UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Release Candidate 1

After an entire one and a half years (1.5 years/18 months) of work with numerous delays (mostly from video editing, HideSettingsPages, and classes), the release of UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Release Candidate 1 is finally here! If all goes well, this will be the final 3.1 Stable release with few modifications. If you notice any major bugs that aren't mentioned in the Known Issues or bug list, please report them in the Issues tab and I will get around to fixing them if they're easy to run into.

If all does go well and no major problems are discovered in Version 3.1 Release Candidate 1, UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Stable will be released on July 12, 2018. Likewise, if any additional changes are discovered, they'll be added to the Version 3.1 Stable changelog.

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CHECKSUMS
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You can use MD5Check to confirm the MD5 checksum listed below. http://www.angusj.com/delphi/
MD5 checksums are used for UXL Launcher because it can be easy to check for the end user.

HOWEVER, IN UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Stable, MD5 CHECKSUMS WILL NO LONGER BE PROVIDED. THIS RELEASE CANDIDATE (and any other Release Candidates for Version 3.1) WILL BE THE LAST VERSION TO PROVIDE AN MD5 CHECKSUM BECAUSE IT'S A WEAK STANDARD. More details.

If you want to use the SHA-256 sum instead (which you should do because an MD5 checksum won't be provided with UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Stable), you can use Windows PowerShell to confirm the hash by running
Get-FileHash .\UXL-Launcher.exe -Algorithm SHA256 in the folder you extracted the archive to and comparing the output to my sum listed below. HowToGeek has a nice article on this, but the Windows section is a bit further down on the page.

MD5 sum for "UXL-Launcher.exe" in the archive: 18D12F8A9DAABDEBC1383555F67C7845

If you want to use an SHA-256 sum instead, here's an SHA-256 sum for "UXL-Launcher.exe" in the archive:
06E28217C001F78F1D74D1092FAD7F69F37724B81E3E523DF345981B383CF10D

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CHANGELOG
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Below this text is the changelog. It compares UXL Launcher Version 3.0 Stable to UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Release Candidate 1. When the final Version 3.1 Stable changelog is written, changes will be compared between that version and Version 3.0 Stable.

If you would like to look at the same comparison as I did while writing this changelog, you can do so here:
v3.0...v3.1-rc1
The link above will be active by the time this is posted, but I used a slightly different comparison since the one I linked to wasn't ready yet. However, the content was the same, so it shouldn't matter.

Many of the changes presented below have a related issue in the Version 3.1 milestone, if you would like to look at a bit more detail than listed here. Not all of the changes listed in this changelog were linked to a related issue, so you may need to do a bit of digging in that milestone to find the related issues.

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UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Release Candidate 1 Changelog

