Glonim V1.42 Instructions

It is IMPORTANT that you read the EULA.txt file BEFORE running Glonim; it contains your license agreement.

Introduction

Glonim is a realtime patch for Windows that adds many 'cool' features to the operating system, some probably never seen before. It can:

• Add animations in many styles to when most windows open and close.
• Tile your own bitmap images on the back of windows and application backgrounds.
• Make windows transparent whilst they are being dragged.
• Change the window styles to put shadows behind windows.
• Make the Taskbar partly transparent, adjust its transparency in realtime, and put a bitmap on it on pre-XP machines.
• Put free memory, the day of the week, or your own custom (short) caption in the Start button.
• Remove the shading behind desktop icon text on pre-XP systems.
• Exclude applications if you want it to.

Sections

• Feature Summary
• Usage
• Main Window
• Points to Note
• Removal
• Version History
• Credits
• Inspiration

Feature Summary

Feature	Win '95	Win '98/SE	Win Me	Win NT 4	Win 2000	Win XP
Glonim’s box-animation	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Window wallpaper	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
MDI wallpaper	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
TreeView/ListView wallpaper	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Taskbar wallpaper	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Tabwindow wallpaper	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Additional animated menus	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No
Alpha-blending animation	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Scrolling & sliding animations	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Shadows under windows	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Taskbar transparency	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Day/memory/custom Start button caption	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Desktop icon text shading removal	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Explorer/IE/OE toolbar background tweak	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Usage

• Copy or move the Glonim program files (and associated documentation) to where you would like it to be run from, in a folder of it's own. It is HIGHLY recommended you run the program from a local hard disk, as if you use the patch features, the 'GlonimLib.dll' file needs to be constantly available and your computer may be unstable if it becomes inaccessible.
• Glonim will appear in the system tray area of the Taskbar, as a blue & red exploding 'G'. Double-click this icon to open the main window.

Main Window

• Patch Features: Turning the patch on or off here, or via the tray icon (right-click it) will enable or disable use of the system patch features which are outlined below.
• Global Animation: If you want to see many of your windows opening and closing in an animated style rather than instantly, enable this feature. You can also choose whether you want 'Windows with titlebars' to be animated, and 'Popup' windows, which will animate many windows without a titlebar.
• Window Wallpaper: You can place one of the bitmaps that came with Glonim, or your own creation behind many windows. On pre-XP machines, it will also put the bitmap on the taskbar behind the buttons. If you want to see more of the tiled image and you are not using the newer XP styles, you can tile some more tabbed windows by selecting 'Also draw on additional tabbed windows'. The bitmaps that come with Glonim are:
• WinBack1: Looks best for the XP 'Blue' or 'Olive Green' styles.
• WinBack2: Looks best for the XP 'Silver' style.
• WinBack3: Looks best for the XP 'Classic' style.
• WinBack4: Looks best for Windows 2000 and Me.
• WinBack5: Looks best for 9x and NT 4.
• Bare in mind that if you create your own - try to keep the size at a minimum otherwise you may find your PC becomes low on memory. A good idea for a maximum size is about 512KB, but you can try anything you want.
• MDI Wallpaper: Puts a bitmap of your choice on the back of application backgrounds that is normally middle-grey. A blue 'MDIBack' file is supplied as an example.
• TreeView/ListView Wallpaper: Puts a bitmap of your choice on the back of TreeViews (for example, folder listing backgrounds) and ListViews. A bitmap with the name 'TLView' is supplied as an example.
• Transparent Dragging: Many windows will go transparent whilst you are moving them about the screen. If you find it is going too slow, try limiting the size of the windows you can drag this way in the Advanced Options.
• Window Shadows: Changes the style of windows so XP puts a shadow underneath them. You will probably need to restart if you want to remove the added window styles as for performance and other reasons Glonim can not keep a record of which windows it has changed. Also, XP is not meant to do this natively, and abnormal things happen when you move some overlapping windows about!

