Source code of Windows XP (NT5)
You can not select more than 25 topics Topics must start with a letter or number, can include dashes ('-') and can be up to 35 characters long.
 
 
 
 
 
 

368 lines
13 KiB

Tweak UI -- The control panel applet for Type A personalities
0. Meta-information
0.1. Install
To install Tweak UI, right-click the tweakui.inf file and select
Install. The inf file will do the rest. When it is finished, you
will have a new control panel applet called "Tweak UI".
0.2. Run
To run Tweak UI, go to the Control Panel and double-click the
"Tweak UI" icon.
0.3. Uninstall
To uninstall "Tweak UI", go to the Control Panel and double-click
the "Add/Remove Programs" icon. From the list of programs,
double-click "Tweak UI" to uninstall it.
Here follows a description of each tweakable.
1. General
Items on the General page affect all applications.
1.1. Menu speed
"Menu speed" allows you to control the speed at which cascading
menus automatically open themselves when you move the mouse over
them. The fastest setting causes them to open immediately. The
slowest setting will wait for you to click explicitly on the menu
item in order to open the cascading submenu.
To test the menu speed setting, right-click on the test icon.
Note that some systems do not support interactive testing of the
menu drop speed. On such systems, right-clicking on the test
icon won't do anything, and the instructions telling you to do
so will not appear. However, the changed settings *will* take
effect the next time you log in.
This is a per-user setting.
1.2. Mouse sensitivity
1.2.1. Double click
This setting allows you to control how close together two mouse
clicks need to be (in pixels) in order to be considered a
double-click. This is the spatial counterpart to the double-click
time setting in the mouse property sheet.
To test the double-click sensitivity, click twice on the test icon
with the left mouse button. If the two clicks were close enough
together both temporally and spatially, then the icon will change.
This is a per-user setting.
1.2.2. Drag
This setting allows you to control how far (in pixels) the mouse
must move with the button held down before the system decides that
you are dragging the object. Increase this value if you find that
you are dragging objects accidentally when you click on them.
To test the drag sensitivity, try to drag the test icon with the
left mouse button. The icon will begin dragging when you have
moved the mouse the necessary distance.
This is a per-user setting.
1.3. Effects
1.3.1. Window animation
The "Window animation" check-box allows you to enable or disable
the window animation effect that occurs when you minimize,
maximize, or restore a window.
This is a per-user setting.
1.3.2. Beep on errors
Windows normally plays a beep sound (customizable in the "Sounds"
control panel) when an error occurs. Removing this check box
causes Windows not to play a beep sound.
This is a per-user setting.
1.4. Restore Factory Settings
The "Restore Factory Settings" button sets all the options on the
page to the default settings.
2. Explorer
Items on the Explorer page affect the Windows 95 Explorer.
2.1. Shortcut overlay
Use this area to customize the effect used by Explorer to indicate
that an icon represents a shortcut.
"Arrow" is the default setting, which overlays a bold arrow in the
lower-left corner of the icon.
"Light arrow" is the same as "Arrow", but uses a more subtle
arrow.
"None" removes the effect completely. With this setting,
shortcuts are indistinguishable from normal files. Use this
setting with caution, because you might end up deleting a file
instead of a shortcut by mistake, so don't say I didn't warn you.
"Custom" allows you to choose any icon in the system to be used as
the overlay effect icon.
The shortcut overlay effect is a system-wide setting. When
changing the overlay effect, it is your duty to inform all users
of the machine of the change, particular if you change the effect
to "None". Restore the shortcut overlay effect to the system
default before calling Microsoft Product Support. (Remember,
PowerToys are provided as-is with no support.)
If you uninstall Tweak UI, the customized shortcut overlay is
uninstalled as well.
2.2. Settings
2.2.1. Prefix "Shortcut to" on new shortcuts
By default, the name of a shortcut is "Shortcut to", followed by
the name of the target. Unchecking this box causes the shell not
to prepend this phrase to new shortcuts.
Note that some systems do not support dynamic changing of the
prefix setting. On such systems, the changed settings will
take effect the next time you log in.
This is a per-user setting.
If you uninstall Tweak UI, this customization is uninstalled as
well.
2.2.2. Save settings on exit
By default, when you close an Explorer window, the shell remembers
the settings of that window and restores them when you reopen that
folder. Moreover, when you shut down, it also remembers the settings
of all the open Explorer windows and reopens them when you log on
the next time.
If you uncheck the "Save settings" box, then these settings are not
saved when you close an Explorer window or shut down.
Note that the shell remembers the settings for only the 50 most
recently visited folders. When you visit the 51st folder, the
folder setting you visited least recently is discarded.
This is a per-user setting.
2.3. Restore Factory Settings
The "Restore Factory Settings" button sets all the options on the
page to the default settings.
3. Desktop
Items on the Desktop page affect the Windows 95 Desktop.
3.1. Special desktop icons
As you've noticed, the Windows 95 desktop contains several special
icons which cannot be manipulated in the traditional manner. This
page allows you to tinker with these special desktop icons.
You are presented with a list of all possible special desktop
icons; next to each one is a check-box indicating whether it is
currently on the desktop or not. Click on a check-box to add or
remove special desktop icons to or from the desktop.
