Neowin NewsTray v1.0

[codezero]

Hey there guys I made a small and interesting program for you guys, read on for more info :D:

Neowin NewsTray v1.0 (build: 23) BETA

for Windows ME/2000/XP

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This little program will display the latest news on your system tray, and it will check news on the Neowin. Incase it finds new content it will

pop-up a windows 2000/xp style balloon notifying you. You can select which type of content (news or forums) you

want by right clicking on the tray icon and by clicking on the desired type and the pressing refresh to save

your changes, so next time it starts up it will load your preferences.

If you double click on the icon it will go to the latest headline listed. If you click on a headline in the menu

it will open the selected headline you requested.

I hope you guys enjoy this program!!! E-mail me if you find any bugs. I will add more features time by time.

Stop by the thread in the forum for any suggestions or comments:

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?s=&a...=0entry579042

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Known Bugs:

Some people reported that the pop-ups and tooltips appear behind the taskbar or program, it is

not the programs fault it is some other program stealing away the focus from it.

If you click on a headline it will popup in the same browser window (if you have one open).

Sorry if I can't fix everything quickly since I am working and doing other errands while I

make this program, I just made it for fun and to experiment with some features that win2k/xp has.

--------------

P.S. Please let me know who made this Neowin icon I am using so I can give credit

to the person since I didn't make it.

Changelog:

1.0 Build 23:

? First release, might have bugs, please notify me!

Future Updates:

Will add submenus for each news listed, add a start-up option, installer package, verify the memory

hog issue (it really isn't, since its a feature of the compiler, lol), and other suggestions are welcome!

-----------------------URL to Download:b>

http://www.infraredpr.com/neotray_1.0.23beta.zip

Edited January 4, 2003 by codezero

[Ghost Cloud]

How about NeoTray.... The name is fine though.

When i double click or click a heading, it doesnt not lead to neowin. I get an error, like this file doesnt have a program associated with this action....

[Liquid]

nice program i love it

[BroChaos Veteran]

pretty impressive. i wonder how much it will affect the server if a few thousand people are running this?

[sphere]

Some things you might like to take a look at and maybe change:

- Disable single left clicks on the icon (just because it can get annoying if you accidentally click it)

- Have an option to change the rate at which it refreshes (maybe introduce and Options form)

- If I select Forum Updates and I refresh it it says in the balloon "Latest News". You need to change this title to suit whatever the user has selected to update... so it should be "Latest Posts" etc...

Also you should change "Refresh News" to "Refresh" in the menu, because the user might not have selected News

- The program takes up 10mb of memory. That's quite a lot for a such a little program in the system tray. Maybe look through your code and take out what you don't need. Also make sure you unload forms or code from memory when they're not needed

- It may look better and be more effecient if you remove most of the menu options and stick them inside a form called Options. Then you can stick the option for update time in there and also move the option to select what type of News to update in there as well

[Japlabot]

very nice program but put in the suggestions above.

[Daniel F. Administrators]

ty posted in software news ;)

[mlerner]

I spotted a bug, when I click refresh news the yellow balloon pops up with the second news item on the list.

[Ice01]

Michael Lerner Posted on Jan 2 2003, 13:08

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I spotted a bug, when I click refresh news the yellow balloon pops up with the second news item on the list.  

Ive spotted that too :cry:

[JustaPinoy]

Can you add the ability to add more than one category for news updates..? I would like to be notifed for all NeoWin updates (Main, Software, Gaming) besides Forum Updates..

Keep up the great work...

[ad.J]

This is GREAT. /me drags into startup folder

But yeah, add those suggestions :D

[john smith 1924 Veteran]

Ok this is a great program- which is why im going to be really critical - to make it even better.

When you click refresh news- it should do it for all of them - not just the one you are on.

Also - i think a better way of doing it would be in 4 seperate menus for news, software, gamers and forum. That way you dont have to click out of it each time you want to change category.

I really hate the way it scrolls through all of the things each time it refreshs - i.e every 20 mins. It really ****es me of in that way...!

Can you make an options tab? I think a great few options would be to choose whether or not :

- when you refresh the news it pops up all of the news items in a box or just the latest

- whether when you click on a news item it opens in a new window or in an existing one- this severly ****es me of atm btw- i hate it when you click a link and you loose what you were just looking at

- You could put a start up option into this options tab also

OK - if you do that- it will be a sweet program!

[Japlabot]

and plz change it from a config file to a registry key, perhaps HKCU\Software\Neowin\, current user because a machine might have several neowinians, one that likes software news and one that likes gamers news.

:D gl, about time somebody made this program

[codezero]

omg :woot: i never knew this would even get posted in the software news :laugh: lol

Ok this is a great program- which is why im going to be really critical - to make it even better.

When you click refresh news- it should do it for all of them - not just the one you are on.

Also - i think a better way of doing it would be in 4 seperate menus for news, software, gamers and forum. That way you dont have to click out of it each time you want to change category.

I really hate the way it scrolls through all of the things each time it refreshs - i.e every 20 mins. It really ****es me of in that way...!

Can you make an options tab? I think a great few options would be to choose whether or not :

- when you refresh the news it pops up all of the news items in a box or just the latest

- whether when you click on a news item it opens in a new window or in an existing one- this severly ****es me of atm btw- i hate it when you click a link and you loose what you were just looking at

- You could put a start up option into this options tab also

OK - if you do that- it will be a sweet program!

Ok those suggestions are very welcome, but can you clear this up for me: I really hate the way it scrolls through all of the things each time it refreshs - i.e every 20 mins. It really ****es me of in that way...!

