MadFooBar

Join Date 01/2007

Right Click is dead?

Or so it seems...

Apparently, Right Click is dead. I've just tried the demo and ran into 2 "known" bugs. Later I ran into a 3rd one. Problem is, those were reported on the Right Click forum over a year ago and they are still uncorrected! BTW, that forum does not even show on the main forum page!

So, my question, should anyone from Stardock care and dare to answer:

* Why still sell a product that is no longer being maintained and is clearly not even functioning well?

Luckily, I found the "hidden" Right Click forum and saw others complain from the same issues I was having, or I might as well have bought the product in hope that those annoyances would be fixed soon!

BTW, the 3 problems I refer to, and I found reports on that forum dated from 2005 for at least 2 of them, are:

1) Menu configuration is sometimes *screwed* up when loading the menu editor;

2) Skin Editor does not even run, even after installing .net 2.0 and the updates for it. I've read about this one that in the scarce docs a link is given for .net 2.0 BETA runtime, so maybe they expect us to install the beta instead of the full released version of .net 2.0??

3) I noticed that I was loosing my TAB key on other programs! Since the latest addition was RightClick, I unloaded it and all went well... And, of course, I *didn't* had it set to popup on the tab key!!

So, how come I see a 2007 roadmap thinking about Vista this and Vista that and they still dare to sell broken and unsupported products? They may have lowered the price (the trial version asks for 14.95 to purchase, while on the website it's on sale for 9.95) but even if it would cost $1 it would still be too much, considering the apparent state of it! And, btw, my computer was freshly reformated only a week ago, so it's not a question of me having some screwed up registry or anything that would make this product fail to perform.

From and ex-future-client,
Fernando Madruga

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I have the full version and use it daily with almost no problems ever. Once I lost a popup menu and had to re-add it. Other than that it works fine. Maybe the demo never got updated?

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I show the last update 6/8/2006

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Lantec

Join Date 07/2003

+346

It's my most "Must Have" program. Considering how much use I get out of it, I could easily cough up the same money I'd spend on a game I'd play for a couple months then uninstall.
I have no idea what you refer to in item #1. You need to describe the problem a little better. As far as Skinning RC......it's waayyy to easy to even need the Skin Editor. I never got it to work and really never missed it. There are very few graphic files and the obbar files are fairly easy to work out. Originally, Right Click worked off the Windows Key in the release version, not the Tab key. Now I have it set for no hotkey and that seems to work just fine.
I wasn't aware of a "Trial Version" but the released version only has one drawback and that's on SOME computers you can lose your setup if you don't respond to the request to save it at shut down. However, the best thing you can do is make a backup of your Right-Click directory so you can just copy the whole thing in and problem solved.

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Phoon

Join Date 10/2001

+382

I'm one of the people that was complaining of the skin editor not working unless you installed the Beta of Dot Net 2. That was fixed a long time ago.
You are correct that the public trial version wasn't updated. Wonder how they missed that? It looks to be version 1.1. The purchased version is 1.20.008 and works great for me.

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Works great for me also and as I've said in other threads it is definately my most used program. I'm hoping for a Vista version soon. (hint hint)

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It's my favorite program, except WB. After I found out when you get it setup like you want it, just unload it, and it will save. I still think there should be a "Save Config" somewhere, plus I'm getting ready to install Vista, and I'm guessing it is'nt going to work. Great program though.

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Well, thanks all for the feedback. I may have been a bit harsh before, but you all can understand that: just as when you think you found *the* tool you've been looking for, it doesn't work ok and support forums seem virtually dead with seemingly unresolved issues dating years back... As for the problem #1 above, when I did a simple test and placed a clock line in there it would show on the menu but sometime after (don't recall if some reboot in between or not) just as I was going to edit it it would not show on the edit menu box even though it was displayed on the menu when I right-clicked. I sent an e-mail to Stardock's tech support e-mail. If they answer correctly, (and preferably if they update the trial version! (hint!)), then I'll see.

And as for the skin editor not working, it was not something that prevented me from making a simple change as I noticed the config file was easy enough to edit and change the font used to a proper size for a hi-res screen. Yet, it's more the issues of seeing problems and going to the forums and seeing people complain and not a single answer which implied they simply don't care and had not fixed it!

And also yes, a SAVE button would be nice as I don't like to be paying attention to what my computer is doing when I tell it to shutdown...

Thks all for the feedback.

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If they answer correctly, (and preferably if they update the trial version! (hint!)), then I'll see.

Is this supposed to be a test?

