The Steampunk IO Desktop Widget, written in VB6 for Windows and ReactOS. Created for XP, Vista, Win7, 8, 10/11+, ReactOS as well as Linux or the Apple Mac's OS/X with Wine. This IO Desktop Widget is an attractive and steamy VB6 widget for your desktop. This VB6 widget provides a simple moveable marble globe complete with rings

The others are the Uranus, Jupiter, Saturn and of course, 'God of War', the planet Mars. Double-clicking on the planet will cause a personalised Windows application to fire up. The first time you run it there will be no assigned function and so it will state as such - then it will pop up the preferences so that you can enter the command of your choice. The widget takes command line-style commands for windows.

This is a simple RC/VB6 widget based upon one of my old Yahoo widgets, little more than a glorified desktop icon really. Just an image of a planetary body that responds to a double-click to open an application you choose to assign. A bit of background: The Yahoo widget SDK came with a Photoshop conversion script that could take any image and create a desktop widget within 30 seconds. This meant that you could create eye-candy desktop widgets with ease in just a few clicks. This planetary red widget is a VB6 version of one of those, demonstrating the principle of creating such a desktop widget using VB6.

Why VB6? Well, with a 64 bit, modern-language improvement upgrade on the way in the guise of 100% compatible TwinBasic, coupled with support for transparent PNGs via Olaf Schmidt's RC/Cairo wrapper, VB6 code has an amazing future.

The IO widget is an attractive dieselpunk VB6 widget for your desktop. Functional and gorgeous at the same time. The graphics are my own. It is all my code with some help from the chaps at VBForums (credits given). This Widget is a moveable widget that you can move anywhere around the desktop as you require.

This widget can be increased in size, animation speed can be changed, opacity/transparency may be set as to the users discretion. The widget can also be made to hide for a pre-determined period.

Right clicking will bring up a menu of options. Double-clicking on the widget will cause a personalised Windows application to fire up. The first time you run it there will be no assigned function and so it will state as such and then pop up the preferences so that you can enter the command of your choice. The widget takes command line-style commands for windows. Mouse hover over the widget and press CTRL+mousewheel up/down to resize. It works well on Windows XP to Windows 11.

The IO VB6 widget is Beta-grade software, under development, not yet ready to use on a production system - use at your own risk.

This version was developed on Windows 7 using 32 bit VisualBasic 6 as a FOSS project creating a WoW64 widget for the desktop.

It is open source to allow easy configuration, bug-fixing, enhancement and community contribution towards free-and-useful VB6 utilities that can be created by anyone. The first step was the creation of this template program to form the basis for the conversion of other desktop utilities or widgets. A future step is new VB6 widgets with more functionality and then hopefully, conversion of each to RADBasic/TwinBasic for future-proofing and 64bit-ness.

This utility is one of a set of steampunk and dieselpunk widgets. That you can find here on Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/yereverluvinuncleber/gallery

I do hope you enjoy using this utility and others. Your own software enhancements and contributions will be gratefully received if you choose to contribute.

INSTALLATION :

If you are just a casual user of desktop programs then simply download the SETUP.EXE and run it. If you are a developer and you want to make changes to the code then read on.

BUILD: The program runs without any Microsoft plugins.

Built using: VB6, MZ-TOOLS 3.0, VBAdvance, CodeHelp Core IDE Extender Framework 2.2 & Rubberduck 2.4.1, RichClient 6

Links:

https://www.vbrichclient.com/#/en/About/
MZ-TOOLS https://www.mztools.com/  
CodeHelp http://www.planetsourcecode.com/vb/scripts/ShowCode.asp?txtCodeId=62468&lngWId=1  
Rubberduck http://rubberduckvba.com/  
Rocketdock https://punklabs.com/  
Registry code ALLAPI.COM  
La Volpe http://www.planet-source-code.com/vb/scripts/ShowCode.asp?txtCodeId=67466&lngWId=1  
PrivateExtractIcons code http://www.activevb.de/rubriken/  
Persistent debug code http://www.vbforums.com/member.php?234143-Elroy  
Open File common dialog code without dependent OCX - http://forums.codeguru.com/member.php?92278-rxbagain  
VBAdvance  

Tested on :

ReactOS 0.4.14 32bit on virtualBox    
Windows 7 Professional 32bit on Intel    
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit on Intel    
Windows 7 Professional 64bit on Intel    
Windows XP SP3 32bit on Intel    
Windows 10 Home 64bit on Intel    
Windows 10 Home 64bit on AMD    
Windows 11 64bit on Intel  

CREDITS:

I have really tried to maintain the credits as the project has progressed. If I have made a mistake and left someone out then do forgive me. I will make amends if anyone points out my mistake in leaving someone out.

