IR 8.00 available!

[mathdon]

IR 8.00 is a major new release of the IR.exe program, available here. It coincides with the release of Version 4 of the RDF File Specification, which it fully supports and which is included in the package. New features include:

* A new toolbar with buttons for the most common menu actions, plus buttons to open RemoteMaster and Keymap Master.

* Re-sizeable panels on the General page.

* Correctly remembers, from one invocation to the next, the last interface used (JP1 or JP1.x) - this was supposed to happen in IR 7.xx but due to a bug it did not work.

* Full support for remotes, which currently are the URC-7780 and URC-7781, that use "soft" device selection. These are remotes that do not have dedicated device selection buttons. They support a variable number of devices with user-defined names and a device is selected by choosing from a list on an LCD screen and pressing Enter. (New RDFs are required for this support and these are available separately in the Tools/RDF Files folder of the JP1 File Section.)

* Real Help available from the "Help" menu.

* Display of processor, interface and (where relevant) extender version on the Raw Data page.

* A user-friendly interface for the Pause special protocol.

* When supported by the RDF, validation of device setup codes and a new Code Selector for displaying and selecting valid codes. (A number of new RDFs are available that include this support.)

[mhand]

I'm having trouble resizing the panels on the General tab. I can see the pointer change to a resize icon, but the panel doesn't resize, so I can't see the "device buttons" or "other settings" windows. I don't experience this problem in IR 8.00 RC6.

I've tried loading older IR files, including files that use a different RDF, nothing seems to make a difference.

I'm running WinXP, Service Pack 3. Let me know what additional info you need to replicate this--I'll do my best to help

[mathdon]

Mand, do you mean that the Device Buttons and Other Settings windows appear to be absent, i.e. the middle row of buttons has moved up to be just under the toolbar? What is supposed to happen is that the windows should open, the first time you use IR 8.00, with the same size they have previously had, but they should now be adjustable. It sounds as if the registry entries for IR have somehow got corrupted.

Could you please try the following. Open the Registry Editor regedit.exe and navigate down to Computer/HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/UEIC. Then right-click "UEIC" in the left-hand pane and select Delete. (If you are uncomfortable with doing this, select Rename and change it to something like UEICX that won't be recognised by any program.) Then open IR again. It will re-create the UEIC key with default settings. You will then need to re-set the entries under File/Set Directory so that it can find your RDFs etc.

Please post the result, whether it works or not. If anyone else has the same problem, please also post here and say what version of Windows you are using.
__________________

Graham

[mhand]

mathdon,

That does it! Everything is working fine now. Thanks for the help and for all you folks have done to make this a superb tool.

Regards,

MHand

[ElizabethD]

Thank you for working so hard to make IR even better for all of us even though it all started with your remote

[The Robman]

I 2nd that, you're doing great stuff Graham.

[gplncl]

Display of 8.0 has a problem for me. Line 1 of both windows does not display. First line index starts with 2. If I arrow up, my curser moves properly, for highlights number to 2, then disappears (behind), no longer visible. Tabs are also missing. This was not true in 7.15. I have tried two different remotes. 15-134, and old one 15-1994. I have old windows MS98se. My usual computer is a mac. I have tried the suggestion of deleting registry entry. No luck. I can resize the window, and it does resize, but problem remains. It seems as though the middle of the window is missing. Nothing changes. Full screen makes no difference. I found a workaround, but not the best. My display is 800 x 600. (My vision can't handle smaller.) I changed it to 1024 x 768, and the window display were normal. I then rechanged them back to 800 x 600, and all was well. I closed down ir.exe, restarted, and the original problem re-occured.

[DavidEC2955]

...Could you please try the following. Open the Registry Editor regedit.exe and navigate down to Computer/HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/UEIC. Then right-click "UEIC" in the left-hand pane and select Delete. (If you are uncomfortable with doing this, select Rename and change it to something like UEICX that won't be recognised by any program.) Then open IR again. It will re-create the UEIC key with default settings. You will then need to re-set the entries under File/Set Directory so that it can find your RDFs etc.

Please post the result, whether it works or not. If anyone else has the same problem, please also post here and say what version of Windows you are using.
__________________

Graham

I was just coming online to report the same troubles and found your posting.. Thanks!!!

[mathdon]

Display of 8.0 has a problem for me. Line 1 of both windows does not display. First line index starts with 2. If I arrow up, my curser moves properly, for highlights number to 2, then disappears (behind), no longer visible. Tabs are also missing. This was not true in 7.15. I have tried two different remotes. 15-134, and old one 15-1994. I have old windows MS98se.