Also, these forums are community members helping each other when and where they can. If you have a problem with a Stardock product be best way of getting a response is to contact support directly at support@stardock.com.

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Well, based on the answers on this thread, I decided to give it a 2nd run. This time, instead of using the download in the "Products" --> "More Desktop Software" --> "RightClick">Link" I decided to install the Stardock Central and try from there, but I'm not going to install it after all...

You seee, in SDCentral, I can see that the available demo version for RightClick is 1.0 dated 10-02-2005 (roughly 2 years ago). Odd, since downloading from the "Try" button in the product page goes to [link="http://www.download.com/RightClick/3000-2344_4-10426307.html?tag=lst-0-2"]this download.com link which says it's version 1.1... So, no point in trying 1.0 when I tested 1.1 and it wasn't working properly...

I'll wait for my mail to support to be answered. This is just the tool I've been waiting for (currently have a "fake" menu near start where I have all my menus and submenus but it's annoying to type Windows then Tab and it always shows on the same place... instead of where my eyes (mouse) are atm...

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Also, these forums are community members helping each other when and where they can. If you have a problem with a Stardock product be best way of getting a response is to contact support directly at support@stardock.com.

Does that mean that there is 0 (zero) Stardock supervision on these forums? That's a bit sad as it only serves to scare people away! Take my example: I've read the threads on RightClick forum and from that and the outdated demos, I would not even look back to this companies products! I'm not the type of guy that goes down without a fight and this tool, should it work, is just what I've been looking for so long, but if I didn't ask something here, I'd be long gone very far away from StarDocks!

I did, even before submitting my 1st post here, try the support e-mail, but that takes some time while forums are usually faster. The least they could do is come pay a visit to the forums and update threads mentioning problems saying something like "problem fixed in version x.xx". At least I would have known that, if I buy the product, I don't have to live with the bugs (even though I already learned that one at least (the save "bug") is prevalent due to a design flaw, but since one does not update one's menus very often, I can live with that one).

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Hi MadFooBar,

Unfortunately the Shareware builds sometimes don't get as much attention as the full builds get. Sadly in this case it looks like we're not quite stepping with our best foot forward when introducing users to the program...it looks like perhaps that the last time the program was updated a new shareware build was supposed to be released as well...and that just didn't happen. The last-released full-version of RightClick on StardockCentral was v1.2.

The good news, is that I have a new build that should help with the problems you were experiencing. Problem (1) Should be all but gone, haven't seen that problem in some time... (2) the Skin tool had been updated to use the final version of .NET 2.0 for RightClick v1.2 (instead of the beta version of the .NET 2.0 runtime which was the only one available during v1.1's rein), and (3), well I'm not sure why that'd be happening at all? But the chances of it happening with an updated build are riiight around zero, since all funky old-keyboard-messing-around-code for detecting hotkeys in a round-about way has been gone for some time also.

To get ahold of the new build, please contact support at support@stardock.com and mention that the developer Jeff said to get you a new build of RightClick, and it'll get taken care of quickly.

I'm sorry that you ran into problems with the build, that's our mistake for having an old version be the one we put out as shareware. Thank you for bringing that to our attention, we'll definitely take care of that and that should help other users out as well

Thanks again

Best Regards,
-Jeff Bargmann
Stardock Developer

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Damn... I was typing a huge reply here and accidentally closed Firefox when I was doing some more testing...

Well, this time I'll edit all in UltraEdit 1st!

1st, thanks Jeff but that won't be necessary: last night, after reading the other posters' answers in here, I went ahead and bought RightClick.

However, there are a few notes still worth mentioning...

Bugs: As for number 1 and 2, have not yet ran into them so far.
Bug #3 (tab key), I did not have it happen but somehow Firefox got closed when I started typing this answer (first letter of original post was a W); so I'll have to see if something weird like that happens again. A noteworthy point is that I have RightClick set to pop up on pressing Win key (just win key, not win+something).

"New" bugs (these all on the retail version 1.20 b739):

4) Level: moderate nuisance
Additional menu bar is displayed when RightClick is loaded manually.
I created a sub-menu bar where I replicated the existing items on the initial menu bar so that I could keep that main bar for my own programs. Whenever I open RightClick, for instance, after closing it to make sure it will keep my changes, that sub-menu is displayed immediately. It will only go away when I pop up the main menu and navigate to that sub-menu.

