                           Blanch 1.4
                 Copyright  1996, One Guy Coding

             WWW   http://www.cam.org/~oneguy
            eMail  oneguy@cam.org

    << Button Launcher for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 >>

* Description
-------------
Blanch is a simple, yet powerful, drag-n-drop button bar for 
Window 95 and Windows NT 4.0.  Drag executable files or 
associated documents, folders and shortcuts (links) and drop
them on blanch to create a new button.  Drag blanch buttons
between pages to duplicate the button.  Drag a button off the
page to delete the button (you can still paste it back to
the button bar at this point).  Cut/Copy and Paste buttons
from the Context menus.

Blanch buttons now have Cron capabilities, that is, they can
be configured to launch automatically.  See the Cron options
described below.

Right click on Blanch (or the title bar) to open the context
menu.  From here you can set various options (see Blanch Options
below) open the Blanch Properties dialog or change "Pages".
The first 10 Blanch pages can be accessed via the keyboard 
accelerators Ctrl-1, Ctrl-2, ... Ctrl-0 or by Ctrl-left and 
Ctrl-right to cycle through the pages.

Blanch will auto hide if you move the bar to one of the edges
of the screen.  For example, if you have a horizontal blanch
bar and you drag the blanch window to the top of the screen the
caption will disappear and blanch will hide if you run a program
or select another window.  Double click on one of the page
tabs to restore the caption.

Right click on a Blanch Button to open the button context menu.
From here you can delete or open the button properties dialog.
Change the executable, default directory, icon file or icon
index and specify whether blanch should minimise, maximise or
run the program normally.  Clicking on the first menu entry will
open an explorer window in the directory where that particular
program lives.  You can also cut/copy/paste buttons as well as
drag them around on the blanch page.  Move them to another page
by dragging and dropping a button onto a page tab.

You can also drop files onto blanches that contain executables.
If the executable has been designed to accept command line options
the executable will run and load the file or files dropped onto
it. (Note: some program will not load more than one file at a time).

* Cron Options
--------------

Any blanch button can now be configured to launch itself
automatically.  Click the "Cron ..." button in any button
properties dialog box to change or install cron settings
for any given button.  Programs can be scheduled to launch
based on the following criteria, in order of increasing
priority,

Minute    - One or more 2 minute intervals (required)
Hour      - One or more hours during the course of the day
Day       - One or more month days (1-31)
Week Day  - One or more week days (Sunday, Monday, ..., Saturday)
Month     - One or more month days

*** NOTE *** Only the minute setting is required.  All other
             criteria are enabled by default.

For example.  If you setup a cron with 0 and 30 minutes selected
the Blanch will launch every month, every week day, every day
and every hour at 0 and 30 minutes.  If you turned on a given
hour, say 8, the program would only be launched at 8:00 
and 8:30 (every day for all eternity or until 2038, which ever
comes first).

Note that Week Day settings take priority over Month Day 
settings, that is if you select Monday but deselect Monday
the 1st, 8th and 22nd the program would still launch on
those days.

To destroy settings for a button click the Destroy button.
To clear settings, click Clear.
To disable the current settings, click Disable on.
To launch the button only one time, click One Time on.


* Installation
--------------
Installation of blanch is trivial.  I have not supplied 
blanch with a 'SetUp' program since I've come across quite a few
programs lately that come with setup.exe and setup.dll and 
associated files that are bigger than the size of the program
itself.  Besides, downloading a program distribution of 100K
is preferable for most than downloading an 1.5Mb distribution.
That said,

Copy the blanch distribution executable blanchxx.zip (a
zip file) or unzip the file in the directory where you want to
install the program (say c:\Program Files\One Guy Coding).
Man, was that ever easy!

Then double click on Blanch.exe or run it from the command line.  
That's it!  You might want to create a shortcut in the StartUp menu 
to have blanch run when you start windows.

* Blanch Options
----------------
Pages          - popup menu for managing button pages
Buttons        - add buttons to blanch
-------------
Paste          - paste a button onto the current page (right click on a button
                 to copy or paste it into the button clipboard)
-------------
Options
  On Top         - blanch stays on top of all other applications
  Auto Hide      - blanch can be auto hidden on the edge of the screen
  Caption        - show or hide the window caption
  Tab snap       - mouse cursor 'snaps' to page tabs when turned on

  Big Icons      - choose big icons or smaller ones
  Show Flyouts   - if clicked the description field is displayed in a 
                   small flyout menu
  Show Systray   - display an icon in the system tray
  Flat style     - buttons are displayed without borders when selected

  Show horizontal
  Show vertical  - blanch can be displayed horizontally or vertically

  Save to registry - save the current button setup to the registry
  Export registry - save the current registry for blanch to the specified file

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

About          - display the about dialog box
Help           - display the help file (coming soon)
Close          - exit blanch
Properties     - Blanch Properties dialog box

* Blanch Button Options
-----------------------
Explore ...      - opens windows explorer and selects the button's executable
Desktop shortcut - creates a desktop shortcut for the current button settings
----------------
Cut              - cuts the selected button to the clipboard
Copy             - copies the selected button to the clipboard
Paste            - pastes the clipboard onto the current page
----------------
Delete           - delete the selected blanch button
Properties       - Blanch Button Properties dialog box

* Keyboard
----------
Ctrl+1         - Open Page 1
Ctrl+2         - Open Page 2
...
Ctrl+9         - Open Page 9
Ctrl+0         - Open Page 10
Ctrl-left      - Switch to the previous page
Ctrl-right     - Switch to the next page
Ctrl+F11       - Blanch hotkey (will be configurable in Properties dialog)

Ctrl-H         - toggle auto hide setting
Ctrl-S         - save to registry
Ctrl-V         - Paste
Ctrl-X         - Exit blanch

* Notes
-------
 - Manually adding a dialup networking connection button

Description: Connect to ISP
 Executable: rundll32.exe
Default Dir: 
    Options: rnaui.dll,RnaDial Connect to ISP
       Icon: rnaui.dll

   Be sure to type the name of the connection exactly (as
   specified in the Dialup Networking Folder).

 - I am working on a method for displaying Shell Objects like Control
   Panel or Printers
 - I would like to have Control Panel, Dial-Up Networking and Printers
   as the default buttons when Blanch first launches.  If anyone knows
   how to place launch these please let me know (I believe they can be
   launched with Explorer.exe).
 - the following string, as an option to explorer.exe, will load dial-up
   networking,

::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\::{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD010CCC48}

 - Blanch data is stored in the registry under the key,

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\One Guy Coding\Blanch

* Author
--------
   Steeve McCauley
   One Guy Coding
   oneguy@cam.org
   http://www.cam.org