starone - Really cringe on that one, at this point don't know if I would even want my cat to lick it.

finally remembered the relivent quote:
Those who can, do, those who cannot, critise

on the winamp plugin buttons, the instructions dont quite seem to be lined up.

from the look of the graphics files, you have got the grapahic to hold the buttons (amptitleback.bmp), which looks like it is expecting equivelant sized items.

looking at the winamp buttons, the various graphics seem to be different sizes, which probably expalins why you had some problems getting them lined up to begin with.

the other thing with them that i noticed is that in the "ampshowtitle.bmp" file, it looks like the "components" (for want of a better word) are a little to far to the left, given the vertical dividers.

there are a couple of strange things that i have noticed.

when the window is not in focus, instead of getting the single button to open up the winamp controls, i am seeing 2 empty boxes, that look like the first 2 boxes from the second half of amptitleback.bmp

in my notepad (for simplicity) windows, there is an extra button in front of the title bar text, next to the notepad icon. however, i wasnt able to work out what this button was there for, since it didnt seem to be doing anything when i clicked on it.

i hope this all makes sence.

Found the folder for the shortcut. When I go into each one they work just fine. However, they won't work with the button on the Windowblind.

As for Winamp, yes it makes sense. However I went into several different skins and they seem to do the same thing. Redid the graphics twice, both times resizing to match the one I was trying to follow and it seemed to be the same. Checkout Heavy Equipment. That is the last one I used to resize and it does the same thing as mine. The only difference is that it has three seperate graphic files for the amptitleback, whereas when I combined mine it seemed to work as his. Beats me on both counts.

now i am really starting to share your confusion over this plugin.

if you show the quick launch bar on your task bar (without OB running) do all of the items work? if so, do they still work when using OB with the quick launch bar showing?

as for the winamp thing, i was basing my guesses on the blue toast skin, which is the only skin i actually use that has winamp controls in it.

i dont seem to have blue toast on this machine. i will download it and get back to you on that one

Yes, the launch thing works. But only two out of the five that show up with the blind.

Got to thinking about it and was wondering. When you use my blind, does the menu work for you? If so, it has got to be a problem here somewhere, somehow, some - some - some, oh my.

On the Winamp thing, my last set of graphics was based on the sizes from HeavyEquipment windowblind. Originally did them to the size specs with Bluetoast but then ran into the problem with the button bit. So I resized my graphics with the specs from Heavy Equipment and what you see is the same that it does. Don't know enough about it since this is my first and can only go on what I see the other skin doing. Too bad they don't come with instructions.

By the way, is your hair turning grey yet over this? I think I've added a few.

lets do this one thing at a time. first the quick launch plugin.

i have just used this menu (via a notepad window) to launch each of the 6 items in the menu. i even launched quick time

/me needs a lie down now
/me hopes you appreaciate the sacrifice that was

so, on my win2k machine, all 6 of the quick launch items on a notepad window work.

and you are saying that on your machine on notepad only 2 of the 5 items work?

right, this suggests to me that for the bad three, either the shortcuts in the quick launch folder dont work, or there is some windows search path problem.

so, can you make sure object bar is NOT running, and unload window blinds as well, just to make sure. now get windows to show you the quick launch icons on your taskbar.

are there 5 of them?
are they the same 5 as are showing up on notepad?
do all 5 of them work?

if the answer to all 3 questions is yes, then re-load WB.

does the start menu quick launch bar still work?

now try loading object bar, and using its quick launch bar.
are you getting the same 5 again?
do they all work?

if all of these are working, then the problem only affects WB, and not OB or windows.

are you running a dual (or multi) boot system?
if so, then perhaps WB is picking up the wrong quick launch folder.

please add a new shortcut to the quick launch folder (say for notepad).
does this show up on windows taskbar?
does it work?
does it show up on the OB taskbar?
and does it work their?
and does it show up on the notepad button?
and does it work?

if this doesnt help, then i have some more thoughts, but lets do this in gentle stages.

Had to print out your last message so I could try them all. I will get back with you.

Did you get my email on the results? If not, I will re-state here (but if you did this will be a re-run). I Did all that you mentioned and everything worked fine. And, when I went to the menu on the Windowblind, the shortcut to Notepad was there too. However, on the menu list appeared an extra shortcut of "thumbs.db". I don't even have a shortcut for a "thumbs.db" and don't even know what it is, let alone how it got there. Also, Notepad too, (like the other four), opened up in Stardock's Object Edit instead of opening Notepad itself. Perplexing.

No to a dual startup system.

