Dropper: Drop 'n' go

Dropper is a little program that I wrote that shows a little box. When you drop files onto this box, it will open those files with whatever program you have specified. It's a type of "drop box", if you will.

I would like to first and foremost thank Brother Gabriel-Marie, who e-mailed me with suggestions for PEM, one of them being a "drop box" program for use with PEM. So without him, there would be no Dropper.

So the nice thing about Dropper is how customizable it is. You can set the program, of course, but you can also set the icon to whatever you want: PNG, JPG, ICO, even an EXE icon (like the icon of the program you're using. You can also resize it to almost any size you want (although I did put a cap on the smallest being 25x25, just so you don't lose it.) You can also set the transparency, anything from completely solid, to being barely visible. The background (that is, the color behind the icon) is also customizable, even though at the moment, you have the choice of white, black, and the default windows color. Lastly, there's the option of making it Always On Top (which I recommend), and the option of Enabling/Disabling it, meaning you can't drop files onto it.

That's about it. It runs at the Autohotkey usual 3.7mb of RAM, it's only 300kb in size. It's not quite portable, as it needs a few more tweaks to be able to make paths relative, but it's getting there. It's fairly beta, at the moment, and there's many things that I want it to have, but not yet. So here's a FAQ to answer some questions you might have:

Is Dropper portable? No (even though I already discussed it). While Dropper does not require any files outside of itself, the paths you choose are not relative yet, so it won't work across different drives (yet).

Why is my image fuzzy sometimes? There are two reasons I've come across this so far. The first is if you've resized Dropper to be very small, chosen a new image, then resized. If that's the case, just restart Dropper, and it should display a full sized icon/picture. The second case is with EXEs. For some reason, Autohotkey (the language it was written in) is not very good with using icons from EXEs, and it won't use the correct size. I'm working to correct this.

Can I use a transparent background? I thought of this feature and wanted to include it (there's even the menu option), but I ran into many roadblocks along the way. So no, you can't, and until I find away to do away with all the side effects and obstacles you'll never be able to.

Can I use a moving GIF? Again, nice feature to have, but no. This is again due to limitations of Autohotkey. You can choose a moving GIF, but it will only show the first frame. GIFs may not be displayed correctly, period.

Why do some windows underneath Dropper distort when I resize it? Are you teh haxxor? Strange bug I encountered. Just minimize-restore the window. :P

As you can see, there's missing features and some bugs, but it actually functions very well. You can drop multiple files onto it, and it will handle them no problem. Also, feel free to download the source, modify it, and make your own Dropper. Just please, give credit where credit is due.

Check out Dropper Screenshots here

Visit FreewareWire Software Downloads page for Dropper v1.0

Mojolauncher: Get ready for launch!

The other day, I was using MojoPac -which is in and of itself a very handy application- and I decided to drop a shortcut to the MojoPac starter onto my Rocketdock. It worked fine, until later that day, when I clicked the shortcut, and it couldn't find the file. My MojoPac had moved disk letters from "E:\" to "F:\". I realized that it was really pointless to create a shortcut for an application that was meant for an external drive, because it might be in a different place. So I decided to make a Mojo Launcher.

Mojolauncher is a very, very simple program that I wrote specifically to help with Mojopac. When run, it will monitor the root directory of every available disk for MojoPac's Start.exe (such as C:\Start.exe, D:\Start.exe, etc). If it finds a MojoPac starter on a disk, it will add the disk letter and the disk label to a list. You can then select from that list and launch whatever Mojopac you've selected. In addition, if Mojolauncher detects that MojoPac is running, it will wait until MojoPac closes until refreshing the list.

That's about it. It's a very, very simple program, and it's designed to be that way. The interface is very minimalistic, with barely any text, and no menus.

MegaLauncher/INI File:

To be honest, I don't feel like making Mojolauncher a full fledged program with customibility and everything....but I left the option open. Although I designed Mojolauncher specifically for MojoPac, I made it able to accept different programs. If you select a different program, Mojolauncher will become MegaLauncher (both are ML, if that helps you remember). It performs exactly the same way, only it will look for a custom EXE, with a custom description. In order to to this, look at the sample INI file a ways down. But first, read on about....

Custom Folders! Again, I really don't feel like making a GUI for a program that is so simple, but the functionality is nice. Add the folderpath to the INI file, and Mojolauncher/MegaLauncher will search that folder.

SAMPLE INI FILE: MOJOLAUNCHER.INI

[Folders]

also1=C:\Path\to\Program

also2=%ThisDrive%\FreewareWire\is\awesome.exe

[OtherApp]

OtherApp=StartupSaver.exe

OtherAppDesc=StartupSaver

If you can't tell by looking, also# are the custom folders, OtherApp is the alternate program's filename, and OtherAppDesc is the alternate program's description. Make sure you type both correctly, because MegaLauncher will not be able to tell if you typed an error, especially in the description. If you type either OtherApp or OtherAppDesc wrong in the INI file, MegaLauncher will simply never find what you told it to look for.