• System Windows
• Taskbar Transparency: Does what it says - makes the taskbar transparent. You can adjust the level of transparency in the Advanced Options, and turn this feature on and off from the tray icon.
• Start Button Caption: Allows you to replace the 'start' or 'Start' you normally see in the start button on XP machines to either the day, the free memory, or a short (few letters) custom caption.
• Desktop Icon Text: Gets rid of the shading behind icon captions on the desktop, also accessible via the tray icon. Please ensure that 'Active Desktop' or any web content on your desktop is disabled when using this feature!
• Program Toolbar Backgrounds: Offers a quick and easy way of tweaking your toolbars for Explorer or Internet Explorer, which are not textured by Glonim. At least Internet Explorer 5 must be installed!

• Advanced Options
• Application Exclusions: Glonim should work with almost all applications. However, if you wish to disable (all) the patch features for a specific application, add the .exe name (without the path) to the Exclusions list. You can either specify the application manually (e.g. you can enter the .exe name from the Task Manager's 'Processes' tab on Windows NT/2000/XP machines), or you can navigate to the .exe file itself.
• Drag Transparency Level: If you want to adjust how transparent windows go when you move them, adjust this value.
• Drag Transparency Restrictions: Sets values for the minimum and maximum physical size of windows that will go transparent when they are moved.
• System Colours: It is recommended to enable this option to enable maximum visibility of the animation rectangle on certain windows; otherwise you may not see it happen!
• Animation Thickness: If you are using Glonim's box-style animation, this will allow you to customise the width of the box that appears and disappears when windows are opened or closed.
• Animation Timing: These values adjust the speed of (length of time spent on) the animation, whatever style you are using.
• Animation Styles: It is recommended to use Glonim's default animation style, as it does not tamper with the initial opening of windows. If you would like to see windows animating in another style, select the option. Selecting 'Sliding' style for an angle of animation will slide the content of the window in with the window itself, rather than just the container frame moving.
• Animation Sizes: If you would like to restrict the sizes of windows that animate (small windows that animate can be annoying!), adjust these settings.
• Animation Repeating: If you find that Glonim is animating too much for your liking, setting this option will prevent it from animating for a time interval after the previous window opened or closed.

• Startup
• This will set your PC up to start Glonim when you log on. Please only use this option if you are a PC expert, or when you have been using Glonim for a while and are confident that it is running the way you want.

Points to Note

• Glonim accomplishes many things that Windows is simply not designed to do; and therefore many rules are broken and some side effects can be seen which as of yet I have not been able to work around. It is the work of just one person, who has persisted with months of learning through trial and error (very little documentation available) to get it running as well as he can for your enjoyment. Here's a list of mostly small issues I know about and own up to, and have not been able to fix (due to lack of documentation and information on the Internet for these kind of things) as of the date:
• At the moment, TreeView/ListView bitmap tiling is extremely limited due to the lack of messages returned by Windows.
• With the window wallpaper, very occasionally some windows that have backgrounds like the older style 'Shut down' screen might have their graphics painted over by Glonim. Unfortunately to stop this happening means that I have to remove the bitmaps from too many other windows, so I left it in because these odd few windows are still perfectly functional! You can put the bitmap back on the shutdown screen by excluding 'explorer.exe' in the Advanced Options, but obviously that will mean much of the system will become excluded from the patch features as well.
• If the Taskbar is transparent on XP systems, it does not resize properly if you unlock it and then lock it again. Turn the Taskbar transparency off via Glonim's menu (right-click the icon) if you want to resize the Taskbar correctly.
• Some remote admin software might not be able to 'see' the taskbar while it has transparent properties.
• It is well known to enthusiastic Delphi programmers that applications of this style may be unstable due to the way they interact with other programs. I personally have no problems with it, but stability is NOT GUARANTEED, especially on Windows 9x/Me systems. Don't run this without keeping your work saved and backed up.
• Glonim might take a while to load 'into' all other applications if it sees lots of programs open initially. If you're seeing the tiny clock on the 'G' icon in the notification area for long amounts of time, run Glonim before you open your main programs (startup ones are fine).
• Should you find you have, for some unknown reason, set Glonim to start in a fashion it's not designed to, repeatedly tap CTRL (Win '98/Me), or F8 (Win '95/NT4/2000/XP) to start your PC in Safe Mode, where you can then move Glonim's files elsewhere to stop it booting when you start your PC normally. Follow the registry part of the 'Removal' procedure below to reset the options.
• Glonim's name came from 'GLObal aNIMation', and therefore it's official pronunciation is "Gloh-nim"!