I'm sorry if it seems as if I have been ignoring you. This isn't forgotten, but as I don't have Windows 98SE any more I will probably have to post some things for you to try. I think the first step should be to find out at what stage in the development this problem entered. Did you try any of the Beta versions of IR 8.00? If you didn't, I will try to think where it might have come in and will re-post a Beta version from before that point for you to test.
__________________

Graham

[WagonMaster]

Display of 8.0 has a problem for me. Line 1 of both windows does not display. First line index starts with 2. If I arrow up, my curser moves properly, for highlights number to 2, then disappears (behind), no longer visible. Tabs are also missing. This was not true in 7.15. I have tried two different remotes. 15-134, and old one 15-1994. I have old windows MS98se.

I'm sorry if it seems as if I have been ignoring you. This isn't forgotten, but as I don't have Windows 98SE any more I will probably have to post some things for you to try. I think the first step should be to find out at what stage in the development this problem entered. Did you try any of the Beta versions of IR 8.00? If you didn't, I will try to think where it might have come in and will re-post a Beta version from before that point for you to test.
__________________

Graham

Graham,

I was planning to mention this issue in an upcoming post with some other issues, but I just noticed your reply and realized that "gplncl" seems to be having the same problem I am. When I run IR.exe version 8.00 on W98se, I see the following display after "populating" the windows with my remote control's data:


As you can see, the new icon bar overlays the tabs and (apparently) the first line in each of the 2 top windowed areas. Even before "populating" with downloaded data, the icon bar overlays the tab area. Nothing I tried was able to get around this problem. Regardless of how you resize the main window, the icon bar sits atop the tabs, preventing you from accessing any of them.

If this is not easy to fix for W98se users, my humble recommendation would be to just eliminate the icon bar entirely for W98 (assuming that's easily and unambiguously detectable).

For the record, the new icon bar works perfectly (i.e. does not obscure the tabs and upper windows' first lines) under WinXP-SP2 and even Linux+Wine.

Regards,
Bill

[WagonMaster]

Graham,

As long as I've begun reporting on problems I've seen with the new 8.00 version of 'IR.exe', I'll continue with the other 2 minor issues....

1. On the "Help" -> "About" page, it shows:

   Code: Select all

   JP12SerialDriver Version: Unknown

   This seems to occur even in older versions of IR.exe and on all platforms I've tested under (W98se, WinXP-SP2, Linux+Wine). I know that the 'jp12serial.dll' reports this information, so I don't understand why it doesn't show up in 'IR.exe'.
2. The 2 "Help" menu entries which spawn a browser failed to work for me on WinXP-SP2 with (very old) Firefox 2.0.0.11 as the default browser. Switching the default browser to MSIE (whatever version came with WinXP-SP2) and/or upgrading to Firefox 3.0.10 both fix the problem. There's nothing for 'IR.exe' to fix here, I just wanted to mention it in case someone else encounters it.

Thanks for all your hard work on 'IR.exe'!

Bill

[mathdon]

Hi, WagonMaster

Thanks for the very helpful screenshot. Now I understand a lot better what "gplncl" is seeing. I will investigate the Toolbar overlay issue with Win 98SE if I can, but could you try IR 8.01 Development Build 0. There is an option in it to turn off the Toolbar. Go to Tools/Options from the menu bar to see the (new) options. Post a note to say if this solves that problem.

The JP12SerialDriver version is only reported as "unknown" when you haven't used it during your current session. If you do an upload or download (using it) you should find that "About" displays the version number correctly.

I'm puzzled by the Firefox problem, as IR does look for the default HTML browser - it doesn't just assume it is MSIE. Could you use Regedit.exe to look at

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\open\command

where the Default entry should be the command line of the default web browser. If you could tell me what that entry is with Firefox, I might be able to resolve that issue. Could you also check that you can open the web pages concerned by using your old Firefox directly. I can't tell from your message whether IR finds Firefox and it can't open these pages, or whether IR just doesn't find the old version of Firefox.
___________________

Graham

[WagonMaster]

I will investigate the Toolbar overlay issue with Win 98SE if I can, but could you try IR 8.01 Development Build 0. There is an option in it to turn off the Toolbar. Go to Tools/Options from the menu bar to see the (new) options. Post a note to say if this solves that problem.

Interesting... I downloaded that build and ran it on W98se. When the GUI came up, the problem was gone! In other words, the icon toolbar was exactly where you'd expect it to be and the tabs were all visible just below the icon toolbar! I never needed to use the new "Tools", "Options", "Toolbar" to disable it. However, just for fun, I disabled and re-enabled the toolbar and everything seems to be working perfectly on W98se now! I also tried resizing the window in all sorts of ways, but could not "break" it. I also deleted the "UEIC" registry key to make sure that my saved settings weren't affecting anything. When I re-ran it, it still looked perfect. Maybe something in the process of making it toggle-able somehow fixed it? Bottom Line: It works fine now -- nice job!

The JP12SerialDriver version is only reported as "unknown" when you haven't used it during your current session. If you do an upload or download (using it) you should find that "About" displays the version number correctly.