You may be wondering about the "%ThisDrive%". Well, that is there because Mojolauncher is entirely portable. Instead of the drive letter and colon, substitute in "%ThisDrive%" without the quotes for Mojolauncher/MegaLauncher use the drive letter that it is currently on.

It's not the best program, I know, but it was pretty fun to write, and I actually do use it myself. It's a standalone app, 370kb, and consumes around 4mb of RAM. I will always upload the source, including all the original icons, and edited icons (that is, if RingCube doesn't sue me. Please don't sue me.) Oh, I almost forgot to grovel. RingCube, if you're reading this, I made Mojolauncher because I love MojoPac. I don't intend, or even want, to make any money off Mojolauncher; I release it only for the purpose of better MojoPac. Please don't sue me. Pretty please.

..............

Visit FreewareWire Software Downloads page for MojoLauncher v1.0

Get MojPac here

I would like to also quickly give props to people who profoundly influenced the developement of this program, even if they are anonymous, or don't know I used their work.

• In terms of icons, I used icons from all-free-download.com, so thankyou whoever made those. (I did alter the colors, but that was really easy...much easier than making icons.)
• In terms of code, I used the Graphic Button "ILButton" script by tkoi, which I really must mention, because it made it crazy easy to use graphic buttons.
• I also used wOxxOm's code for retrieving file descriptions, to verify that the Start.exe is MojoPac's, which was so advanced, I couldn't pick out the code for just the description.
• Ladiko's AHK compiler, which made it very easy to include multiple icons in ML, and easily add version information.

PEM: Portable Extension Manager

PEM is my second major program to write. PEM stands for Portable Extension manager. It's purpose is to be able to handle file associations without writing any data to the system's registry, making it possible to defaultly open files with programs on a flash drive.

What does that mean? In case you don't understand, here's my explanation. When you install a program, you install a registry key that tells the computer what filetypes are defaulty opened with that program. For example, let's just say DOC files and Microsoft Word. The computer knows to open DOC files with Word because of a registry file telling it so. But when you run a program off your flash drive, there is no registry drive, so you have to go into the program, click "Open", navigate to the file, then click it. It doesn't sound bad, but it can be very, very tedious after a while.

So PEM acts as the middle man that handles what programs should open what files. The best part is that it does it with only one registry file.

Here's some of PEM's features:

-Optional registry key: Although it's optional, it makes PEM alot easier to use. Yes, PEM's purpose is to avoid registry writing, but I made it very easy to create and delete the key with the click of a button. With the key installed, a context option appears when you right click any file, making it much, much easier to open files with PEM. (Checkout the screencap below.)

-Relative drives: Because it is meant to be portable, you can type in a relative path, and PEM can auto-adjust the drive leetter, so your programs will work on any computer.

-Call when ready: One nice thing about PEM is that it doesn't have to be constantly running. You just call it when you need it.

-Sits in tray: Even though you don't need it running all the time, sometimes PEM can be useful to have available (especially if you want to make sure to remove the registry key when you're done.) So PEM can sit silently in your tray.

-Multiple File Support: New in version 0.93, PEM can handle multiple files. It's still very buggy, and I haven't had a change to test it myself, but if all goes well, it will be able to handle any number of files, and they don't have to be the same filetype!

-Tiny: Only 200kb, can go pretty much anywhere.

-Portable: Again, other than an easily-removable registry key, it's completely portable. All that's required is an INI file and the program.

-Open Source: Written in Autohotkey, I'll always supply the source.

-PEM Dropper: An edited version of Dropper made just for PEM, PEM Dropper is an alternative to the context menu. If you want to open a file with PEM, just run PEMDropper, and drop whatever files you want onto it, and it will toss those files on over to PEM. Be wary, it is very beta-ish, so if something doesn't work right, toss it, and use PEM without it.

That's about it. It's a very simple program. I use it myself daily, and I hope someone else can find use for it too.

Also, I'd like to quickly clear up some things:

-PEM DOES NOT STAND FOR "PURE ENIGMATIC MAGIC": It was just a communication error.

-PEM DOES NOT HAVE TO BE RUNNING IN THE TRAY TO WORK: It doesn't.

-I SUCK AT CODING: I'm an 18 year old college freshman, and I don't have alot of experience for coding. There's what I like to call "Msgbox Syndrome", because I use Message Boxes to test my programs, and I very often leave them in on accident. Please don't think any less of PEM. It may show that I am a poor coder, but PEM can still be of use to you. Please e-mail be with amy Msgbox Syndrome incidents (which is not confined to message boxes, by the way, anything that seems out of place or could have been from testing), not only for you, but for me and for others.

UPDATE 7-17-09: Fixed bug where backslash was missing between folder and program. Thanks, Willi! :)

UPDATE 7-19-09: Removed Msgbox Syndrome from Willi's error. =\ Also added the ability to resize the window. :)

Visit FreewareWire Software Downloads page for PEM v0.925/v0.93

PS - If anyone wants to make me a PEM icon that doesn't, ya know, suck, I'd be eternally grateful. It just needs to be simple. I'd mention your name in this post, the readme, and the "About" part of PEM. E-Mail me, Freewarewire@gmail.com