plingme release notes & revision history 5th October 2008 : plingme #1 rev 2 Added new transparency feature to the Shape Settings dialog on the Shape tab. A material's transparency can now be changed individually instead of being set in stone depending on what was set in the source 3ds shape file. Feature added for the puzzleball but if over-used you'll maybe spot a problem with transparency ordering (don't look). Added support for the plingme .ic3 extension. Shapes can now be installed by double clicking from the desktop or choosing open when downloading. Changed the handling of currently running task icons which could have potentially caused plingme to hang while another application was too busy to supply it's window icon. Fixed a bug in Design Mode (adding buttons) where the reset feature on the Physics tab in Shape Settings wasn't re-positioning the shape correctly. Corrected a spelling mistake for all (!) the plingme links to the website on the static part of the popup window which took you to plinge.com instead of plingme.com, oh dear! Set the default Popup window action to Manual Expand and Manual Contract. Back to Download 12th September 2008: plingme #1 rev 1 Removed the automatic checking of the recycle bin on startup and throughout a user session. Added support for the 'Home' key found on most keyboards. Pressing this key now moves the shape to its home position (pressing the small shed-like icon acheives the same thing). To set the home position of a shape, first get it to the position you want then right click on the icon and choose 'Set Position'. Added multiselect capability to the materials and objects lists on the Shape tab in Shape Settings. Meant to do this for a while, the puzzleball forced the issue! 2nd July 2008: plingme #1 first release First release of plingme after an 8 year (yes that really does say 8) trial of development from the last version, icon3d. Why so long (does anybody really care?) Feature bloat maybe; however a great wife 2 young children and a dog, other jobs and just life in general had a (not unwelcome at all :)) part in it! icon3d was neat, fast and simple. plingme I think is a lot more fun. icon3d used shapes that were created from a made-up text file format, plingme can import 3ds files. icon3d's button positions were hard coded and the buttons were always flat. Uup to 3596 buttons can be added to a plingme shape onto nearly any type of surface at any size and any orientation. icon3d could handle most standard files and links between shapes. plingme can have links on buttons to any part of the filesystem, system folders, control panel applets and web links (and Java applets). Links to other shapes, other panels, pictures, currently running tasks, dynamic system tray icons, digital clocks and shape navigation links. Context menu actions for a program or document (what you see when you click it with your right mouse button) can be individually set for any button replacing what would normally be to open the file. System or application wide shortcut keys can be assigned to any of these buttons or actions. plingme's shapes are contained in one file (ic3) that stores the textures used and buttons (except links to files), sounds, lights, positions set and all the settings contained in the Shape Settings dialog (except font files). All buttons seen on a plingme panel can also be added to a shape. plingme also has scrollbars which can be linked to a folder (and kept up to date) or used to scroll through any of the other button types. Plus plus there is support for a Java generated plugin button type (Spark). Dynamic button images and actions can be generated from Java applets; three sample ones plus instructions are available including a clock, stopwatch and the rather strange roving eye..! Calling all Java gurus...!