Hope the above has shed some light. Sure beats me.

starone - Had to print out your last message so I could try them all. I will get back with you.

men, they just dont seem to be able to multitask

all right, so its already one of those weeks, and its only monday morning

actually, this probably doesnt mean anything to you. put it this way, no one seems to be quite sure what gender i am, based on my words and thinking, which i am split between finding amusing, confusing and hilarious.

this just encourages my lateral approach to reality

starone - Did you get my email on the results?

i got some emails here, but no sign of a results one. also, i have only got the second attempt at the skin here and on my win2k box. bit strange really.

but then, bouncing between 2 different email accounts doesnt automatically help

starone - I Did all that you mentioned and everything worked fine. And, when I went to the menu on the Windowblind, the shortcut to Notepad was there too. However, on the menu list appeared an extra shortcut of "thumbs.db". I don't even have a shortcut for a "thumbs.db" and don't even know what it is, let alone how it got there. Also, Notepad too, (like the other four), opened up in Stardock's Object Edit instead of opening Notepad itself. Perplexing.

this is somewhere between helpful and very confusing.
so, basically the shortcuts in the quick launch menu work as expected, and OB is picking them up fine.
this is begining to sound like a problem with the plugin on your machine, or else an OS specific problem.
i have only tried this on win2k, and it worked there.

however, the extra item in the list sounds a lot like the WB plugin is looking in a seperate location for the quick launch folder.

can you do a find across all of your hard disks for any files called:
"thumbs.db"
or
"thumbs.db.lnk"
and let me know what you find please?

starone - No to a dual startup system.

by that i meant having 2 OS's on the same machine, and booting between them. i have win2k and win98 on one machine, and choose which one to boot to when the machine first loads. because this means there are 2 copies of windows on my machine, there are 2 different quick launch folders.

starone - Hope the above has shed some light. Sure beats me.

we may be getting somewhere. the extra item sounds like it should mean something, if we can just work out what.

everything opening in OE definetly sounds like the plugin isnt picking up "proper" shortcuts.

Did a search for the "thumbs.db and it shows up in "c:program files\ObjectDesktop\Objectbar\WinXPCopper\XPStartPanel. Nothing comes up when I do a search for "thumbs.db.lnk." Tried bringing "thumbs.db" up in Notepad, but nothing English shows up, just a lot of unreadable stuff.

Still no, to a dual startup (actually this is the first time I've heard that you can have two different startups - interesting). Makes sense though.

Hopefully this has shed some more light on the subject. If you figure this one out, you deserve the Golden Chamption award.

that is strange

if you open the "thumbs.db" item via the notepad quick menu bar, and it opens in object edit, do you actually get anything, or is it just an empty OE window?

then try opening the "thumbs.db" file in a second OE window. are the two windows showing the same content?

the idea hear is to try and work out if this file really has been opened.

what program extensions is OE associated with? i still dont know why this is happening, but it could be opening items is OE if the items it has found are associated with it.

Just a lot of stuff you can't read in English. Get the same thing in the second window.

I can't find how to view the file extensions for OE. When you first install it it comes up with associate file extensions, but other than that I can't find it. I never added any, just went with the ones they had checkmarked. In the file folder itself, it has asp.syn, bas.syn, c.syn, etc. (I guess they are syntax files).

basically that is what i would expect if you have opened a non text file in a text editor.

there are various things that could be done to find out if these are the same, but at this point i am not sure if we care. i may come back to this later if i get desperate

do you have a system tweaker installed? there is probably a copy of tweakui on your winME cd. if so, then this program should allow you to see (and edit) the location of your quick launch folder, along with several others. this is a long shot, but i am wondering if this is pointing to a second quick launch folder.

other than that, have you tried unloading all the other running programs? the idea hear is that one (or more) of them may be conflicting somehow.

what i am going to attempt shortly is to attach this quick menu item to an existing skin via a standard button. never done this before, so this could have some interesting results

if i can get this to work in wb2, then this helps to eliminate a LOT of the variables, since you are using smart bars, ect.

/me grabs megaphone:
ANYONE ELSE HERE?

anyway, on to the plot, i have now done some experiments on the athenda skin, which you probably aready have installed.

since your golden eagle skin includes the WBWinMenu.dll file, i concluded that this was the one being used to generate the smartbar quick launch menu item.

so, i have added the following block to by athenda.uis file, just after [Button3]

[Button4]
; button to test quick launch menu plugin
Align=1
XCoord=100
YCoord=5
Action=-3
ButtonImage=athenda\min.bmp
Visibility=0
DllName=athenda\WBWinMenu.dll
; Alpha=200
; Mask=athenda\mask_rollup2.bmp
; InSound = athenda\click.wav

i have tried action -3 and -4, which both seem to produce the same result.

when i click on this extra button, i get a configerable menu, which doesnt look anything like the quick launch menu.