Doh! Don't know how I missed that. I just tried it on the new build and it works exactly like you say it does. Sorry for the false alarm.

I'm puzzled by the Firefox problem, as IR does look for the default HTML browser - it doesn't just assume it is MSIE. Could you use Regedit.exe to look at

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\open\command

where the Default entry should be the command line of the default web browser. If you could tell me what that entry is with Firefox, I might be able to resolve that issue. Could you also check that you can open the web pages concerned by using your old Firefox directly. I can't tell from your message whether IR finds Firefox and it can't open these pages, or whether IR just doesn't find the old version of Firefox.

I'll need to go back and re-install the (very old) Firefox 2.0.0.11 on WinXP-SP2. Give me a bit longer to tackle that test. Regardless of what I find, I'll report back here.

Thanks for the help, Graham!

Bill

[WagonMaster]

I'm puzzled by the Firefox problem, as IR does look for the default HTML browser - it doesn't just assume it is MSIE. Could you use Regedit.exe to look at

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\open\command

where the Default entry should be the command line of the default web browser. If you could tell me what that entry is with Firefox, I might be able to resolve that issue. Could you also check that you can open the web pages concerned by using your old Firefox directly. I can't tell from your message whether IR finds Firefox and it can't open these pages, or whether IR just doesn't find the old version of Firefox.

OK, I started to look into this and what I found is somewhat unexpected/strange....

For the record, all of what I describe below is running under WinXP-SP2, on the same machine I'd earlier reported on. Also, this machine is not connected to the Internet, so I never get the actual webpage content, but the browser firing up with the expected URL in the address bar is all I really want/need to see to be sure it's working.

Oh, to answer your last quesiton in the above quote, IR just wasn't finding and opening Firefox at all. (Sorry 'bout that -- you were right -- my earlier post wasn't very clear about that.)

Just as a baseline, while still having the new Firefox 3.0.10 installed (i.e. before reverting to the old 2.0.0.11 version of Firefox), I checked the 'HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\open\command' registry setting you mentioned for the "Default" setting. Despite the fact that Firefox is my default browser, and in fact correctly runs with IR.exe version 8.00 when "Help" -> "JP1 Home Page" is invoked, the registry setting is for MSIE:

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" -nohome

I don't know which registry key points to the default browser, but that's obviously not the setting I'd expected to see!

I see a key here that may be the proper one:

Code: Select all

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\command

With Firefox 3.0.10 as my default browser, it has this value:

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -requestPending -osint -url "%1"

With Firefox 2.0.0.11 as my default browser, it has this value:

Code: Select all

"C:\PROGRA~1\MOZILL~1\FIREFOX.EXE -requestPending -osint -url "%1"

With MSIE 6.0 as my default browser, it has this value:

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" -nohome

Bill

EDIT #1: Removed paragraph with bogus test results (incomplete registry export!). Replaced with new, preliminary tests.

EDIT #2: More test data.

[mathdon]

Many thanks for the detailed report, WagonMaster. After posting my previous message it occurred to me that IR 8.01 might solve the Win98SE problem completely. In order for the Toolbar to be hideable, I needed to change a setting between 8.00 and 8.01 to enable the Tabs panel to automatically re-size itself as the Toolbar was turned on and off. Though why Win98SE doesn't work properly with fixed, rather than auto, panel positions will have to remain a mystery! Anyway, I'm delighted that potentially difficult-to-find bug has solved itself. I hope "gplncl" is following this thread and sees that IR 8.01 Development Build 0 will solve his problem.

Back to the Firefox issue. In setting up the web-based help entries, I assumed that the default web browser is the executor used to open .htm files. The Firefox issue suggests that is not always the case. Let's go one step further back with the Registry. The lookup for default executors for a file extension is actually a two-stage process. First, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.htm is looked up (you can replace .htm by any other extension, but in this case it is .htm). The name under "(Default)" is that of another key, in this case "htmlfile". The executor is then given by the "shell\open\command" subkey of this key. If you still have Firefox 2.0.0.11 reinstalled, could you follow this chain in full when Firefox is your default browser? It seems that the first step might give a different name to "htmlfile" for the second step. IR goes through this two-stage process, so if the first step gave "htmlfile" then your info suggests that the IR web pages should have opened, but using IE instead of Firefox.

That would be interesting, but it still leaves the other question of whether the default web browser and the executor of .htm files might differ. I've done a web search and got various different answers to how to find the default web browser from the Registry. One of them, which makes logical sense, is what you found: HEKY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\command. Certainly that would work with my current setup in Vista. I'll change to use that in IR 8.01 Development Build 1, which I expect to post in a few days. If you could keep your old Firefox installed until you can test that new version, I would be grateful. I'll put a message here when that Build 1 is posted. The main thread about IR 8.01 is the IR v8.01 wish list.
___________________

Graham