Caravelle³ is back...

[RomanK]

I have learned from my mistakes and changed very much in the installer.

With the new system of anonymous registration there is no need for more discussion on privacy. We also won't talk about decompilation here.

Source code won't be posted alltogether, but if you want I can post some parts you are interested in.

In the installer, there's a new dialog which allows to select which information you want to send.

You may also want to submit your mail for the newsletter. The newsletter can be understood as a notification of new Caravelle³ versions.

And now I want to present Caravelle³ again for those who haven't seen it yet...

What is Caravelle³ ?

Caravelle³ is some kind of quick launch bar, which allows you to start all programs and open all your files with one mouse click.

It gives you the ability to access all your files and programs within a second and a mouse click. You will not need desktop icons anymore.

While there are some other programs like Caravelle³ out there, my program takes no load on the CPU and takes only between 2 and 3 Megabytes of your computer's memory. Imagine that - you have for example 1024MB RAM, and my programm only takes 2MB of it! Other ones need about ten times more...

Find out how Caravelle³ looks and feels by watching the following video/screencast:

In bad youtube quality go here.

And if you prefer high resolution of 800x600 go here.

Download:

Version 3.44 (works perfectly)

Version 3.50 beta (see known errors below)

Features:

The features marked with a red star ( * ) are not available in versions older than 3.50.

- Easy drag'n'drop directly from folders or desktop into Caravelle³ (buggy at the moment as it doesn't always work) *

- Intuitive User Interface, which is extremly easy to use

- Labels showing an items name when hovering over the icon *

- Drag'n'Drop reordering of the items

- On the help tab, the few things that people might not know or understand, are explained here. *

- No CPU load (when Caravelle³ is not visible)

- Only about 2 - 3 Megabytes in RAM

- Adjustable Transparency

- Allows to add:

- Files

- Programs

- Folders

- Folder Contents can be displayed as kind of Drop-Down List

- C³ offers various settings to change the visual appearance

- C³ brings an Icon Library, with over 1400 Icons (!!!) you can choose from

- MultiLanguage Support (as soon as anyone of you traslates it I can include other languages) *

- Self-removing uninstaller & Caravelle³ can be removed from the Windows Control Panel *

- It's no payware

Known errors:

In version 3.50 beta. Some of the bugs below are fixed but the uploaded files are not yet updated, so these bugs will still appear until I upload the new files.

- Drag'n'drop doesn't always work (on some system it seems to work never, on others it's 50:50 chance)

- The performance of Caravelle³ has significantly decreased [FIXED in next version] / It's already solved and performance is great again as it has always been!

- In the Edit window of items, the FileSelectDialog often doesn't appear. Why the hell?? (edit: just found out what's wrong, I#ll try to fix it.

- Drop-Down-lists don't open on some systems (maybe I know what's wrong) [FIXED in next version]

- The installer should create a desktop icon, start menu entries, and run Caravelle³ if the depending checkboxes are selected. But it doesn't.

Anyone knows how to fix one of these bugs?

Questions, comments and criticism are welcome

Roman

http://caravelle3.owns.it

Edited February 4, 2009 by RomanK

[Jango]

Hello,

I have one more question, you tell your app is light (it won't consume CPU) but what have you done to achieve this ?

[RomanK]

The actual application has only a few lines of code. It is only a GUI with some icons. Everything else is in the configuration program (called "Captain").

Right at the moment, Caravelle³ uses 2.38 MB and I have 30 icons in 48x48 size on it.

So far to the memory consumption (is this the correct english word?!), that it doesn't consume CPU can be seen in the task manager, too.

Well actually it is not completely correct as everything consumes CPU power just because of its existance, but with C³ you can't measure it (at least not with normal tools).

Why don't you just try it?

Edited December 24, 2008 by RomanK

[dansxmods]

Hey man I just tried to add a shortcut and got an error saying bad Func Statement.

[Jango]

I also have the following error when try to add a file:

Line -1:

Error: Badly formatted "Func" statement.

I think if you used Scite you won't have such error

[James]

Nice work and well done for learning. Some people would just keep spamming.

[RomanK]

Waaah?! I thought I fixed this bug already... maybe I included an older file in the setup. Sorry but thx for the info.

I'll look for that...

BTW I'm using SciTe.

Caravelle³ can be closed by opening the configuration and click on the shutdown button. This won't shutdown Windows of course, only C³.

Edited December 24, 2008 by RomanK

[RomanK]

Bug fixed!

Just download "Setup C³ 3.44 English.exe", run it and click "Update!". It will not overwrite your created icons and settings.

Btw, I just notice that C³ is limited to 60 icons. I will raise this number in a few days, but I believe you won't need so many icons right now...

Merry christmas!

