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UXL Launcher Changelogs

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Drew Naylor edited this page Oct 6, 2020 · 15 revisions

This wiki page contains the changelogs for UXL Launcher and acts as an archive. You can view the old changelogs here. Each version header links to the corresponding release on GitHub. Versions after 3.2 Stable are in the /docs/changelogs directory.

Table of Contents

Changelogs

UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Stable - Released April 30, 2019

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I'm pleased to announce the release of UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Stable! It didn't take too long for most of the development of this version, but then some other projects delayed it, though it ended up better being delayed.

Please enjoy this version and its changelog. Version 3.2 contains a few bug fixes, some potentially major, and new features, but most importantly, Office 2019 is officially supported! In addition, files can be created from "File>New", and existing files can be opened from "File>Open...". There have also been a few places where code was cleaned up a bit, and two new themes were added. Important links, including links for more information on specific topics, are in the changelog below, so I'll let you read it.

---------------
CHECKSUMS
~~~~~~~~~

You can use Windows PowerShell to confirm the hash of the main UXL Launcher EXE file 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.

To check the installer's hash, run Get-FileHash .\UXL-Launcher_v3.2-Stable.exe -Algorithm SHA256 in Windows PowerShell.

SHA-256 sum for "UXL-Launcher.exe" in the archive: 00C482364F9B229666E9E4F624E754EDB2AF8E913D743448639859D31434A2CD

SHA-256 sum for "UXL-Launcher_v3.2-Stable.exe" (the installer attached to this release): F21C959981FACD47388CA124D32180C27A17B54ED8ADE86D4718949872152550

---------------
CHANGELOG
~~~~~~~~~

Below this text is the changelog. It compares UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Stable to UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Stable. Any changes made to the UXL Launcher Theme Engine are described in their own section after the rest of the changelog.

If you would like to look at the same comparison as I did while writing this changelog, you can do so here: https://github.com/DrewNaylor/UXL-Launcher/compare/v3.1...v3.2 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 3.2 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.

UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Stable Changelog

  • Added:
    • Official support for Office 2019! (commit e9811fe) (More details)
      • For now, it's only supported if installed from outside the Windows Store.
      • Office 2019 has been unofficially supported since Version 3.0 due to Office 2019 and Office 2016 sharing installation folders, but Version 3.2 shows "Microsoft Office 2019" in the Options window and forces Office 365/Click-to-Run support regardless of the checkbox status so that (non-Windows Store) Office 2019 should work.
    • Apps that have been deprecated or removed from Office that are still installed on your computer can be directly launched with their respective buttons after enabling "Bypass configured location for deprecated or removed apps" under Tools>Options window>Advanced tab. (commit 65aadef) (More details)
    • You can now create new documents with the File>New menu. It's based on the overall organization of the LibreOffice 4.4.3.2 File>New menu. Currently, the following choices are available: (closed in #132)
      • Microsoft Word document (Ctrl+N can be used as a keyboard shortcut for this)
      • Microsoft Excel workbook (macro sheet)
        • There's no command-line option for creating a regular workbook.
        • Because there's no command-line option to create a regular workbook, just create a new regular sheet and delete the macro sheet at the bottom of Excel.
      • Microsoft PowerPoint presentation
      • Microsoft Outlook email
      • Microsoft Outlook contact
      • Microsoft Publisher publication
    • Files you've already created can be opened from the File>Open... dialog, which also has Ctrl+O as a keyboard shortcut. This dialog supports filtering to show commonly-used Office formats, such as doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, mdb, accdb, and pub. If you want, all files can be shown, but executable files can't be opened for security purposes. This message can be hidden by changing the config file's setting for "showUnsafeFileExtensionBlockedMessage" to "False". (closed in #131)
    • A new theme called "TenDark" has been added. This is meant to be a dark theme that kinda looks like Windows 10's dark mode. Please note that the button highlight colors are a bit hard to see.
    • Another new theme has been added and has colors based on my cat.
    • The InnoSetup installer scrips used for UXL Launcher have been added to the repository.
    • A tooltip has been added to the custom theme path textbox in the Options window so that it's easier to tell where the custom theme file you're using is located.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • Changed:
    • The readme and parts of the wiki have been improved and cleaned up a bit since the release of UXL Launcher 3.1.
    • Copyright years have been updated to 2013-2019 from 2013-2018.
    • Microsoft's own copyright year (as listed in the About window and in code) for Office and Windows has been updated to 2019 from 2018.
    • The About window's "Acknowledgments" tab now says "Acknowledgements". (More details)
    • Updating the text for both the titlebar and the statusbar is now done from one code block (one for each string and window area) to make it easier to update rather than having it be in multiple places. This also makes it so that any Theme Engine problems don't impact updating the titlebar/statusbar text.
    • Instead of showing the full version number in the titlebar, only the major and minor version numbers are shown. The About window still shows the full version number. (More details)
    • Codenames are now stored in the My.Resources file instead of being hardcoded so that it's easier to update when working on a new version.
    • The debug label used to show if the user says they have Office 365 has been renamed from "debugLabelForMSIInstall" to "debugLabelForUserHasOfficeThreeSixFive" to better reflect the purpose of the label.
    • "Revert to Default Theme" in the View menu has been renamed to "Reload Default Theme" and its keyboard shortcut was changed to Ctrl+R from Ctrl+0.
    • The "I installed via Office 365" checkbox was renamed to "Enable Office 365/Click-to-Run Compatibility" and was merged with the "I installed via MSI" checkbox. When unchecked, this checkbox acts like the MSI checkbox, and when checked, it acts as the Office 365 checkbox. (More details)
    • On the Options window Advanced tab, the "View system info" button was replaced with a label that shows your Windows edition so that it's easier to configure UXL Launcher to work with the version of Office you have installed. This label explains which option to click based on whether your Windows installation is 32-bit or 64-bit. (More details)
    • The "Clear Textbox" button on the Options window General tab has had its text shortened to "Clear".
    • This "Clear" button has been moved closer to its relevant textbox.
    • Inside the "What edition of Windows do you run?" groupbox on the Options window Advanced tab, the labels and radio buttons have been moved up-left so that they're more centered with the new Windows edition autodetection label text displaying.
    • "Test settings" now attempts to find Office Language Preferences in the configured location (based on the user's settings) rather than trying to launch it (Office Language Preferences). If "Test settings" can find it, a messagebox will be shown telling the user that it was found, and their Office-related settings should be fine unless they change their version of Office. Otherwise, the user will be told that it couldn't be found, and the messagebox will offer a button to go back into the settings to change them again. Both of these messageboxes show the configured location based on the user's settings. (More details and merged in https://github.com/DrewNaylor/UXL-Launcher/pull/129 ) (Technical details)
    • When saving settings that use Boolean values that are changed by using checkboxes, the setting is made equal to the checkbox's CheckState instead of having an If...Else block to determine what to change the setting to based on the checkbox being checked or unchecked. This reduces code complexity and (possibly) duplication. (More details)
    • If something other than a drive letter has been entered into the Office Drive Location textbox in the Options window, the drive letter will now go back to what's already saved in the settings after closing the messagebox, and the textbox will be selected for easier editing. Likewise, if the textbox is empty when saving settings, the drive letter will now be set to what's already saved in the settings, the General tab will be shown (if needed), and the textbox will be selected to make editing easier.
    • More detail has been added to some error messageboxes.
    • Many code comments and region names have been updated to be clearer or more accurate.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • Fixed:
    • 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.
      • This bug was thought to have been fixed in Version 3.1, but it apparently wasn't fixed. It should be fixed now.
      • More details
    • In Version 3.1, if Office Language Preferences can't be found when testing your settings and "Always On Top" is enabled, the message box will be stuck behind the main window. (fixed in a0afb1a) (More details)
    • Office versions other than 14, 15, and 16 aren't picked up even if they're specified in the config file. (fixed in e54126c) (More details)
    • Make sure only one Options window is opened. Before now, it was possible to open multiple Options windows from the Quickmenu's "Options..." button, but now it shouldn't be possible. This fix was backported from Version 3.3, so it now will exist in 3.2. (fixed in efda37a)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • Removed:
    • Test2Theme_XML.xml was deleted. Please use the Eyesore2 theme if you want a test theme, or the ReturnOfNight theme if you want similar colors to the Test2 theme.
    • Messageboxes warning of potentially incompatible Office version and install method settings have been removed.
    • The "View system info" button in the Options window has been deleted along with its deprecation message since it was replaced with a label that directly shows your Windows edition as described above.
    • The "I installed via MSI" checkbox was deleted along with its deprecation notice since it was merged with the "I installed via Office 365" checkbox as mentioned above. My.Settings.installedViaMSIPackage was also removed.
    • An extra space was removed from between the copyright years and developer name in the About window text.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • Deprecated:
    • Nothing in this version.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • UXL Launcher Theme Engine changes:
    • The Theme Engine has been updated to version 1.02. Changes in this version:
      • Major bug fix: Numbers such as 1.01.1 used for the UseThemeEngineVersion tag/element will crash UXL Launcher with an exception of System.InvalidCastException because it's trying to convert the value from a string to a decimal type. If a theme file uses an invalid Theme Engine version number, version 1.01 will now be forced instead. (commit 9dc5474) (More details)
      • Minor bug fix: If a theme file specifies to use version 1.02 or greater and an invalid color (such as "Transparent", which is invalid in this case for some reason) is used for the Button FlatAppearance BorderColor property, the color will instead be set to "Nothing" in addition to having the System.NotSupportedException exception caught. However, if the theme file doesn't specify to use version 1.02 or greater, the exception will be caught but the color won't be changed to a valid color.
      • Code cleanup: The theming code that goes through all the controls on the main window has now been merged into one code block. Instead of going through one groupbox, then the next, then the next, it now loops through all the controls in the main window's FlowLayoutPanel. This change might not be any faster, but it reduces duplicate code.
      • Other: Custom theme paths will only be shown in the debugger's output if a custom theme is currently being used.
      • Other: Debugger output messages have been updated.

UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Release Candidate 1 - Released April 16, 2019

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The release candidate for version 3.2 is finally here, and it only took 14 weeks and 3 days, give or take a few depending on how long it takes me to write this changelog. If all goes well with this release, UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Stable will be released two weeks after this release is available. If not, changes will be made, then it'll go up.

Please enjoy this version and its changelog. Version 3.2 contains a few bug fixes, some potentially major, and new features, but most importantly, Office 2019 is officially supported! In addition, files can be created from "File>New", and existing files can be opened from "File>Open...". There have also been a few places where code was cleaned up a bit, and a new theme was added. Important links, including links for more information on specific topics, are in the changelog below, so I'll let you read it.

---------------
CHECKSUMS
~~~~~~~~~

You can use Windows PowerShell to confirm the hash of the main UXL Launcher EXE file 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.

To check the installer's hash, run Get-FileHash .\UXL-Launcher_v3.2-RC1.exe -Algorithm SHA256 in Windows PowerShell.

SHA-256 sum for "UXL-Launcher.exe" in the archive: 821206648AA6EE6159539B20C29DC68EA4F592C3B10488FFD54AB61B818F512B

SHA-256 sum for "UXL-Launcher_v3.2-RC1.exe" (the installer attached to this release): 4F1944BF1A1F73F0586F51A122624FDB5B6EF306D7A60EAC0D7C2656EF867418

---------------
CHANGELOG
~~~~~~~~~

Below this text is the changelog. It compares UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Stable to UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Release Candidate 1. Any changes made to the UXL Launcher Theme Engine are described in their own section after the rest of the changelog.

If you would like to look at the same comparison as I did while writing this changelog, you can do so here: https://github.com/DrewNaylor/UXL-Launcher/compare/v3.1...v3.2-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 3.2 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.

