Marc Gregoire’s Blog

Wallpaper Cycler 3.6 Release Candidate 1 has been released to our testers. When no show stoppers are discovered during testing, this will become the final build for 3.6.

The following new features have been implemented in Wallpaper Cycler:

• New WPCController tool. This is a small application that accepts commandline parameters to control Wallpaper Cycler. It replaces the COM DLL. This is now used by the Windows Gadget instead of the COM DLL.
• Better support for High DPI systems, preventing blurry text and icons on Vista and later.
• All tree controls now have nicer selection on Windows Vista and up.
• All ListView controls now have nicer selection on Windows Vista and up.
• New option “Cycle wallpaper when display settings changed”. This in combination with the “Smart Orientation” feature is very useful for example for tablet users. When the tablet is rotated, WPC can automatically cycle the wallpaper to pick one that fits the new orientation.
• New option under “Tools > Program Settings > Document > Wallpaper Default Settings” to assign a default tag to newly added wallpapers. By default this is set to “To Be Reviewed”. This makes it easy to use a search folder to find all wallpapers with this “To Be Reviewed” tag so you can review the tags for the new wallpapers.
• A wallpaper object on a layout can now be set to “Random from same category and with given tag”.
• The skip extensions dialog now contains a button to reset the list to the default list of skipped extensions.

I made the following bug fixes for Wallpaper Cycler:

• “Rerender on resume” now has a delay of 10 seconds to give Windows time to restore network connections for example.
• The toolbars were not in High Color on a Dutch version of Windows.
• The “Rendering in progress” error is now only shown when the user manually initiates a cycle wallpaper request.
• Removed the tip of the day, since noone ever reads that anyway.
• The rotation option for wallpapers only worked when the tiling setting was set to “Stretch (Keep Aspect Ratio)”.
• WPC will now correctly render the wallpaper when running in High DPI mode, previously it could result in some tiling effect to become visible.

A bit late, I know, but you can find some pictures of our (my brother and me) trip to Seattle in 2008 at the following link.
Pictures Seattle 2008

I’m currently in the process of implementing high DPI support in one of my applications. High DPI support is getting more and more important, especially with the resolution of todays laptop screens. Most people will switch to 120 DPI or even 144 DPI instead of the default 96 DPI to make text easier to read. However, when your application is not High DPI aware, Windows Vista and Windows 7 will in certain situations scale everything for you but this will result in a blurry user interface.

Microsoft has released an interesting document describing the steps involved in developing High DPI aware applications. You can find them at the following links:

• PDF version
• XPS version

Yesterday I got an email that I was re-awarded the Microsoft Visual C++ MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award for 2009

See my MVP profile.

After installation of Internet Explorer 8, some wizard in Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 might give a script error. The following wizards might be affected:

• Add Function
• Add Variable
• Smart Device – New Project Creation
• Smart Device – Add Class

Get the workaround from the Visual C++ Team Blog.