MicroSoft in the 90s - MS built good, lean and useful tools in the late 90s and early 2000s. Thanks for VB6.

Olaf Schmidt - This tool was built using the RichClient RC5 Cairo wrapper for VB6. Specifically the components using transparency and reading images directly from PSD. Thanks for the massive effort Olaf in creating Cairo counterparts for all VB6 native controls and giving us access to advanced features on controls such as transparency.

Shuja Ali @ codeguru for his settings.ini code.

ALLAPI.COM For the registry reading code.

Rxbagain on codeguru for his Open File common dialog code without a dependent OCX - http://forums.codeguru.com/member.php?92278-rxbagain

si_the_geek for his special folder code

Elroy on VB forums for the balloon tooltips

Harry Whitfield for his quality testing, brain stimulation and being an unwitting source of inspiration.

Dependencies:

o A windows-alike o/s such as Windows XP, 7-11, ReactOS or Linux/Wine, Apple Mac OSX 11+ Wine.

o Microsoft VB6 IDE installed with its runtime components. The program runs without any additional Microsoft OCX components, just the basic controls that ship with VB6.

• Uses the latest version of the RC5 Cairo framework from Olaf Schmidt.

During development the RC5 components need to be registered. These scripts are used to register. Run each by double-clicking on them.

RegisterRC5inPlace.vbs
RegisterVBWidgetsInPlace.vbs

During runtime on the users system, the RC5 components are dynamically referenced using modRC5regfree.bas which is compiled into the binary.

Requires a IO folder in C:\Users<user>\AppData\Roaming\ eg: C:\Users<user>\AppData\Roaming\IO Requires a settings.ini file to exist in C:\Users<user>\AppData\Roaming\IO The above will be created automatically by the compiled program when run for the first time.

Uses just one OCX control extracted from Krools mega pack (slider). This is part of Krools replacement for the whole of Microsoft Windows Common Controls found in mscomctl.ocx. The slider control OCX file is shipped with this package.

• CCRSlider.ocx

This OCX will reside in the program folder. The program reference to this OCX is contained within the supplied resource file IO.RES. It is compiled into the binary.

• OLEGuids.tlb

This is a type library that defines types, object interfaces, and more specific API definitions needed for COM interop / marshalling. It is only used at design time (IDE). This is a Krool-modified version of the original .tlb from the vbaccelerator website. The .tlb is compiled into the executable. For the compiled .exe this is NOT a dependency, only during design time.

From the command line, copy the tlb to a central location (system32 or wow64 folder) and register it.

COPY OLEGUIDS.TLB %SystemRoot%\System32
REGTLIB %SystemRoot%\System32\OLEGUIDS.TLB

In the VB6 IDE - project - references - browse - select the OLEGuids.tlb

• SETUP.EXE - The program is currently distributed using setup2go, a very useful and comprehensive installer program that builds a .exe installer. Youll have to find a copy of setup2go on the web as it is now abandonware. Contact me directly for a copy. The file "install IO 0.1.0.s2g" is the configuration file for setup2go. When you build it will report any errors in the build.

• HELP.CHM - the program documentation is built using the NVU HTML editor and compiled using the Microsoft supplied CHM builder tools (HTMLHelp Workshop) and the HTM2CHM tool from Yaroslav Kirillov. Both are abandonware but still do the job admirably. The HTML files exist alongside the compiled CHM file in the HELP folder.

Project References:

VisualBasic for Applications  
VisualBasic Runtime Objects and Procedures  
VisualBasic Objects and Procedures  
OLE Automation  
vbRichClient5

LICENCE AGREEMENTS:

Copyright © 2023 Dean Beedell

In addition to the GNU General Public Licence please be aware that you may use any of my own imagery in your own creations but commercially only with my permission. In all other non-commercial cases I require a credit to the original artist using my name or one of my pseudonyms and a link to my site. With regard to the commercial use of incorporated images, permission and a licence would need to be obtained from the original owner and creator, ie. me.