• Added:
  • A basic theme engine (known as the "UXL Launcher Theme Engine") has been added to UXL Launcher.
    • Its version is currently Version 1.01. This number will increase when there's any change at all made to the theme engine and some changes can be avoided by the theme designers if the change causes problems with their custom theme.
    • This allows the user to change the colors on the main window and Quickmenu with either built-in or custom themes.
    • The theme engine is turned off by default and can be turned on from Tools>Options...>Personalization tab>Enable UXL Launcher Theme Engine checkbox. Enabling or disabling the theme engine requires an application restart. Currently, a manual application restart is required, though this may change in the future. Enabling or disabling the theme engine requires an app restart because I don't know of an easy way to enable or disable a custom professional toolbar renderer at runtime after one is enabled and I don't want things to break.
    • Themes can be configured from Tools>Options...>Personalization tab by selecting a theme from the theme list dropdown box, then clicking Save. A description of each theme is shown in a textbox on the left side of the Options window.
    • If you want to temporarily reset to using the Default theme until the next time the app starts or settings are saved in the Options window, you can use the View>Revert to Default Theme menu button, or press Ctrl+0 (Control and the number "zero" at the same time). This button only shows up when the theme engine is enabled.
    • For companies who want to keep their computers locked down, support for custom themes can be disabled by changing the value of the allowCustomThemes setting in the config file from True to False. The user will be told that support for custom themes has been disabled and to contact their administrator if they try to choose a custom theme in the Options window. It may be a good idea to install UXL Launcher and its config file in a location away from regular users with write access, such as in a read-only folder in a network drive and have the config file hidden to prevent modification.
    • Currently, there are six themes included with UXL Launcher and the option to use your own theme or a theme downloaded from the Internet. If a particular custom theme becomes popular enough within the community, it may become a built-in theme if the theme designer gives permission.
    • You can use a custom theme by selecting (Custom) in the theme list drop down box, then clicking the Browse... button next to the custom theme path textbox and navigating to the file you want to use, or by pasting the custom theme file's path into the textbox. Currently, the Browse... file open dialog has filters for XML files, TXT files, and all other file types.
    • A wiki page on how to make your own custom theme is available here.
    • Theme engine output such as errors and theme file info can be shown by changing the value of the debugmodeShowThemeEngineOutput setting in the config file from False to True. It'll show up in the Visual Studio Immediate Window and any other configured debug listeners. Please be aware that this may cause the app to slow down if enabled.
    • Theme-related debug labels have been added to the main window.
  • Users can now opt to use a custom statusbar greeting personalized with their firstname or nickname.
    • This is configured under Tools>Options...>Personalization tab>Use personalized statusbar greeting and typing in a firstname or nickname into the textbox below the radio button, then clicking Save.
    • The resulting statusbar greeting will be in the style of Welcome back to UXL Launcher, Firstname!
    • The name typed into this textbox will not be used to personally identify the user.
    • If necessary, you can use the Clear button to the right of the textbox to erase all content within the textbox and set focus to it for easier firstname/nickname changes.
  • Hide When Minimized (View>Hide When Minimized) allows the user to hide the main window and only use the Quickmenu to launch apps. Double-clicking on the Quickmenu icon or right-clicking the Quickmenu and clicking Show UXL Launcher will both show the main window again.
  • The titlebar text now includes information on whether the app build currently running is considered "Stable", "Git" (built from code and not ready for release), or any other status.
  • Information on the theme engine and applauncher-icons (most of the icons used in UXL Launcher) has been added to the About window.
  • A bunch of screenshots have been added to a wiki page linked from the readme.
  • Buttons that update based on current build status that link to the AppVeyor page for UXL Launcher have been added to the readme.
  • The UXL Launcher logo has been added to the readme.
  • Better code organization.
  • Information on how UXL Launcher and Drew Naylor are not associated with Microsoft and that Microsoft does not endorse this software has been added to the project.
  • Additional applications are now listed in the part of the boilerplate text that says that UXL Launcher is not to be confused with other apps. The new ones are "UX Launcher" (an Android launcher) and "Ulauncher" (a Linux app launcher).
  • applauncher-icons (most of the icons in use within this app) boilerplate text has been added to the readme.