UXL Launcher Version 3.2 Release Candidate 1 Changelog

  • Added:
    • Official support for Office 2019! (commit e9811fe) (More details)
      • For now, it's only supported if installed from outside the Windows Store.
      • Office 2019 has been unofficially supported since Version 3.0 due to Office 2019 and Office 2016 sharing installation folders, but Version 3.2 shows "Microsoft Office 2019" in the Options window and forces Office 365/Click-to-Run support regardless of the checkbox status so that (non-Windows Store) Office 2019 should work.
    • Apps that have been deprecated or removed from Office that are still installed on your computer can be directly launched with their respective buttons after enabling "Bypass configured location for deprecated or removed apps" under Tools>Options window>Advanced tab. (commit 65aadef) (More details)
    • You can now create new documents with the File>New menu. It's based on the overall organization of the LibreOffice 4.4.3.2 File>New menu. Currently, the following choices are available: (closed in #132)
      • Microsoft Word document (Ctrl+N can be used as a keyboard shortcut for this)
      • Microsoft Excel workbook (macro sheet)
        • There's no command-line option for creating a regular workbook.
        • Because there's no command-line option to create a regular workbook, just create a new regular sheet and delete the macro sheet at the bottom of Excel.
      • Microsoft PowerPoint presentation
      • Microsoft Outlook email
      • Microsoft Outlook contact
      • Microsoft Publisher publication
    • Files you've already created can be opened from the File>Open... dialog, which also has Ctrl+O as a keyboard shortcut. This dialog supports filtering to show commonly-used Office formats, such as doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, mdb, accdb, and pub. If you want, all files can be shown, but executable files can't be opened for security purposes. This message can be hidden by changing the config file's setting for "showUnsafeFileExtensionBlockedMessage" to "False". (closed in #131)
    • A new theme called "TenDark" has been added. This is meant to be a dark theme that kinda looks like Windows 10's dark mode. Please note that the button highlight colors are a bit hard to see.
    • The InnoSetup installer scrips used for UXL Launcher have been added to the repository.
    • A tooltip has been added to the custom theme path textbox in the Options window so that it's easier to tell where the custom theme file you're using is located.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • Changed:
    • The readme and parts of the wiki have been improved and cleaned up a bit since the release of UXL Launcher 3.1.
    • Copyright years have been updated to 2013-2019 from 2013-2018.
    • Microsoft's own copyright year (as listed in the About window and in code) for Office and Windows has been updated to 2019 from 2018.
    • The About window's "Acknowledgments" tab now says "Acknowledgements". (More details)
    • Updating the text for both the titlebar and the statusbar is now done from one code block (one for each string and window area) to make it easier to update rather than having it be in multiple places. This also makes it so that any Theme Engine problems don't impact updating the titlebar/statusbar text.
    • Instead of showing the full version number in the titlebar, only the major and minor version numbers are shown. The About window still shows the full version number. (More details)
    • Codenames are now stored in the My.Resources file instead of being hardcoded so that it's easier to update when working on a new version.
    • The debug label used to show if the user says they have Office 365 has been renamed from "debugLabelForMSIInstall" to "debugLabelForUserHasOfficeThreeSixFive" to better reflect the purpose of the label.
    • "Revert to Default Theme" in the View menu has been renamed to "Reload Default Theme" and its keyboard shortcut was changed to Ctrl+R from Ctrl+0.
    • The "I installed via Office 365" checkbox was renamed to "Enable Office 365/Click-to-Run Compatibility" and was merged with the "I installed via MSI" checkbox. When unchecked, this checkbox acts like the MSI checkbox, and when checked, it acts as the Office 365 checkbox. (More details)
    • On the Options window Advanced tab, the "View system info" button was replaced with a label that shows your Windows edition so that it's easier to configure UXL Launcher to work with the version of Office you have installed. This label explains which option to click based on whether your Windows installation is 32-bit or 64-bit. (More details)
    • The "Clear Textbox" button on the Options window General tab has had its text shortened to "Clear".
    • This "Clear" button has been moved closer to its relevant textbox.
    • Inside the "What edition of Windows do you run?" groupbox on the Options window Advanced tab, the labels and radio buttons have been moved up-left so that they're more centered with the new Windows edition autodetection label text displaying.
    • "Test settings" now attempts to find Office Language Preferences in the configured location (based on the user's settings) rather than trying to launch it (Office Language Preferences). If "Test settings" can find it, a messagebox will be shown telling the user that it was found, and their Office-related settings should be fine unless they change their version of Office. Otherwise, the user will be told that it couldn't be found, and the messagebox will offer a button to go back into the settings to change them again. Both of these messageboxes show the configured location based on the user's settings. (More details and merged in https://github.com/DrewNaylor/UXL-Launcher/pull/129 ) (Technical details)
    • When saving settings that use Boolean values that are changed by using checkboxes, the setting is made equal to the checkbox's CheckState instead of having an If...Else block to determine what to change the setting to based on the checkbox being checked or unchecked. This reduces code complexity and (possibly) duplication. (More details)
    • If something other than a drive letter has been entered into the Office Drive Location textbox in the Options window, the drive letter will now go back to what's already saved in the settings after closing the messagebox, and the textbox will be selected for easier editing. Likewise, if the textbox is empty when saving settings, the drive letter will now be set to what's already saved in the settings, the General tab will be shown (if needed), and the textbox will be selected to make editing easier.
    • More detail has been added to some error messageboxes.
    • Many code comments and region names have been updated to be clearer or more accurate.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • Fixed:
    • 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.
      • This bug was thought to have been fixed in Version 3.1, but it apparently wasn't fixed. It should be fixed now.
      • More details
    • In Version 3.1, if Office Language Preferences can't be found when testing your settings and "Always On Top" is enabled, the message box will be stuck behind the main window. (fixed in a0afb1a) (More details)
    • Office versions other than 14, 15, and 16 aren't picked up even if they're specified in the config file. (fixed in e54126c) (More details)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • Removed:
    • Test2Theme_XML.xml was deleted. Please use the Eyesore2 theme if you want a test theme, or the ReturnOfNight theme if you want similar colors to the Test2 theme.
    • Messageboxes warning of potentially incompatible Office version and install method settings have been removed.
    • The "View system info" button in the Options window has been deleted along with its deprecation message since it was replaced with a label that directly shows your Windows edition as described above.
    • The "I installed via MSI" checkbox was deleted along with its deprecation notice since it was merged with the "I installed via Office 365" checkbox as mentioned above. My.Settings.installedViaMSIPackage was also removed.
    • An extra space was removed from between the copyright years and developer name in the About window text.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • Deprecated:
    • Nothing in this version.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • UXL Launcher Theme Engine changes:
    • The Theme Engine has been updated to version 1.02. Changes in this version:
      • Major bug fix: Numbers such as 1.01.1 used for the UseThemeEngineVersion tag/element will crash UXL Launcher with an exception of System.InvalidCastException because it's trying to convert the value from a string to a decimal type. If a theme file uses an invalid Theme Engine version number, version 1.01 will now be forced instead. (commit 9dc5474) (More details)
      • Minor bug fix: If a theme file specifies to use version 1.02 or greater and an invalid color (such as "Transparent", which is invalid in this case for some reason) is used for the Button FlatAppearance BorderColor property, the color will instead be set to "Nothing" in addition to having the System.NotSupportedException exception caught. However, if the theme file doesn't specify to use version 1.02 or greater, the exception will be caught but the color won't be changed to a valid color.
      • Code cleanup: The theming code that goes through all the controls on the main window has now been merged into one code block. Instead of going through one groupbox, then the next, then the next, it now loops through all the controls in the main window's FlowLayoutPanel. This change might not be any faster, but it reduces duplicate code.
      • Other: Custom theme paths will only be shown in the debugger's output if a custom theme is currently being used.
      • Other: Debugger output messages have been updated.

UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Stable - Released July 10, 2018

(return to top)

Edit Oct 2, 2018: I've made an installer! Its checksum was added below and the file name is UXL-Launcher_v3.1-Stable.exe. The files included are the same as the ones in the zip file. I'll probably make an installer for 3.2 when it's out since most of the work is done now. The installer uses Inno Setup and was compiled from this script. Please note that this installer was tested on Windows 10, 1803, and Windows 7 SP1, and does not check for .Net 4.6.1, so that'll have to be installed separately if it isn't already. If you run into trouble with the installer, please file an issue on the Issues tab above.

---------------------------------------------------

After an entire one and a half years (1.5 years/18 months) and almost two weeks of work with numerous delays (mostly from video editing, HideSettingsPages, and classes), the release of UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Stable is finally here! I was feeling generous, so I released it a few days early. I wanted to get this out sooner, but there were some delays as previously mentioned. Once this is released, I'll start working on Version 3.2 which should have Office 2019 support.

Please enjoy this version and its changelog. I worked hard on both Version 3.1 and the changelog and there are several optimizations that might not be immediately obvious, such as using an RTF document in the About window instead of an embedded web browser and a bug fix for a major issue that was discovered after the release of Version 3.0 Stable. Other changes include the implementation of a theme engine with custom theme support. Important links, including links for more information on specific topics, are in the changelog below, so I'll let you read it.

As of October 2, 2018, an installer is available if you want to avoid manually extracting zip files. It adds a shortcut in the Start Menu and on the desktop, if you want it to.

---------------
CHECKSUMS
~~~~~~~~~

MD5 checksums are no longer used for UXL Launcher as of Version 3.1 Stable. More details.

You can use Windows PowerShell to confirm the hash of the main UXL Launcher EXE file 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.

To check the installer's hash, run Get-FileHash .\UXL-Launcher_v3.1-Stable.exe -Algorithm SHA256 in Windows PowerShell.

SHA-256 sum for "UXL-Launcher.exe" in the archive: 732D53E2821D025A63EE612F93A17FA76620EF7AD239BF3866E9718F26ECE7C2

SHA-256 sum for "UXL-Launcher_v3.1-Stable.exe" (the installer attached to this release): 88506A1D8584A28247EF87DB304EFC3EC6E929AFCB333E782F18638FB354D06C

---------------
CHANGELOG
~~~~~~~~~

Below this text is the changelog. It compares UXL Launcher Version 3.0 Stable to UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Stable.

