As I told on a previous post, we have finally decided to work on Control Runner 4. Truth is that Control Runner is showing its age in many aspects of the program.

In a series of posts starting with this one, I’d like to explain and discuss with our user base the ideas we have for the new version. We have always used input from existing users to enhance Control Runner, but this time we are going to do it in the open.

What is the problem with Control Runner?

In my opinion, the biggest problem of Control Runner is that the core is very old. There are some implementation details that were created more than 10 years ago for Windows 95. Over this core, I have added layers on top of layers, making the internal structure of the program too complex and prone to errors (solving an issue on layer 3 breaks layers 1 and 4).

The only solution is to rewrite from scratch the core of Control Runner. Users should not notice any difference, but the program will be easier to maintain and I will be able to implement many features that have been suggested by users.

In practical terms, I will be able to solve three pending issues that have caused most of the latest minor releases:

• Management of the icons used by program buttons.
• Loading the configuration files.
• Drag and drop operations.

What are the main enhancements of v4

New user interface

As can be seen on the following screen shots the interface of Control Runner will remain very similar:

At first sight, you’ll notice the following four differences:

• A toolbar has been added, containing the old utility button, some new buttons and an edit box.
• The monitor panel is changed.
• The general buttons have changed names, a new one (called Tools) has been added and the last one has a little arrow.
• The button with the logo of Control Runner disappears. Note that this only happens because the monitor panel is too big to show the logo. It will still be present on the new version with a more important role.

On the next posts in this series, I will be commenting in detail all these differences.

New program button options

Program buttons will include three new options:

• Select different colors for each button.
• Include hotkeys to launch programs when Control Runner is not on the foreground.
• Launch several programs with the same button.

Plug-ins

Control Runner will be modular. Some of its functionality is going to be implemented using plug-ins. I am creating a SDK for Control Runner which will make possible adding functionality through external plug-ins, without affecting the program itself.

Client/Server version

It will be possible to install Control Runner in a network so that a central Server application will control all  Clients installed on the network.

New security options

For public or restricted environments, Control Runner will be able to disable potentially dangerous operations such as the desktop icons, the Start menu, access to explorer, the control panel or the tasks manager.

We want to hear from you

If there is something about Control Runner you do not quite like or you have a need that is not covered, this is the time to influence the new version of Control Runner.

Today we have released what will most probably be (if we don’t discover any minor issue) the last Control Runner v3 version.

What’s new on this version

It seems that we are constantly tweaking the same things over and over. This time we have had to correct again the issues that have been addressed in previous minor versions, i.e. the loading of the configuration files and the CPU Load monitor.

But there are two new things:

• We have created a new way of testing if Control Runner is already running. It seems to work much better.
• We have completely rewritten the code to manage Program buttons. You won’t notice anything probably, but the new system is much faster (this should be apparent when you resize the main window). It will also enable enhancing the program buttons in the next Control Runner v4.

What’s the future of Control Runner

We had a plan in June. That plan involved working on the new version of Control Runner at the beginning of next year.

For various reasons that will be explained in detail in the following posts, we have changed our mind. And Control Runner v4 will be our next product released.

Keep posted. I’ll start revealing secrets very soon.

Today we have released PowerTOC v2.2.3 this version adds some Unicode support to PowerTOC.

I say some support because, although PowerTOC will correctly create a Table of Contents using extended character sets, the title of the Table of Contents still does not support Unicode characters. The reason is that the edit control that is used to enter the Title of the Table of Contents does not yet support Unicode characters.

We are working on this issue which will be solved in the next few weeks.