post by spicydog »

Lupo73 wrote:CDROM ejection works fine, but after the message of correct ejection appears also an error message to report that it is not a removable drive and so cannot be ejected (maybe a minor bug)
I also see that error when ejecting a standard (brandless) USB flashdrive

Guinness, the fact that we are starting to report minor bugs is a good sign ;) ...Beta days will soon be over :mrgreen:

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Re: ProEject

#68 Post by guinness »

1. the bar with Settings and About buttons is visible only after a first opening of Settings from context menu..
FIXED! (Beta 5)
2. about tooltips, you could consider to show at least the device name and type only (to easily understand what device is.. and you could use the parameter to center the tooltip, to make it looks better, like a subtitle)..
I will add this in the future release as I need more testing to do since I tried on a 'dummy ListView' and it worked but when I added to ProEject something wasn't quite right.
3. I think Refresh button could be removed from device-selected context menu and keep it only in device-unselected context menu (only a minor changes, but I think is a intuitive solution used also by Windows and simplifies the two context menus)
FIXED! (Beta 5)
4. CDROM ejection works fine, but after the message of correct ejection appears also an error message to report that it is not a removable drive and so cannot be ejected (maybe a minor bug)
FIXED! (Beta 5)
5. Settings and About buttons may need to be a little longer, to better support translations
FIXED! (Beta 5)

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guinness
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Re: ProEject

#69 Post by guinness »

ProEject (Beta Release 5.5)

Thanks to Lupo73 & spicydog for the ideas included in this release.

Changelog:

Code: Select all

- FIXED: Buttons are slightly larger in the GUI for language translation. (Thanks to Lupo73)
- FIXED: CDROM ejection not working as intended for some. (Thanks to Lupo73 & spicydog)
- FIXED: GUI buttons not visible upon first run. (Thanks to Lupo73)
- FIXED: Only show Eject in the additional contextmenu if the drive is supported.
- FIXED: Removed Refresh from the contextmenu when selecting a drive. (Thanks to Lupo73)
- IMPROVED: Settings GUI.

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Re: ProEject

#70 Post by Lupo73 »

Great! I'm testing it.. but I think first stable release is almost ready..

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Re: ProEject

#71 Post by guinness »

Thanks! :)

My plan is to let the Beta Release "be out in the wild" for the weekend before I confirm it as "Stable" next week. I do have one more feature request to add (& kudos for spicydog's patience) which is to work with USB Safely Remove's feature of "Return the device back!" Though I will require a bit more time to implement this feature :mrgreen:

So if you have any more feature requests or bug reports now is the time to post. Thanks to all who have tested ProEject, I hope the product is similar to those who used EjectUSB.

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Re: ProEject

#72 Post by Lupo73 »

What is the purpose of Settings.exe? It doesn't work if I run it in its location and moved in main folder it opens ProEject in GUI mode..

Why you added only some context menu icons? I can help you to find icons for the other items if you want..

I'll test it tomorrow again.. and than I'll create also the Italian translation..

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Re: ProEject

#73 Post by guinness »

The Settings.exe was provided by spicydog who didn't like the cmd interface window showing when using the settings batch file. Bare in mind that some will never use the GUI version and will want to access the Settings GUI occasionally so of course this is catered towards those users.
What is the purpose of Settings.exe? It doesn't work if I run it in its location and moved in main folder it opens ProEject in GUI mode..
Delete ProEject.dat and it will show the Settings GUI. ProEject.dat takes precedence over everything, even if you specify commandline arguments, because if you want to specify new settings then you can change these using the settings button and selecting the appropriate checkboxes.

There are two separate products a GUI version and Commandline version.

The contextmenu icons are from the shell32.dll, as I want to keep the overall file size of the compiled exe minimal, I'm also not a big fan of having an icon for every contextmenu item, especially when it has no relevance to the item's description. It's also what most software applications do these days e.g. Opera, Firefox & Explorer (to name but a few.)

Brilliant, thank you. The translation will Help quite a bit, I don't think I will be changing it that much this weekend.

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Re: ProEject

#74 Post by spicydog »

guinness wrote:I do have one more feature request to add (& kudos for spicydog's patience) which is to work with USB Safely Remove's feature of "Return the device back!" Though I will require a bit more time to implement this feature :mrgreen:
Not to worry mate, please take your time and THANKS for remembering my request... I am confident that the option to re-mount the ejected device(s) will pan out to be pretty useful for many people and I really hope that you'll figure out a way to implement that feature.
Lupo73 wrote:I'll test it tomorrow again.. and than I'll create also the Italian translation..
Hi Lupo, Don't worry I already took care of the Italian translation (I promised it last week to guinness and I was just waiting for the last ProEject fine-tuning in order to complete it... So much has changed in the last days that I had to keep on modifying the localization too :mrgreen: )

Grazie comunque e spero che riuscirai a leggere questo post in tempo (intendo dire, prima piuttosto che dopo aver tradotto tutto) :mrgreen:

EDIT: While I was typing my post guinness posted his (I see that they are just a few minutes apart)... Well, you might very well end up having 2 Italian translations :mrgreen:

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Re: ProEject

#75 Post by Lupo73 »

spicydog wrote:Hi Lupo, Don't worry I already took care of the Italian translation
OK! :wink: ..I'll use my time to work on DropIt..

Thanks for the explanation guinness.. and after few more tests, I think ProEject is stable enough..

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