Removal

• Should you wish to remove Glonim, simply:
  1. Stop the program (by right-clicking on it's system tray icon) and select 'Exit'.
  2. Select and delete all Glonim's files like you do any other files. If you find Glonim's DLL is locked, ensure Glonim is not 'running on boot' and reboot your PC. This will unlock the file.
  3. If you want to tidy up the registry keys Glonim uses, or just reset its options, ensure Glonim is fully closed down, then navigate using your favourite registry editor to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software, then delete the Glonim key and all subkeys (if applicable).

Please remember, Glonim's free, made for people like you, so go ahead, share it and enjoy it.

Kindest regards, Gregory Maynard-Hoare

E-mail me at greggersuk {at} yahoo.co.uk. Please put '(GMHNoSpam)', (without the quotes) somewhere in the subject title along with the brackets - I have strong e-mail spam filters in place due to the excessive number of junk e-mails and viruses I recieve, so if you do not have that in the subject, it is highly unlikely I will see your e-mail!

If you are feeling generous too, you can PayPal me on the same address. You do not have to, Glonim is freeware like most of my other programs on the Internet, but any donation is always appreciated. Also, e-mails with any comments are welcome (and appreciated as well) - however please bare in mind I am very busy at the moment in life. Having a full-time job and doing a University course at the same time puts just a bit of pressure on me, and I may not get chance to reply to you. Rest assured every effort is made to read your e-mail as soon as possible.

Version History

• V1.00 (10 Nov 2004): First publicly released version.
• V1.06 (14 Nov 2004): Large DLL improvement to better handle when multiple things are happening at one time.
• V1.07 (15 Nov 2004): MDI texturing now handles scrolling and resizing of the MDI form.
• V1.20 (18 Nov 2004): Many additional program toolbars are now textured, and you can now tweak the Explorer and IE toolbar backgrounds from within Glonim.
• V1.22 (21 Nov 2004): Fixed a redraw issue that occurred when some windows were uncovered, added some new 'skinned application detection' and enhanced general program code.
• V1.24 (24 Nov 2004): Implemented a way of making Glonim's default animation much smoother.
• V1.25 (28 Nov 2004): Better support for the alternative animation styles and now 'Popups' will only use the default style.
• V1.31 (12 Dec 2004): Added TreeView/ListView backgrounds.
• V1.32 (14 Dec 2004): Fixed an Explorer context menu issue when using TreeView backgrounds and ListView headers now redraw the associated ListViews when resized.
• V1.33 (21 Dec 2004): Worked around a bug (which appears to be in the Windows API FindWindow) which caused Windows 9x to occasionally hang if the desktop was redrawn whilst the DLL was starting and trying to locate the desktop window.
• V1.41 (10 Apr 2005): Added application exclusions, put patterns on a few more windows and fixed a memory leak where bitmap memory was not freed properly when Glonim was disabled or settings were applied on Windows 95/98/Me.
• V1.42 (09 May 2005): There is now little to no flicker when windows are closed.

Credits

• Borland for Delphi 4.0 (which I used to write this program, completely from scratch to the point you see it now!)
• Markus Oberhumer & Laszlo Molnar for UPX (makes my programs even smaller than they are already!)
• Thanks to the testers: Graham Allen, Josh Froelich, Craig Eldridge and a few others.
• ...and finally, thanks to YOU for using this program!

Inspiration

• Thanks to Matthew Godbolt for writing FinalLook a long time ago for the Acorn Archimedes (some of you will remember, some of you will not), that I used, liked lots and gave me the idea for the window/Taskbar/tabbed window backgrounds.
• Glonim's box-animation look is similar to Windows CE devices when they have a registry tweak enabled. If you have a CE device and you want to see Glonim-style effects, navigate to this registry key using a registry editor: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\GWE, add DWORD 'Animate' if it does not exist, and set it's value to 1.