anyone having problems with WB smart buttons?

what are smart buttons again?

hehehe! Sorry, but I've never used them and I must admit I still don't quite understand what they do or even how to get them. Everytime I click on the "Samrt button" button in WB settings, it tells me the skins doesn't use smart buttons... So, I've yet to see how it's used and what it does.

the idea is to let the skin creator add one or more user definable buttons to the skin.

the challange is in finding a skin that contains smart buttons

if you want to see an example, try "liquidaqua" by starone.

Feline, you're right about me not having time at the moment. I got a temp job. However, if you could leave your suggestion here, I will try it and report back.

Thanks for your efforts on this, btw. I appreciate it.

thats the problem werewolf

the only current suggestion i have for your machine is a reinstall of WB.

this is why i was trying to get hold of someone else with the problem to see if having OE in the path is the only fix they need.

i am wondering (more like wild and baseless speculation ) that your dll registration experiments have something to do with your problem.

oh yes, congrats on the job!

It's the "quick launch" Smart Button plugin that gives me trouble, and only on Win2k. Works fine on XP. What was the question?

DavidK...I'm using Win2K also... When I click on an item on the smart button quick launch menu, the executable opens in Object Edit. It's an interesting read, but not what I'm trying to do

same here... I think it's the plugin's fault. Probably needs to be fixed by whoever wrote the plugin - Neil?

/me wants the cookee monstor to leave my machine alone for once

DavidK, if you are still here, can you check the PATH on your machine?

go to a command prompt (start menu -> run -> command) and enter the command:

PATH

and see if OE is in you path.

it is worth pointing out that this plugin works fine on my win2k machine!

sorry feline, I lost track of this thread and just found it again... OE is in my path. I'll have to figure out where the path variable is in the registry and delete it. (was so easy before the registry came along)

Sorry it takes so long to reply to this, I've been so busy that I haven't had time to experiment.

I found that the path is easy to edit in Win2k, it's in the advanced properties of device manager. I took OE out of the path and found that Windowblinds would no longer load. I put the OD folder back in the path and the problem with quick launch smart buttons reappeared. Then I uninstalled OE and now the problem is gone.

Makes me wonder if the people who have no problem with the smart button for quick launch on Win2k just don't have Object Edit installed...

That's a good question DavidK

DavidK, your comment about removing OE from the path stopping WB from working is quite worrying

on my work win2k machine there isnt any stardock stuff in the path, but both WB and OB work fine.

as for OE being the sole reason smart buttons dont work, that is my theory, with the possible exception of werewolf's machine, since something else seems to have gone wrong there.

i seem to recall the statement (from one of the newsgroups) that werewolf does a lot of alpha / internal testing for stardock.

perhaps you know a good person at stardock to point at this thread?

it seems a shame not to pass on this info to stardock

Feline: I have tried several times on IRC to bring this to Stardock's attention, with no luck. I was going to wait a little bit and then try again. I will point them to this thread as a possible reference.

perhaps we should pounce on JavaBrain next time she shows up in the marathon thread. after all, she is a support person!

/me settles into pouncing position waiting...waiting...

/me builds a small pile of coffee beans a few feet in front of the waiting werewolf

that should help encourage her to the right spot

Well, I see the problem isn't solved yet. Seems we are making progress though. At least we have a lot of coffee beans.

the plot has just thickened quite a bit!

having got totaly fed up with notepad on my win2k machine (it doesnt even support ctrl_A) i have just installed OE.

as an experiment i left add OE to the windows path enabled in the installer.

i have not yet rebooted (so in command prompt windows OE isnt in the path). but when i use starone's skin and load IE, it dumps IE into OE!!!

in a bit i will run some more experiments.

it was one of those days at work, so i didnt get to make any further experiments.

however, i have just installed OE on my home winXP machine, just the same as i described above. so far no reboot, and the smart buttons Work!

this is really quite strange

anyone else here, or is it just me? just that i would be interested to see if anyone else could reproduce this.

so it got screwed up on a win2k machine, but not the xp machine. Hmmm. I don't think I could summarize this whole ordeal to present it to stardock...I'll just reference this thread.

i havent yet tried rebooting either the win2k or winXP machine. that will happen tommorow. there are still some tests to try, but it is quite clear that it does go wrong.

all right, on my work win2k machine, i have now removed OE from the PATH.

first, without rebooting, this didnt fix smart buttons. that was strange since NO reboot was required to break smart buttons, but i wasnt that worried yet.

i have now just rebooted! OE is NOT in my system path, but smart buttons still dont work!

further experiments are clearly called for, but something very strange indeed is going on here!

Well, I have mentioned this thread on the #stardock IRC channel. We shall see if anyone of those folks can help.