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Topic: «
Actual Window Manager 5.5 beta 4 is available!
» on forum:
Beta Testing
Views: 36788
Alex Fadeyev
Administrator
Moderator
Posts:
1437
Joined:
09/30/2005
Posted:
12/12/2009 16:29:11
Greetings!
I'm glad to inform you about the recently released
Actual Window Manager
5.5 beta 4
.
In-built
checking for updates online
is a standard basic function in any modern software suite, and finally it's available in
Actual Tools
! From now, you can easily check if there are any new versions without visiting our website on your own: you can either tell our program to request the information about updates automatically with the scheduled time interval (
daily/weekly/monthly
) or run the check process manually. All this can be set up in the
General Options
property sheet
, as shown below:
Hope these options are pretty straightforward and self-explained. Also, you can launch the check process from the context menu of
Actual Window Manager
tray icon:
Just a single obvious note: you should have the Internet connection alive for the Updates Checker to function successfully.
Usually I write about bugfixes in short but one of them made in this beta is so important that I'd like to mention it separately:
now the Multi-monitor Taskbar works stable on
x64
platform
. No more crashes and system instability because of graphics resources exhaustion! It was quite a tricky bug taken more than 2 weeks of our time to hunt it down and at least figure out what happens. Thanks to the
selfless help
of our beta tester
Martyn Kenyon
(he tested 4 different debug versions - with no success, and at the end kindly let us log into his system remotely to catch the bug on the crime scene!) the bug was caught and fixed. Ave, Martyn! You have helped not us but all users of
Windows x64
multi-monitor systems, and your fairly deserved free lifetime license for
Actual Window Manager
awaits you at the next major upgrade!
Although the list of
Actual Window Manager
hotkeys is
already big enough
, we regularly receive requests to add more hotkeys for some popular functions. This beta introduces the following new key combinations:
<Ctrl+Alt+Num-> / <Ctrl+Alt+Num+>
- to
suspend/resume
Actual Window Manager
, respectively;
<Ctrl+Shift+S> / <Ctrl+Shift+R>
- to
save/restore the desktop icons order
, respectively;
<Win+Shift+/>
- to
move a window to the previous monitor
in a multi-monitor environment (it's the pair to the well-known
Move to next monitor
hotkey -
Win+/
by default).
Please note that all these key combinations (except the last) are disabled by default so that one couldn't activate them accidentally. You can enable these new hotkeys and customize their key combinations in the
Hotkeys Options
property sheet
.
Before the 1st beta of
Actual Window Manager 5.5
our programs run their executable files from the installation folder: this is common practice suitable for most applications. However, our programs are special system utilities working at the low system level and embedding their advanced functions into other programs. Those advanced functions are implemented in a runtime library (
aimemb.dll
) loaded by each running program. Sometimes particular applications may lock this library even after unloading our utility and prevent library's update (e.g. when installing a new version) without rebooting the PC.
That's why in
5.5 beta 1
we tried to improve this situation and changed the way which the program uses its runtime library in: now, each time
Actual Window Manager
starts,
the library is copied from the installation folder to the user profile's
%Temp%
folder and run from there
. With such approach, even if the library becomes locked - its copy in the installation folder will remain free and can be easily overwritten. But this medal has a reverse:
some security suites strictly prohibit running any executable code from the
%Temp%
folder
(because this is common practice for computer viruses!). To resolve this dilemma between security and convenience, we decided to let the end user choose what he/she prefers and added the following option in the
General Options
property sheet
:
By default this option is turned off but if you encounter any troubles with your security software and don't want (or
can't - because of corporate policy
) let
Actual Window Manager
run the library from the
%Temp%
folder - mark this check box and reload
AWM
(not
stop/start
but
exit/launch
).