5) Level: moderate nuisance
Keyboard navigation does not work for items/folders that start in lower case letters.
I've replicated my existing menu structure in Righ-Click by using a few "Folder menu items" that link to my in-disk menu structure. Some of those are command-line utilities whose shortcuts I have all in lowercase. Apparently, I can't use the keyboard to navigate to those! This also happens when I browse Programs and try to access palmOne.

6) Level: minor nuisance
Opening the RightClick menu then pressing a key to navigate to 1st item of that letter then moving the mouse will permanently display the 1st item as selected.
E.g.: I have a sub-menu "N - Network" and pressing N will correctly navigate and select that sub-menu and open it; however, if I then move my mouse over other menus at the same level, even though the "N - Network" sub-menu closes, it stays displayed as if it was selected. This will cause 2 menus to be displayed as selected until I close the menu.

Also, a few suggestions for future versions:

1) Store menu configuration someplace else, preferably allowing the user to choose where, instead of doing as some programs and creating yet another "my whatever" under My documents. Ideally, I'd be able to select D:\MyDocs\Preferences\Stardock\RightClick as the location to save those settings. It helps a lot to make backups and get back on track after a re-format: all I have to do is point the program to that folder to read the existing configuration as I often don't format the other partitions.

2) Allow for a global custom-mouse-button to be selected and in other places, such as pressing the middle mouse button anywhere and not only on the desktop to open up the menu.

Note, aside from posting in this forum, I'll also be sending this text to the support e-mail.

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Due to this forum's bugs with links, 3 replies with 1 link only each:

Bug 4

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Bug 5

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Bug 6

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MadFoobar I never noticed 4 , 5 , or 6. I can reproduce 5 and 6. As far as 4 goes, I don't have the original menu reproduced in a submenu, but I do have an Exit submenu

Exit > Log Off
Restart
Shutdown
_________
Unload RightClick

That's how I unload RightClick and I don't get the effect you showed. I would say if you don't need that whole submenu try taking stuff out and see what is causing it. I suspect it is the systray in the submenu causing it, but that's just a guess.

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That's how I unload RightClick and I don't get the effect you showed. I would say if you don't need that whole submenu try taking stuff out and see what is causing it. I suspect it is the systray in the submenu causing it, but that's just a guess.

Confirmed. Remove the systray and bug 4 should be gone.

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By the way MadFoobar are you experiencing any issues with having it activated by the Winkey only? I wasn't aware that was possible. I always assumed it would conflict with the start menu.

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Using the Winkey, the RightClick menu just pops up wherever my mouse instead of the Start Menu opening. I haven't had any conflicts.

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By the way MadFoobar are you experiencing any issues with having it activated by the Winkey only?

I can't say yet. I've had some strange things happen but not enough times to "build a case" against that being at fault! For now, I simply use it. I used to have (and still have!) a quick-launch like menu which I set to be on right of start so I used to WIN, TAB then I was on my menu, but it's always in that same place whereas using RightClick, I get the popup wherever my mouse is and no more need for an extra TAB, just press WIN...

Thanks for the advice on the systray. I've removed it and can confirm too that the bug is gone so it's something related to that. I'll use explorer's own systray instead.

Thanks all and let's hope Stardock doesn't forget to keep improving this awesome tool!

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This is sad.

Right-click is the only reason I bought Object Desktop a year ago, my subscription ends today. Right-click hasn't been updated in over 6 months, despite the fact that people (including me) still occasionally loose their Right-click settings, etc. There's no way I'm renewing my subscription because of this.

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The nice thing about Stardock . . is that you can always renew at the renewal price (and you get to keep the apps you have forever [make sure to archive them]0. I hope RC gets the attention you think it needs and you can join the family once again.

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We are all still waiting for a backup option Rico. However you can manually backup your settings yourself.

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Maybe if Stardock took the time to fix the trial version, they would get more people using it! I almost gave up on that and if I had not posted here, I would not have bought it. I'd easily pay 20+ USD for this, and maybe more potential users are being scared away because of the broken trial version!

It's a dead-loop: SD doesn't update the trial because not enough people registered RC, then potential buyers go try and get VERY disappointed with it, then they don't buy it and SD does not update the product...

This is probably *THE* best utility I've bought in the last few years, and I do spend some money on small utilities, but this could be better if SD wanted it to be... For now, I'll simply have to remember a few things I should not do and a few extra steps like ensuring I close the program manually and backup the program's folder and start it again to try and not loose my configuration...

As it is, it probably won't work on Vista, so they must be making some changes to it someday... Let's all hope they take that opportunity to fix those annoyances that are still around!

Fingers crossed,
Madruga

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