If you would like to look at the same comparison as I did while writing this changelog, you can do so here: https://github.com/DrewNaylor/UXL-Launcher/compare/v3.0...v3.1 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.

UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Stable 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 (to retain the overall look of Version 3.0 so that it's not a jarring upgrade) 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.
      • 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 format of Welcome back to UXL Launcher, Firstname! "Firstname" is where the user's configured firstname/nickname goes.
      • 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.
    • The license has been added next to copyright text in the About window so that it's now easier to tell what license a particular component uses. In the case of UXL Launcher, it says, "Copyright (C) 2013-2018 Drew Naylor. Licensed under Gnu GPLv3+." If there's no copyright, it's next to the author's name. This is how applauncher-icons displays this: "By Drew Naylor. Licensed under CC BY 4.0."
    • 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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • 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 that's 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. Shortly after the release candidate for Version 3.1 was made available, it was discovered that AppVeyor builds and building directly from source hosted on GitHub made this text get jumbled up due to Unix line endings, but this problem was fixed several days later when preparing the final cleanups and changes for UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Stable.
    • 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.
    • The About window "copyright notice" is now much more detailed about the fact that Microsoft owns their copyrights, trademarks, and registered trademarks. The copyright year for Microsoft's copyrights was also changed to be the current copyright year whenever Microsoft Office or Windows gets a new copyright year in new program versions.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • 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 and a video showing the bug 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 and doesn't hang as badly anymore, mainly because the License and Acknowledgments tabs no longer use an embedded WebBrowser control to display their files. They instead use an RTF textbox control.
      • I do know that the Acknowledgments tab RTF file 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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • 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, and is used on the project's readme for GitHub.
    • Acknowledgments.html and gpl-3.0-standalone.html were deleted because they were replaced with RTF documents.
    • An extra space was removed from between the copyright years and developer name in the About window text.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • 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.

UXL Launcher Version 3.1 Release Candidate 1 - Released June 28, 2018

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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.

---------------
CHECKSUMS
~~~~~~~~~

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

---------------
CHANGELOG
~~~~~~~~~

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: https://github.com/DrewNaylor/UXL-Launcher/compare/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.

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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • 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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • 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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • 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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  • 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.

UXL Launcher Version 3.0 Stable - Released December 23, 2016

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I am pleased to announce the release of UXL Launcher Version 3.0 Stable after three (3) months of work on this version alone! It's been almost three and a half years of work total on this app since I started working on Drew's App Launcher, the predecessor to UXL Launcher.

MD5 sum for "UXL-Launcher.exe" in the archive: E79767D259E4D504C0F64EEA2FBFF923

You can use a tool called MD5Check to compare the hashes.

Below this text is the changelog. It compares Drew's App Launcher version 2.8 to UXL Launcher version 3.0. UXL Launcher is the successor to Drew's App Launcher and was almost completely rewritten from scratch with very little code reused without modification from Drew's App Launcher.

UXL Launcher Version 3.0 Changelog:

  • Added:
    • Support for Office 2010 via 365, Office 2013, Office 2013 via MSI, Office 2016, and Office 2016 via 365.
    • Proper error handlers to tell the user that we can't find the specified program in the folder chosen in the Options window.
    • Context menu to the systemtray/notification icon for quicker launching of most of the apps.
    • Always On Top to keep the window on top of other windows that aren't set to Always On Top. Note that this is disabled temporarily when the Options window and About window are opened.
    • Settings tester button in Tools>Options window>Test settings button to make sure everything is configured properly.
    • Support for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows installs in the same EXE file.
    • Proper About window with tabs for app info, License, and Acknowledgements.
    • Button to open the System Info page in the Control Panel in the Options window>Advanced tab.
    • Better organization with a menubar instead of a tab control.
    • Better code organization.
    • Link to the UXL Launcher wiki via Help>View Help Topics menubar entry which can be opened via Ctrl+F1.
    • Exit button via File>Exit menubar entry.
    • Banner to About window.
    • Part of the boilerplate License notice from the code to About window paragraph.
    • Support for HiDPI screens such as those found on the Surface Pro 4.
    • Debugging labels to the main window for developers and general debugging.
    • "Check for Updates" button in About window. This takes the user to the GitHub Releases feed.