As this beta is another service release with many bugfixes and improvements, I continue keeping them divided them into two separate sections. As usual, improvements first:
the
Aero Snap
mode
now
supports the horizontal maximization
: just drag the left or right window border towards the corresponding monitor boundary to make window exactly fit monitor's width;
the ability to
stretch the Start button out to the multiline Taskbar
in old visual themes, like
Windows Classic
or
XP Blue/Green/Silver
, has been added (such stretched button is much easier to hit);
the
new
Crop to fit
option for the wallpaper position
has been added;
the ability to
minimize all windows on a particular monitor
via secondary taskbar's context menu has been added;
the ability to
turn off automatic switching of virtual desktops
has been added;
the CPU load when
using the Multi-monitor Taskbar extension with the notification area displayed
has been decreased;
if the
classic window snapping
is enabled, you can control it on the fly for a particular window via window's system menu.
Next - the bugfixes:
compatibility of the
Move to virtual desktop
and
Open as
actions[/url] with the premature window appearance blocking
introduced in beta 3
has been cancelled because of
conflicts with the minimization at startup
;
some applications (
example 1
,
example 2
) now minimize correctly on secondary monitors - their taskbar buttons don't jump to the primary monitor's Taskbar;
crash of some programs (e.g.
WinZip 14 Professional
) when using system menu commands has been fixed;
the problem with the interrupted desktop slideshow in
Windows 7
(
report 1
,
report 2
,
report 3
) has been fixed once and for all;
auto-restoration of some windows (like
Acrobat Reader 8.1.2
) which were maximized using the
Aero Snap
works as expected now;
specifying more than 1000 pixels for window width/height in the
Quick Settings
dialog no more leads to window shrinking;
Custom Window Size
dialog now
initializes with correct actual width/height values
;
the correct functioning of the
Hide Configuration Module while using the Window Finder
option
is restored;
Configuration window toolbars more accurately keep their positions between sessions.
At the end, I'd like to ask for your kind help in a matter which is though not directly related to program's reliability but affects the overall product quality nevertheless - the
spelling of messages in the user interface
. If you found a mistake, a typo, an unclear/misleading phrase or term - please let me know! This request especially applies to bilingual speakers whose native language is other than English: please report me about any inconsistencies you may notice in your native language's translation and offer the correct spelling. Also, it would be very nice of you to let me know if you
have a better wording
for any phrase/statement or
can suggest a more clear/understandable/widespread term
for notions used in
Actual Tools
products (this applies to the English localization too - we are not native English speakers so that we may make grammar or semantic mistakes, and it would be great if you help us correct them!).
Consider the grammar mistakes and unclear terms as the worst bugs which must be exterminated without remorse!
If you are interested in downloading and testing
Actual Window Manager 5.5 beta 4
then let me tell you the terms and conditions of our beta testing:
Beta versions have an expiration date
which they can't be used after.
The beta 4 of
Actual Window Manager 5.5
expires on
January 15, 2010
.
When the beta version expires you should either
roll back to the last stable release
,
update your beta to a new one
(if available), or
upgrade to a new stable release
(if available).
You can check the status of beta version and see how many days remain until the beta expiration in the
About
dialog
.
Although we make internal testing of our programs regularly but we can't verify all possible combinations of software and hardware environments so that our beta versions surely may contain bugs. That's why we include into our beta versions the
internal error reporting service
: if some fatal error occurs in
Actual Window Manager
, you will see the special query asking you to send us the error report - please don't hesitate and click
Yes
! This report contains no private information whereas the error description may be invaluable for us. Many thanks in advance for your co-operation!
Happy testing!
Top
Jim Fraley
Posts:
32
Joined:
08/14/2007
Posted:
12/14/2009 11:52:12
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
Alex,
Thank you very much for the option to run the AWM library from the installation folder! It works great and I am able to enjoy AWM 5.5 once again.
Very grateful,
Jim Fraley
Top
Allan Levy
Posts:
2
Joined:
01/24/2007
Posted:
12/30/2009 11:34:20
When setting do not close on left click and minimize on left clidk, it ignores the left click unless I double click, and then it minimizes.
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