the art is in the upside down of it
| Finally. Here it is, plingme #1: 
plingme was designed to run on Windows XP only - it's a bit of 3D on XP. plingme is available for download as a zip with a proper installer coming shortly. Installation instructions can be found here and some basic help found here. 14th July: plingme forum now online! The place to post any support requests, general questions, praise and rants about plingme...
plingme is entirely free for personal use and does not contain any spyware or adware This site and plingme are both still in their infancy. The aim of the site is to create a large and comprehensive library of user generated 3d interfaces that can be freely downloaded and installed by other users of plingme. Installation & Download To install: 0: Download the zip file 1: Unpack the entire contents whilst maintaining the folder structure, into a new folder (any name) in Program Files or wherever you want to put it. 2. Run plingme.exe 3. Click some text buttons on the outside of the grey panel when you see the cube appear. Be aware plingme doesn't store programs or documents it stores shortcuts which are just links to the real files, and it wasn't designed to be a replacement for the desktop. Rather it sits on top of your system - a bit like a spider at the centre of a web. This release is not a demo - it's fully functional and not restricted in any way. You should be able to produce and share your own shapes straight away (there are a couple of blank shapes included). There's quite a lot to this. There's also virtually no help available other than below and the key help thats on the shape. A forum will be here next week sometime. If you need to ask a question you can contact mrpling here: mrpling@plingme.com Warning #1: plingme comes with no warranty or fitness for any purpose whatsoever. You install this product entirely at your own risk. plingme has NOT been extensively tested on hundreds of machines. It HAS been extensively tested on my machines (and quite a few others). plingme does not modify your system setup or install anything anywhere else other than in the Application Data folder of your profile. Warning #2: plingme displays quite a lot of colourful graphics and stuff, moving around at some speed. If you suffer in any way from any sensitivity to flashing lights and spangly movement then please do not install plingme. Enough warnings. Here's the zip: plingme1.zip (4.5Mb) I hope you like it! Best regards, mrpling mrpling@plingme.com PS Any type of feedback good or bad is very much appreciated. Please contact me if you have any problems or questions about plingme: mrpling@plingme.com. |
| What on Earth is it? Some
not-before-time help plingme stores links (shortcuts) to your programs, documents, bookmarks, pictures, system resources and tools on a 3D shape. The links can be stored individually or as group - there is scrollbar button type for linking to and browsing system folders. Saved positions can be created to help navigate around the shape. plingme allows any different shape to be used to store the links. It can accept 3DS format files as a basis for a shape. A shape's settings can be modified including it's physics, colour, visibility and texture. Just a few changes can make a shape appear completely different. For instance go to 'Shape Settings' then 'Options' and click 'Hide' for the shape and 'Two Sides' for the button. Links are placed on 'buttons'. Buttons can be added to virtually any part of a shape at virtually any size. Buttons can be placed on top of each other. Buttons are added using the inbuilt button designer, just click wherever it says 'Add Buttons'. Everything on a shape including all the links, pictures, textures, bookmarks, shape settings, sound and positions is stored within the shape. Actual files and the links to them are not stored. A populated shape can be saved out of plingme to be shared or submitted to plingme.com. Shapes can be installed directly into plingme. A shape consists of one file with an .ic3 extension. The shape screenshot you see above was all generated from one file of about 1Mb. Links have actions. If you click with your right mouse button on a file on your desktop a menu appears (the context menu) with a list of actions that can be performed on that file. plingme lets you assign these actions to a link instead of the action your computer would normally perform. So if you want to perform a virus check of your C drive with one click (and you have a virus checker installed that adds an entry to your context menu) then you can do it. Application or System wide hotkeys can be assigned to any link you add. If you want a key combination to instantly shutdown your system, start your screensaver or fire your favourite bookmark then you can do that too. Everything that you see on a plingme panel that does something can be added to a shape and vice-versa (with the exception of scrollbars which cannot be added to a panel). Java applets can be added as plugins to a shape and actions performed thanks to a great addon created by Richard Buck. Some sample plugins and an explanation of the API have been shipped with this version.The eye is great! See the 'Spark' folder for more info. The panel 'Panel One' that the shape initially appears in is a popup bar and can be docked on a side of your screen. You can set it to auto or manually contract by clicking anywhere other than a link and choosing 'Panel' and then 'Expand & Contract' from the menu. The funny triangle thing in the middle of the bar manually contracts the panel. A panel is resized by moving your mouse pointer over an edge (like you would normally) until you see two opposite arrows. If there is a link nearby the arrows won't appear and you'll have to move the mousepointer somewhere else. A panel is moved by moving your mousepointer near an edge until you see four arrows all pointing in opposite directions. There is an invisible band just in from the edge all the way around the panel that when clicked will move it. Once again if there is a link in the way it won't work (the first panel does have a move button next to exit if you get stuck). You'll soon get the hang of it. Back to Install Instructions |
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plingme #1 released: 02/07/08 00:01am GMT +1:00
and not a minute too soon.
| plingme contains some code not
written by mrpling but which has helped him greatly in his continuing endeavors
to attempt to create the world's most addictive desktop toy: libpng copyright © 1995-2008 contributing authors zlib copyright © 1995-2005 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler Portions of this software are copyright © 2008 The FreeType Project (www.freetype.org). All rights reserved. This software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group General Polygon Clipper (GPC) © 1997-1999, Advanced Interfaces Group, University of Manchester and finally Windows XP and XP are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. |