this was done using WB 2.21b, skinning notepad.

if there is anyone out there, any ideas on where i can find some instructions on using this plugin? please note that i cannot run skinstudio on this machine, since it keeps exploding.

so, either the smartbar plugin (smart.dll) is calling this WBWinMenu.dll and passing it configuration information, or it is using some other method of getting the menu on the screen.

starone, can you:
a) try my modifications to the athenda skin, to see if you get the same results. note i placed a copy of the WBWinMenu.dll from your email zips into the relivent directory

what happens if you remove the WBWinMenu.dll file from your skin directory? i would suggest switching to a different skin, removing the file (move it somewhere else, instead of just deleting it ) and then returning to this skin. what effect, if any, does this have on the quick launch menu?

i *think* we are making progress, although quite what we are discovering is a little beyond me at the moment

Tried removing the WBWinMenu.dll. Nothing new happened, just the same old story - launched the programs in Object Edit. I will try the extra button bit and get back to you on it. It would help if we knew if someone else had the same problem with the Menu bit. At least then we would know if it is the plugin.

Did the extra button using the same specs you gave. It didn't even bring up the menu.

Think we should start a new thread on the menu item?

when you clicked on this new button, did it do anything at all???

No.

Found this address for the WinMenu - www.stardock.net/people/wbstuff/plugin/winmenu.html. It gives an example of configuration.

I tried adding the extra button for the winmenu plugin, etc., but it still opens up in Object Edit.

You have the areas, i.e. c:\program files\(etc) in my uis. Maybe you can configure it and I will try your configuration. I've certainly haven't had any success with it. I'm sure you can better understand what their example is doing.

i will look at the example in a moment

in the mean time, when you tried calling winmenu from the athenda skin, what results do you get when you click on it?

also, do you get a matching icon for this button with action = -3? here, with both action = -3 and action = -4, i am getting a different icon for the menu item.

remember, i have tried this under wb2, so i could be seeing different things.

/me re-reads your post

starone - I tried adding the extra button for the winmenu plugin, etc., but it still opens up in Object Edit.

PLEASE tell me i am reading this wrong!

starone - You have the areas, i.e. c:\program files\(etc) in my uis.

/me jumps up and down going DOH!
i didnt even realise there were area's like that in your uis file!

/me returns from reading this totaly unknown part of the UIS file

i *think* i now have a solution, but i am going to need to read up on configuring these plugin's anyway.

from this machine (win98, running IE6) the path to IE is:
C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\Iexplore.exe
however, in your UIS file, you have:
Quickl=c:\program files\Internet Explorer\iexplorer.exe

if you compare these, you will notice that the case of the letters is different, although this shouldnt make any difference under windows.

however, you will also notice that the name of the executables are different! there is a good chance that there is no such executable on your machine, so that when you try and run it, something goes wrong, leading to OE getting opened.

however, this cannot be the whole story, since on my win2k machine, the programs to run are often installed to d:\Program Files, and i dont even have winamp on my home machine.

and it looked like it was producing a list of the items installed in my quick launch dir on my win2k machine, which involves ignoring that section of the UIS file

still, one point at a time.
where did these path's come from? i didnt do anything like that on the athenda skin, and the button did things.

starone - Found this address for the WinMenu - www.stardock.net/people/wbstuff/plugin/winmenu.html. It gives an example of configuration.

thanks for that
i started at google, didnt find anything, and then got side tracked by yet another crisis

i would have posted all this in a more coherent order, but it is the end of a LONG day, and i am thinking in circles and spirals at the moment

I just threw the c:\program files, etc. in the uis to see if it made a difference, but of course, it didn't. In other words, it is now just a laundry list of where my executables are on my c: drive, which after you read the winmenu example, will probably help in resolving this matter. Have been toying with this thing most of the morning and am still going nowhere. All I have accomplished is becoming glued to the chair.

Found two more skins with the winmenu thing in them and am going to take a look at them to see if I can get an idea of what is going on.

Good news! Got it figured out. Looked at two blinds that had the WinMenu. Did an extra graphic piece. Placed the name in the UIS. Then I read the WinMenu info on the site I gave you. It mentioned going into the registry. I did a search on my hard drive for the registry. Something in the Windowblinds file came up too (an info txt). Read it and it mentioned that you had to replace the new dll in skin(s) that had the old one. Anyway, my button worked and it brought up one item. The text file said to right click on the item and you would get a list where you could add additional items to the menu list. So it turn out that you did not have to do it within the uis or the windowblinds confliguration for Smartbars - you just had to designate it.

Thank goodness that's behind us. Bet your glad too! Thanks for all your trouble on this. You have been very helpful.

If you have any additional ideas on the skin, I'm all ears.