I have successfully cloned the functionality of miniMIZE

When I first posted about my Video in Picture for Vista application I am working on, McGrady made this comment:

Since the author of miniMIZE does not appear to be actively working on his program, I decided to incoporate the features in miniMIZE into Video in Picture.

It was much harder than I thought, but I am proud to announce that I have successfully done it and the thumbnails are LIVE!!!

I'll post a video and the new version of Video in Picture in a bit on here and on the application web site: http://videoinpicture.wikidot.com/. After I finish doing a bit of clean up and rest my brain. I went through at least 5 versions of my program to get it working smoothly and I have to say, it was a be-otch to get everything working correctly and swiftly due to the need to make it live. I had a working program a week after McGrady made the comment but I wasn't satisfied with the performance and wrote different versions using different methods to find out which would give the best performance. I almost gave up. Almost.




Edit: Ok, Video in Picture for Vista 0.2.5 is finally up on my website: http://videoinpicture.wikidot.com/download-vip

 

Good work

 

We anxiously wait fo the video, good job!

 

<object width='425' height='350'> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/y9_RQOtvIg8"> </param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/y9_RQOtvIg8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width='425' height='350'> </embed> </object>

It's taking longer than I thought to wrap things up and make some documentation. I was also debugging the program so it now works beautifully with ObjectDock. As a side effect, Video in Picture now enhances ObjectDock by allowing it to show live previews in its application icons even when the windows are minimized.

I was also taking some time to add some features that I think will greatly enhance the application.

I think the video does a good job of showing Video in Picture in application. I will upload Video in Picture 0.2 to my website: http://videoinpicture.wikidot.com in a short bit, once I do a bit more testing and write up some user guides.

 

Nice work...

 

:O
I wouldn't say you fully cloned miniMIZE but this is still cool. You have new features. I'll give it a try.

 

Ok, Video in Picture for Vista 0.2.5 is finally up on my website: http://videoinpicture.wikidot.com/download-vip

There are no user instructions yet, but if you watch the video in this thread, you will get the main idea of the new features. It should be pretty intuitive to use. Be sure to look at the settings panel to see what options are currently available.

I would like to know if people can still run this version on 64-bit Vista.

@McGrady: I think if you try the program out with the settings it is set at, you will find that it is very similar to the functionality of miniMIZE but with more options. Please note that in the current configuration, you are required to hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on a window minimize button to create the previews. You can turn this off in the settings if you don't want it to work that way.

Also note that the Win-D, Win-M, and the "Show Desktop" shortcuts in Windows works correctly with Video in Picture. This was a problem for miniMIZE but I don't have the same problem.

Note that there is a minor incompatibility between Video in Picture and Adobe Photoshop. Namely, the toolbars in Photoshop don't show up in the previews for some very, very odd reason.

There is still quite a bit of development I need to do for the program before I call it 1.0. I'll be adding more layout options for the previews, smoothing out the jerkiness in resizing the previews, and bringing back the database functionality.

 

Wow, that is hawt.

 

Oh yeah, I think you should know this when double-clicking on the previews to close them: Please note that there are hotspot areas on each preview. Double-clicking on the upper half closes the preview. Double-clicking on the lower-middle restores the default view. Double clicking to either the left or right lower portions will cause the preview to zoom.

 

This is really cool Bart Simpson, nice job ... thanks.

There is one thing I would love to be added on, the ability to scroll within the preview windows. Like you can on Firefox speed dial and Firefox Tab Scope Addons.

 

Originally, I wrote some code to do scrolling in the X and Y directions of the previews. However, the other features took priority so I never finished it. I will get to it once I finish doing some more layout options.

I don't have Firefox, but the way I'm thinking of implementing the panning is require the user to press the SHIFT key while hovering over a preview. The cursor will then change shape to allow the user to pan in any direction. I would prefer not to use scrollbars. Pressing the SHIFT key again would disable panning.

 

Sounds good.

 

Bump....

Can someone with 64-bit Vista try Video in Picture 0.2.5 and tell me if it runs on their system?

http://videoinpicture.wikidot.com/download-vip

 

Nice Bart... I like your software!!! What programming language did you use?
Congratulation and Thanks for sharing it to us!!!

 

does this slow down the system at all?

 

It's mostly C# with a bit of C++ to handle hide the taskbar buttons for each application. There is some VB code I want to incorporate but I think it will be difficult to translate it.

@ Vostro Guy, the program won't slow down your computer. It sits idle if you don't invoke it to create a new preview. If you look at the task manager, you'll see that it uses very little CPU power and usually under 10 megs of RAM.