Technical question...

...about the battery icon in my system tray...

Its that time again, i am here to try and find help solving something that has been bugging me for ages. In early versions of ObjectDock (if im correct) you couldnt replace system tray icons with nice PNGs like you can now. I used to think, "Wouldnt that be great if you could get rid of them pixellated system tray icons and replace them with nice clear ones...". Then as time passed, this became a feature of OD and i was very happy... ... ...for a while.

Y'see, i am a laptop user, and as all laptop users know, theres a battery icon in the system tray which changes state depending on how much power is left in the battery etc... As a result of the newly added support for replacing system tray icons, i could replace this state changing with a nice PNG image of a battery, and that was fine for a while, BUT, it was a static image and there was no way of making it change state like the original stock image and have a beautifully crafted icon that performed like this one https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=2381&LibID=29 by rylos.

So i waited like before to see if the next release of OD would allow you to not only replace a static system tray image with a nice PNG, but also allow you to replace a state changing system tray icon with a docklet, like the link above which would also change state and hence change images when necessary. Sadly this day hasnt arrived yet, and it seems to this day to be something that hasnt been done yet. I have posted a similar article on a few occasions before, but it has never turned out to be fruitful until someone replied and suggested that if you could access the DLL (or whatever file it is, im not that clued in) that controls the icon in the system tray and edit it, you technically should be able to customize the icons also. In my mind im thinking that logically this makes sense, because purely due to the fact that i can see the icon changing before my eyes tells me its programmed in somewhere or controlled by some piece of script somewhere, and that the icons are on my pc somewhere, which suggests that they can be accessed, and hence edited and hence this might be possible. Finally i get to my technical question (or three) - Does anyone know what kind of file controls the stock battery icon? Where is the bugger? Is this possible in your opinion?

I have to say that if this were possible it would more than certainly make my ObjectDock experience complete, and probably quite a few others also... So please drop me a line and share your thoughts on this whole thing, id love to see it happening...

Regards and best wishes to ye all!

By the way i have a program called Resource Tuner, it seems to be able to access and edit dlls and exes etc... ANyone familiar?
Ronan H

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Lantec

Join Date 07/2003

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As I understand it, it's part of the System Event Notification process. If you open taskmanager it's listed as evtengr.exe
It works with the COM+ Event System. Be careful changing this file. Make a backup first.

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Why not use a docklet?

There's battery meter docklet that comes with OD or there are a few for SysStats that will run in OD.

I've got my OD systray in the same position as the usual taskbar and also the same size (i.e 20x20 pixel icons) and the docklets scale fine.

You can have whatever graphics you like in the docklets.

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central

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@ Chris TH & Lantec: Thanks for that guys, ill look into them more when i have more time, heading off to work to do a double now so i wont be back on here till friday, will have more time then, in the meantime, keep the ideas comin...

R

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You can have whatever graphics you like in the docklets

I should qualify the above by saying it means customising of the docklet graphics - if you're cool with that then it's no problem

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Im back...

I have tried replacing the systam tray totally with a series of docklets (to replace the state changing icons) and basic shortcuts, but i find that some of the functionality is lost when one does that. For example, ObjectDock. Thats in my system tray, its a static icon and when i right click on it im given a menu with About... Unload... My Docks... etc... If i try to replace that with a basic OD shortcut, i dont get that custom menu, i just get the normal Cut, Paste, Rename etc... stuff.

Basically what im trying to say is that i need to be able to completely replace the system tray with ordinary docklets and shortcuts. If i cant completely do it 100% then its no use to me. As i see it, my only alternative is to be able to modify the system tray icons as per my initial post.

I have to say though that im surprised at the lack of interest in this topic, surely there are other people who are also frustrated by this? It seems that its not a simple solution at present, as in youll have to dig into code and complex files as Lantec mentioned above...

I personally would love to see a future update in ObjectDock that allows you to replace a progrm in the system tray with not just a custom icon, but a custom docklet too...

Anyway, ill keep trying...

Thanks to all.

Ro

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