Roman

Edited December 24, 2008 by RomanK

[FireFox]

@RomanK

Merry xmas

Nice work, it would be better if you add your program to unninstall program list like that :

RegWrite("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Caravelle")
RegWrite("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Caravelle","DisplayName","REG_SZ","Caravelle 3.0 (Remove only)")
RegWrite("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Caravelle","DisplayIcon","REG_SZ",@ProgramFilesDir&"\Caravelle³\Caravelle Remove.exe")
RegWrite("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Caravelle","UninstallString","REG_SZ",@ProgramFilesDir&"\Caravelle³\Caravelle Remove.exe")
RegWrite("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Caravelle","NoModify","REG_DWORD","1")
RegWrite("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Caravelle","NoRepair","REG_DWORD","1")

Of course you will have to create Caravevelle remove.exe with self delete function

[jvanegmond]

RomanK, I'm glad you've learned from the last time.

I've just spent a few hours installing VMWare and Windows XP ( I had to download both, legitimately ) but it was worth the effort.

Good job.

[RomanK]

And I am glad to see you like Caravelle³.

@FireFox: Thank you very much for these registry keys, I always wanted to know how programs write themself to the software section in windows' control panel.

I don't know if you noticed it, but at least C³ has an uninstaller. Run the Setup again and it will ask you whether you want to remove Caravelle³. Of course this won't leave any registry values or files on the system.

Having C³ in the control panel is a great idea and I will realize this soon. I will need to find out how C³ can delete itself but I remember having seen a thread about this a while ago. The search will point it up^^. The next version will also fix a bug which makes Caravelle³ display a maximum of 60 icons. I also plan to release a German version soon. If some of you agreed to help me in adding other languages (of course only if you are interested in translations), I will reorganize the strings to a list, so it can easily be translated.

But first I will allow me to take a break over christmas...

EDIT: @Manadar, I just see your text under your avatar: WPF.... If you're talking about Windows Presentation Foundation, cool! I want to learn it, XAML seems easy to use to me (I tried it out for some hours) and in combination with VB witch is actually much like AutoIt, just the difference that it is not a script language and has objects.

Sorry if my sentences don't make too much sense, but I'm not a native speaker.^^

Edited December 24, 2008 by RomanK

[jvanegmond]

Having C³ in the control panel is a great idea and I will realize this soon. I will need to find out how C³ can delete itself but I remember having seen a thread about this a while ago. The search will point it up^^. The next version will also fix a bug which makes Caravelle³ display a maximum of 60 icons. I also plan to release a German version soon. If some of you agreed to help me in adding other languages (of course only if you are interested in translations), I will reorganize the strings to a list, so it can easily be translated.

Maybe an auto-update feature would be cool too? I've already downloaded 2 versions now, and it would be awesome to see it update itself automatically.

EDIT: @Manadar, I just see your text under your avatar: WPF.... If you're talking about Windows Presentation Foundation, cool! I want to learn it, XAML seems easy to use to me (I tried it out for some hours) and in combination with VB witch is actually much like AutoIt, just the difference that it is not a script language and has objects.

Yes, that's it. Windows Presentation Foundation is what I've been working with over the past few months and I really like it. It's super easy to build great looking applications. I was thinking it would be ideal for Caravelle³ too, and that's why I am so interesting in this project.

Here's a quick try I gave it in WPF using C# to make the classes ( just IconButton and ExtractIcon from exe ). I don't know how to make fancy video's like you so here's an animated gif:

[RomanK]

OT: Wow, that WPF thing looks great! I know Caravelle³ would be "stylisher" if it was made in Caravelle³, but when I found out what WPF is and what can be done with it, C³ was pretty much finished.

Rewriting it in XAML and C# or VB is something for the far future but imaginable... but btw do you know how I can add controls like buttons in runtime? Because AutoIt is creating its controls in runtime, while WPF does this right at the beginning before the actual application is running.

BTT:

Auto-Update... I never thougt about that seriously. Let's imagine we have a C3Updater.exe. What do you think when it should run? With windows so it is checked right after start-up or should Caravelle³ maybe start the updater some time after itself, so maybe 30 minutes after startup? Or completely different?

EDIT: I am using Camtasia to make screencasts.... it's really easy to use and it also allows you to cut and edit the scenes you record.

Edited December 24, 2008 by RomanK

[FireFox]

@RomanK

After youve run the unninstall delete the information from control panel :

RegDelete("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Caravelle")

Selfdelete function is posted on Faq from sticky in General Help and Support

I mean here that you delete all file with your "Caravelle remove.exe" and then you use selfdelete for delete with cmd your remover

[RomanK]

Thanks for the explanation. I'll take a look at it the next days.

[jvanegmond]

OT: Wow, that WPF thing looks great! I know Caravelle³ would be "stylisher" if it was made in Caravelle³, but when I found out what WPF is and what can be done with it, C³ was pretty much finished.

Rewriting it in XAML and C# or VB is something for the far future but imaginable... but btw do you know how I can add controls like buttons in runtime? Because AutoIt is creating its controls in runtime, while WPF does this right at the beginning before the actual application is running.

I can send you the source code of that project if you like.

[RomanK]

You have PN

[pastl]

Hi RomanK,

good job, but what about multi-language support?

[RomanK]

I will do this soon

[Wus]

I started using this as my main toolbar and so far it's working great! Be nice to be able to center icons, change bar width, and import/export current config... but nice anyway.