  • Changed:
    • Attempt to conform to Microsoft's UX guidelines.
    • Brand-new icon that's visible at all the supported zoom levels in Windows Explorer.
    • Main window size is smaller and more efficient.
    • The Office Drive Location textbox in the Options window now accepts Backspace and lowercase letters. Note that it automatically changes lowercase letters to CAPITAL LETTERS when the user types in the box.
    • Moved the Options window and Office Language Preferences to the Tools menubar menu.
    • All the groupboxes on the main window have had their text changed.
    • Blue text in the Options window is now black.
    • Redesigned Options window.
    • Reorganized app category groupboxes to an order similar to how people usually list off the Office apps (ie. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.)
    • Resized all the app icons on the main window to 50x50 pixels.

  • Removed:
    • Support for the internal changelog pages.
    • Support for Windows XP and Windows Vista
    • "Version History" column and buttons from About window.
    • Excess source code files that just add bloat.
    • "Notes" textbox from the About window.
    • Tab control on main window; replaced with menubar.
    • Drew's Modification Exception has been removed in favor of just the Gnu GPL v3+.

UXL Launcher Version 3.0 Release Candidate 1 - Released December 9, 2016

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I am pleased to announce the release of UXL Launcher version 3.0 Release Candidate 1 after three (3) months of work! If all goes well this will be the final 3.0 Stable release with few modifications. If you notice any major bugs that aren't mentioned in the Known Issues, please report them in the Issues tab.

MD5 sum for "UXL-Launcher.exe" in the archive: 454239B22803EB951F3E86CC8F2F2811

You can use a tool called MD5Check to compare the hashes.

Below this text is the changelog. It compares Drew's App Launcher version 2.8 to UXL Launcher version 3.0. UXL Launcher is the successor to Drew's App Launcher and was almost completely rewritten from scratch with very little code reused without modification from Drew's App Launcher.

UXL Launcher Version 3.0 Changelog:

  • Added:
    • Support for Office 2010 via 365, Office 2013, Office 2013 via MSI, Office 2016, and Office 2016 via 365.
    • Proper error handlers to tell the user that we can't find the specified program in the folder chosen in the Options window.
    • Context menu to the systemtray/notification icon for quicker launching of most of the apps.
    • Always On Top to keep the window on top of other windows that aren't set to Always On Top. Note that this is disabled temporarily when the Options window and About window are opened.
    • Settings tester button in Tools>Options window>Test settings button to make sure everything is configured properly.
    • Support for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows installs in the same EXE file.
    • Proper About window with tabs for app info, License, and Acknowledgements.
    • Button to open the System Info page in the Control Panel in the Options window>Advanced tab.
    • Better organization with a menubar instead of a tab control.
    • Better code organization.
    • Link to the UXL Launcher wiki via Help>View Help Topics menubar entry which can be opened via Ctrl+F1.
    • Exit button via File>Exit menubar entry.
    • Banner to About window.
    • Part of the boilerplate License notice from the code to About window paragraph.
    • Support for HiDPI screens such as those found on the Surface Pro 4.
    • Debugging labels to the main window for developers and general debugging.
    • "Check for Updates" button in About window. This takes the user to the GitHub Releases feed.

  • Changed:
    • Attempt to conform to Microsoft's UX guidelines.
    • Brand-new icon that's visible at all the supported zoom levels in Windows Explorer.
    • Main window size is smaller and more efficient.
    • The Office Drive Location textbox in the Options window now accepts Backspace and lowercase letters. Note that it automatically changes lowercase letters to CAPITAL LETTERS when the user types in the box.
    • Moved the Options window and Office Language Preferences to the Tools menubar menu.
    • All the groupboxes on the main window have had their text changed.
    • Blue text in the Options window is now black.
    • Redesigned Options window.
    • Reorganized app category groupboxes to an order similar to how people usually list off the Office apps (ie. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.)
    • Resized all the app icons on the main window to 50x50 pixels.

  • Removed:
    • Support for the internal changelog pages.
    • Support for Windows XP and Windows Vista
    • "Version History" column and buttons from About window.
    • Excess source code files that just add bloat.
    • "Notes" textbox from the About window.
    • Tab control on main window; replaced with menubar.
    • Drew's Modification Exception has been removed in favor of just the Gnu GPL v3+.

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