I am kinda confused with that :huh:

- Have an option to change the rate at which it refreshes (maybe introduce and Options form)

- If I select Forum Updates and I refresh it it says in the balloon "Latest News". You need to change this title to suit whatever the user has selected to update... so it should be "Latest Posts" etc...

Also you should change "Refresh News" to "Refresh" in the menu, because the user might not have selected News

- The program takes up 10mb of memory. That's quite a lot for a such a little program in the system tray. Maybe look through your code and take out what you don't need. Also make sure you unload forms or code from memory when they're not needed

Yeah in the next release I was figuring out to add those options, ok about the 10MB of memory I gotta check if there is any other code I can clean up. There must be something wrong since yep it is a very simple program lol

I spotted a bug, when I click refresh news the yellow balloon pops up with the second news item on the list.

Ok but I just tried that right now, I see a second person experienced the same problem, did anybody else had this same problem?

Stay tuned for the next release today or tommorow, I might make an installer package for it, not sure tho yet :)

[Ytterbium]

Mine shows the 2nd newest on refresh

Is is supposed to take you to the webpage when u click the balloon? As this doesn't work for me but would be cool.

mine's using 12Mb good job I have 1Gb of RAM :p

[akaj23]

Yeah, I get that same problem with the Refresh feature.

Have you considered making something like this for other news sites, too? We'd never have to visit the frontpage again... ;)

[codezero]

Thanks guys I will investigate the memory hog leak (I guess I might port this program to C++ :D),

I added the current features in my private build:

• Update Interval (5 mins, 15min, 30min, 1hr [good for forum updates])
  
• Added a Sub Menu for the Content type (Main News, etc)
  
• Fixed the balloon for the new forum posts, now if selected it will say "Latest Forum Post"
  
• Fix that 2nd headline refresh bug, I found it I guess :unsure:
  

Anybody interested if I added an animated neowin icon when there is new content? Anybody

have an animated icon? It has seperate icons per animation frame.

Hope to release it this night :ninja: .

Kevin

Edited January 2, 2003 by codezero

[Farchord]

Thanks guys I will investigate the memory hog leak (I guess I might port this program to C++ :D),

I added the current features in my private build:

• Update Interval (5 mins, 15min, 30min, 1hr [good for forum updates])
  
• Added a Sub Menu for the Content type (Main News, etc)
  
• Fixed the balloon for the new forum posts, now if selected it will say "Latest Forum Post"
  
• Fix that 2nd headline refresh bug, I found it I guess :unsure:
  

Anybody interested if I added an animated neowin icon when there is new content? Anybody

have an animated icon? It has seperate icons per animation frame.

Hope to release it this night :ninja: .

Kevin

Hey man, what about a taskbar 'Bar' that shows the latest news? I dunno if that's hard to do...

Lemme give an example, jic you don't get it :)

WMP9, when u minimize it, makes a 'Taskbar' in your start bar, I talkin bout that :)

Personnaly I almost flood Neowin, I go there every 5 mins, so that would be sweet ;)

O and if bandwidth does an issue, tell me we can do an arrangement ;) I know that that lil proggy goes to read a file on Neowin, what about we put that file elsewhere? :)

That would reserve all the Neowin Bandwidth... for Neowin ;)

[codezero]

O and if bandwidth does an issue, tell me we can do an arrangement I know that that lil proggy goes to read a file on Neowin, what about we put that file elsewhere?

Actually the program reads the Neowin XML Backend, which is basically text file (an XML File), but I dunno if that uses alot of bandwidth, any admins reading this thread? Let me know if its alright with you :happy: or if there is another way to do it.

I really wanted to display the comments near the news posts like for example

Neowin NewsTray v1.0 (7 comments), but the xml file doesn't have that information. Even tho I really don't know if thats useful for you guys :)

[Farchord]

O and if bandwidth does an issue, tell me we can do an arrangement ?I know that that lil proggy goes to read a file on Neowin, what about we put that file elsewhere?

Actually the program reads the Neowin XML Backend, which is basically text file (an XML File), but I dunno if that uses alot of bandwidth, any admins reading this thread? Let me know if its alright with you :happy:y: or if there is another way to do it.

I really wanted to display the comments near the news posts like for example

Neowin NewsTray v1.0 (7 comments), but the xml file doesn't have that information. Even tho I really don't know if thats useful for you guys:))

no prob, it's a lil proggy, I wouldn't mind putting it somewhere I know there'S a fast line...

EDIT: I think the comments record on the MySql dbase, which is normally unaccessible elsewhere than 'localhost'......

Edited January 2, 2003 by aStRaLgOd

[Ghost Cloud]

Is anyone having the same problem as me? It gives me an error, this fiel does not have a program associated with this action... Can i do something to fix this?

[Marshalus Veteran]

Can anyone provide a screenshot?

[Farchord]

Can anyone provide a screenshot?

sure hang on

EDIT: There, is that good?:

[shockz]

Here's one more screenshot

[codezero]

and plz change it from a config file to a registry key, perhaps HKCU\Software\Neowin\, current user because a machine might have several neowinians, one that likes software news and one that likes gamers news.

Ok I finished adding that into the program, works like a charm, now more neowinians in the

same computer can have there own prefrences. :yes:

Working on making an installer package.... :blink:

Have you considered making something like this for other news sites, too? We'd never have to visit the frontpage again...

I could make some others, just PM me with a site that has XML content so I can check it out.