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• Changed:
  • The readme and parts of the wiki have been improved since the release of UXL Launcher 3.0. This includes the addition of a "Screenshots" page in the wiki and a list of known Microsoft Office install locations.
  • UXL Launcher icon and About window banner has an updated border that's a bit easier to see.
  • applauncher-icons has been updated to version 2.1.
  • The UXL Launcher icon is now displayed on the readme.
  • Boilerplate text in the readme now uses the Markdown triple backtick (```) for code blocks rather than the HTML <code> tag.
  • Update readme instructions on building from source.
  • The License and Acknowledgments tabs in the About window now render their text with an RTF textbox instead of using a WebBrowser control. This improves performance considerably and reduces file size while also no longer requiring Internet Explorer to be installed to use UXL Launcher fully.
  • About window banner resolution increased from 256x512 to 512x1024.
  • Updated copyright years from 2013-2016 to 2013-2018.
  • The build date in the About window now has the new line in its text file created at build time removed when opening the window. This would allow text to be placed directly after the build date text.
  • About window information for UXL Launcher is now mostly read from a file resource in My.Resources rather than hardcoded in the About window's class.
  • The Office Language Preferences button in the Tools menu now has an access key underscore under the first letter "f".
  • The flow layout panel used in the main window now uses the Windows Window system color rather than just white.
  • Statusbar text has been updated:
    • Old statusbar text: Welcome to UXL, the Unified eXecutable Launcher! Click the buttons to launch the relevant app. Also, explore the UI.
    • New statusbar text: Welcome to UXL Launcher, the Unified eXecutable Launcher! Click the app names to launch them and explore the UI.
  • Debug labels for the Always On Top feature have been moved to the Extra Apps + Tools groupbox to make room for the theme engine-related debug labels.
  • Debug labels have also been aligned vertically.
  • If you want to show the debug labels, you can change the value of debugmodeShowLabels in the config file from False to True. This change requires an app restart before they will be visible or hidden. This isn't something that changed; it's just something that may be useful. If the theme engine is enabled along with this setting, the debug labels for the theme engine will also be visible.
  • The Microsoft Picture Manager button had its text changed to Microsoft Office Picture Manager.
  • Many code regions and comments have been updated to be more clear.
  • Update Options window dialogs to state that some settings may require an application restart, such as enabling the theme engine.
  • Optimization is turned off for Release builds because I don't really need the speed and storage improvements. I'm not really sure what the benefit of using the Release builds would be over Debug, so for now, I'm just using Debug builds for distribution until I find out why I should use the Release configuration instead.
  • Each app launcher button now uses a single sub (block of code) that accepts arguments. Those arguments are the EXE file for the app (such as EXCEL.EXE for Microsoft Excel) and the "friendly name" for the app (the name most people would use to refer to an app, such as "Microsoft Excel"). This improves maintainability since all the important code relating to actually launching the app and handling errors is in one place. More details.
  • File size for UXL-Launcher.exe has been reduced from 644 KB (Version 3.0) to 576 KB (Version 3.1).
  • Code that updates the Always On Top debug label has been moved to the code that updates debug labels instead of just copying it everywhere that particular debug label can update.

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• Fixed:
  • If the main window is set to Always On Top and the user opens the Options window from the Quickmenu and clicks on a window behind the UXL Launcher window, the Options window will not be able to be interacted with until the user right-clicks on the Quickmenu icon again.
    • This was fixed by passing the name of the form that the new form is shown from when opening a new form (window).
    • More details are available here.
  • Always On Top now continues to work as expected when opening the Options window or the About window; instead of setting the main window (form) to not be on top when these windows show up and returning to on top when they close, both the main window and the new windows stay on top. This problem was related to the other issue with Always On Top referenced above this item.
  • Markdown files such as the readme have been updated to look better after some of GitHub's changes that were made to better align GFM (GitHub Flavored Markdown) with regular Markdown. A little more info (I couldn't easily find the article that said that GitHub was changing how Markdown files were rendered).
  • If the user chooses to test their settings via "Options...>Test settings" and OfficeLangPrefs.exe can't be found, the main window will be sent to the back of the currently showing windows.
    • I don't know if this was a bug in Version 3.0 or not, but if it was, it's fixed now for anyone who ran into this problem.
    • More details.
  • There was a typo in a code comment that had the text "textox" instead of the corrected "textbox".
  • This was mentioned in the "Changed" section above, but I think it's important enough to mention in the "Fixed" section, too:
    • Opening the About window on a computer booted from a regular spinning hard drive is now much faster, mainly because the License and Acknowledgments tabs no longer use an embedded WebBrowser control to display their files.
    • I do know that the Acknowledgments tab header text still says "UXL Launcher Acknowledgements"; I'll fix that in Version 3.2.
    • The second list item was only written because it would be improper grammar with only one subitem in a list.
    • Expecting another list item? TOO BAD. THIS IS THE LAST ONE.

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• Removed:
  • UXL-Standalone-Icon.png was removed from app resources (My.Resources) because it's not actually used in UXL-Launcher.exe. It's still in the Resources folder, though.
  • Acknowledgments.html and gpl-3.0-standalone.html were deleted because they were replaced with RTF documents.

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• Deprecated:
  • The "View system info" button under Tools>Options...>Advanced tab will be replaced with a label that directly shows your Windows edition (32-bit or 64-bit) in version 3.2. More info.
  • The two checkboxes under Tools>Options...>General tab for choosing your Office installation method ( I installed via Office 365/via MSI) will be combined in version 3.2. More info.