Arnor – Icetips Blog

Icetips Web/Email server move

ArnorMay 21, 2015June 4, 2015Leave a comment

Sometime in the next few days our server will be moved from one virtual server to another with more RAM and more disk space and SSD, so it should make the website even faster:) I don't know the schedule for this yet, but I'm hoping it will be today or tomorrow (Thursday May 21st or Friday May 22nd) I don't think there will be any disruption by this move, maybe a downtime of a few minutes while the host company switches things around, but please be patient if the site goes down!

We have had occasional problems with the email server crashing because of low memory and that should be a thing of the past:) I do not think we have ever lost any emails due to these crashes. I'm planning to get our other websites over to this server in the very near future.

About 6 weeks ago I manged to fall down the stairs - yes that took real talent! - and almost break my right ankle. I have had to be very careful about keeping my foot up and ice it, which is rather cumbersome when sitting at a desk! It's much better now, but there is still swelling and I have to be careful when walking. So things have moved very slow on everything lately and I apologize for how quiet it has been!

Clarion 10 is just around the corner and all our installs have been ready for some time except the CheckboxFixer which by accident didn't show the Clarion 10 option when installing. There is a new build on the website with that fix.

Arnor Baldvinsson

New Tip: How to add Procedure name to a window

ArnorMay 2, 2015June 4, 2015Leave a comment

I was staring at a completely unfamiliar window in a client project and had no idea what procedure it came from. It was a form, so I didn't know what the original caption was and the strings on the window were pretty generic. I needed a way to figure out what procedure this was. Instead of spending time doing searches I decided to chance tactics and use the WindowsInitCode procedure from the Icetips Utilities to do it for me. I explain the process in my latest Icetip.

What I did was to create a control on the window with the procedure name, as well as put it in the window caption and send it to DebugView with OutputDebugString (ODS method available in all Icetips classes)

Enjoy.

All product download

ArnorApril 16, 2015June 5, 2015Leave a comment

We have been asked a few times if we could make a zip with all the installs available. Now we have, and with the help of Build Automator, it is now a "one button" process that I can run as I upload new builds 🙂 The install files are in a password protected zip file that you can download. Note that you must have a Gold subscription and be logged in to be able to download. I have not made a separate download for the silver subscriptions. The current zip file from April 14, 2015 is 96,198,707 bytes in size and contains all 14 product installs that we currently have.

I have finally been able to move Build Automator up from Clarion 6.3. I was not able to compile it in Clarion 9.1 because of a "unknown compiler error" that would come up in one of the classes. However, Clarion 10 was able to compile it just fine. I've had to make some minor changes here and there - the splitting on the main window is now using a different splitter template than originally, but so far I haven't seen any problems with it.

I'm planning to get the new build of Build Automator out in April - unfortunately it just didn't make it in March! I'm not going to say anything about other plans as that's an absolutely sure way to mess them up! 🙂

Arnor Baldvinsson

Website moved – Happy Holidays

ArnorDecember 22, 2014June 4, 2015Leave a comment

At long last our web and email servers were moved to a new host this weekend. There were some interruptions and there are a few things we need to fix up before everything is back to normal. But the website is back up and our email is back up. I do not think we lost any email, it all seemed to come in once the transfer was complete, at least it seems I got all the spam I usually get 😉

I will be out of the office more and less from Tuesday, December 23rd to Monday, December 29. I'll be checking my email from time to time, but will not be putting in much work!

Sue and I wish all of you Happy Holidays and hope you all have a Happy New year 🙂

Arnor Baldvinsson

Build Automator 2014 released

ArnorSeptember 18, 2014June 4, 2015Leave a comment

Build Automator 2014

We have released Build Automator 2014 build 4.9.1325

The update can be downloaded from our website at http://www.buildautomator.com/download.php or by using the "Check for Updates" option under the Help menu in the program.

There are several new features in this build, but there are also a lot of fixes behind the scene that make the program more stable than it has ever been. The new feature list includes:

Full support for Clarion 9 and 9.1
Full support for Setup Builder 8.1
Support for Code generation before build in Clarion 8, 9 and 9.1
Improvements in copy/paste and several fixes to synchronization in the project window
File and folder Drag & Drop support in actions
External text files can now be included in the "Write text to file" action
Programs can be forced to run elevated (will prompt for administrator access)
Environment variables fully supported in scripts
Search locators make finding projects and variables easy

In previous builds there was a bug in the system that could sometimes lead to the wrong action being loaded, copy/paste being fragile, duplicating the wrong action item and so on. This should be completely fixed now. For more detailed list ofnew features and fixes please check out the version history page athttp://www.buildautomator.com/onlinemanual/version_history.htm.

One of the major new feature is the updated MS-Build action which you use for Clarion compiles. It fully supports all versions of the Clarion IDE, from Clarion 7 to Clarion 9.1. It now also supports code generation in Clarion 8-9.1. Code generation was not possible in Clarion 7. There is one caveat that I don't have any solution for: Softvelocity does not allow Clarion Professional to generate code with their ClarionCL.exe, which is the tool we use to generate code. This is unfortunate as it limits the usefulness of this feature, but never the less, it is an important update for us.

Another feature that I want to highlight is the option to include external text filesin the "Write text to File" action. This allows you to generate files that include data from other sources. For example I have started using this to generate the export list for templates that need it. I generate the export list with an external tool, then write template code to a text file which has an Include statement which includes the export list. End result is a template file completely generated by Build Automator! How cool is that?!

Arnor Baldvinsson

Themes for Powertoolbar, Outlookbar and Taskpanel

ArnorSeptember 14, 2014Leave a comment

For the past couple of days I have been working on a theme designer for Powertoolbar, Outlookbar and Taskpanel.

The theme designer create theme files, which are basically INI files, that can be used to set the colors for the products. Each theme file has all the information to be used with all three products so the color schemes used in the products will be 100% consistent. Each product will be changed to make this work in such a way that you are either using the built-in color schemes or you use themes. There will be no mixing the built-in and external themes. However, the built-in themes will all be delivered with the new products so you can specify the theme. You will be able to use a fixed theme or you'll be able to allow user selection of themes.

The theme designer will be included as an exe but the source will probably made available for download as well. The source will require that you have all of the three products installed as well as Icetips Utilities (and perhaps other tools as well) It will only be made available as a Clarion 9.1 application, which I'm using to develop it. Currently I have no plans to provide translation of the Theme Designer, but it is pretty simple and intuitive as it is. I will post screenshots later this week to show how it looks.

This will take some time to finish, but I'm planning to get this ready to ship in October or early November. Each product will need quite a bit of work to make this happen and documentation will need to be updated.

Build Automator is coming out this week. I ran into a snag with the install that set me back a day and then I had a problem with my computer which set me back another day and I decided to push it back over the weekend.

Arnor Baldvinsson

Build Automator 2014

ArnorAugust 24, 2014Leave a comment

Build Automator 2014 is right around the corner!

I have been working hard on getting Build Automator 2014 out the door. I have some work left on the documentation and install and some final testing and I'm done! I have been able to add quite a few new things into it lately and below is a list of the major new updates in the 2014 release.

Full support for Clarion 9 and 9.1
Full support for Setup Builder 8.1
Support for Code generation before build in Clarion 8, 9 and 9.1
Improvements in copy/paste and several fixes to synchronization in the project window
File and folder Drag & Drop support in actions
External text files can now be included in the "Write text to file" action
Programs can be forced to run elevated (will prompt for administrator access)
Environment variables fully supported in scripts
Search locators make finding projects and variables easy

There are still a lot of features on my list that I have not been able to get into the 2014 release but I'm planning to make releases available every 1-3 months, depending on how things work out.

2014 will be available for download this coming week and will be available via the program update in Build Automator.

Arnor Baldvinsson

Hiccups?!?

ArnorAugust 17, 2014Leave a comment

This last week I was taken down by something so common that we never even think about it: Hiccups! Yes, hiccups!

It started last Wednesday morning. I had just been prescribed new medication and within minutes of taking the first pill, it started. The hiccups that is. Oh, well, I've had hiccups before, or so I thought. So I went about my day, but the darn hiccups were relentless and forceful. Nothing I did made any difference. Thursday morning I went to seen my doctor who, thankfully for me, has a husband who has had this problem somewhat frequently so she knew just what to do. Unfortunately it wasn't as easy to find a pharmacy that had this hiccup drug and I didn't get one until Friday morning, at which point I had had constant, violent hiccups for 48 hours! Fortunately I was able to sleep as they would eventually disappear after I laid down.

I took the hiccup medication three times Friday and finally Saturday morning they were gone and haven't come back! But let me tell you that this is far from pleasant experience! Working was close to impossible because I made so many typing errors that I spent more time correcting than writing and the accuracy of the mouse movements left quite a bit to be desired<g> My whole upper body was sore like I had been hit by a truck;) Fortunately, it's gone now and no reason to expect it will come back:) And I can finally get on with my work.

Hoping for no more hiccups in my foreseeable future!

Arnor Baldvinsson

Clarion 9.1 problem resolved

ArnorJuly 2, 2014Leave a comment

Couple of weeks ago I learned about a problem with the latest couple of Clarion 9.1 builds causing a horizontal scrollbar to be drawn in PowerToolbar and Taskpanel. This seems to have been caused by changes to the IMAGE control in Clarion 9.1. After some digging around I'm happy to report that I have found a solution for this and have implemented it in PowerToolbar, Taskpanel and Outlookbar. New builds will be going out tomorrow (Thursday, July 3rd, 2014)

I not yet sure why the scrollbar is drawn, but I am able to remove it and keep it from re-appearing with the changes I have made:)

--Arnor Baldvinsson

New Utilities build on the way

ArnorApril 10, 2014Leave a comment

I have been working on a new build of Icetips Utilities and trying to finish Build Automator for a new public release.

There are a few new enhancements to the Registry Class where I have added a method to enumerate key values. You specify the key in the registry and it will give you the names of all the values, what datatype it is and the data in it. It supports all datatypes in the Registry except binary, haven't finished that one yet.

I'm also adding documentation to the Registry class and once I'm done with that, it is time to release it.

When I wrote the WriteStringToFile method in the String class, I had added an "Append" parameter, but had never added the code! That is now done, so you can use this method to append a string to an existing file. This is perfect for all sorts of logging where you want it sent directly to the file without delay.

I have improved the Preserve Variable Data template by making the condition optionally on the read or the write or both. I have also added embeds after the read and before the write so the data can be easily manipulated if needed. The help on this template has also been completed.