Some of the icons won't have a box next to them. These icons
cannot be placed on the desktop as special desktop icons, but
you can still use Create As File (below) to put them on the
desktop, or anywhere else for that matter.
You can rename an icon by double-clicking its name. However,
changes to the name may require manually refreshing the desktop
after you close the property sheet. (Sorry.)
Note that the status of special desktop icons is a system-wide
setting. Removing a special desktop icon removes it from
everybody's desktop. The one exception is the Network
Neighborhood, which is a per-user setting.
Note that removing the desktop icon merely removes the icon.
Any software associated with the desktop icon remains installed.
This page exists so you can (1) get rid of pesky icons that
refuse to go away by other means, or (2) restore icons after
you accidentally nuke them.
If you add or remove the Network Neighborhood, you must log off
and back on for the changes will take effect.
3.2. Create As File
If you select a special desktop icon, then click the "Create As
File" button, Tweak UI will create a special file which behaves
just like the special desktop icon, but with the added feature
that, since it is a file, you can drag and drop it anywhere you
want. For example, if you want to move The Internet into a
folder, first remove it from the desktop by unchecking the
check-box, then click "Create As File", and place it in whatever
folder you want.
A fun place to save special desktop icons is on the Start Menu.
(Control Panel is everybody's favorite.) Try it!
Suppose you want to let your young children use the computer, but
don't want the Inbox on their desktop, because they might
double-click on it and mess up your mail. After creating a
separate login for your kids and configuring the system to use a
different desktop for each user, you can delete the Inbox from the
system-wide desktop, then create the Inbox as a file on your
private desktop. When you log in, you get an Inbox on your
desktop, but your kids don't.
4. Templates
The Templates page allows you to do stuff with document templates.
There isn't much here right now. Someday, I may write more.
4.1. Create New Document Template
If you drop a file onto the Create New Document Template area,
Tweak UI will automatically convert it into a document template,
which will then appear on the list of document types when you
right-click and select "New".
When you drop the file, one of a few things can happen.
0. "Drop only one file at a time, please."
Tweak UI can create only one document template at a time.
1. "No application is associated with this file."
This means that the file type was not recognized. Go
to the Explorer, View, Options, File Types dialog and create
an association for the file, then try again.
2. "A template for this document type has already been defined."
Somebody else beat you to it and created a document template
already.
3. "Unable to copy the file to the templates folder."
There was an error copying the file into the templates folder.
Tweak UI doesn't tell you what sort of error actually happened;
that's left for you to figure out.
4. "The document template was created succesfully."
Oh frabjous day. You can now right-click the desktop and
select New, and look! your document is on the list of
document templates.
Yes, you may have noticed that there is no keyboard interface to
this feature. If you're such a propeller-head that you don't want
to use the mouse, you probably didn't need this applet in the
first place.
\*
\* Strange things happen if you drag a folder, but fortunately we
\* stop before things get out of hand. (Albeit with a weird error
\* message.)
\*
5. Boot
The Boot page allows you to customize UI-related aspects of the
Windows 95 boot process. This page won't appear if you are
running Windows NT. (Duh.) It also won't appear if Tweak UI
can't find your Windows 95 boot configuration file.
Obviously, any changes made on this page won't take effect until
the next time you reboot the computer.
5.1. General
5.1.1. Function keys available for nn seconds.
Uncheck the "Function keys available" option to disable the
various function keys that modify the boot process, such
as F5 and F8.
If the option is enabled, you can adjust how long Windows 95
will pause after the "Starting Windows 95" message to see
if you are pressing a function key.
5.1.2. Start GUI automatically
Uncheck the "Start GUI automatically" option to make Windows 95
stop the boot process once it has reached a command prompt instead
instead of continuing to the GUI automatically.
5.1.3. Display splash screen while booting
Uncheck the "Display splash screen" option to suppress the
Windows 95 splash screen that appears during the boot process.
5.1.4. Allow F4 to boot previous operating system
If you check the "Allow F4 to boot previous operating system"
option, then you will be able to press F4 when the "Starting
Windows 95" message is on the screen to cause Windows 95 to
load the operating system that you were running before installing
Windows 95.
Of course, this assumes that you (1) actually had a previous
operating system, and (2) didn't delete any files required
by the previous operating system in the meantime...
5.2. Boot menu
5.2.1. Always show boot menu
Check "Always show boot menu" to see a boot menu every time you
start Windows 95. Normally, Windows 95 will show a boot menu
only if it detected that there was a problem with the previous
boot.
5.2.2. Default menu option
Changing the default menu option allows you to choose which
option on the boot menu will be highlighted automatically.
5.2.3. Continue booting after nn seconds.
Setting the value of "Continue booting after" controls how long
the boot menu will remain on the screen before the default action
is taken.
5.3. Restore Factory Settings
The "Restore Factory Settings" button sets all the options on the
page to the default settings.
z. Other stuff
z.1. The speaker on the TaskBar
To enable or disable the speaker on the task bar, go to the
Control Panel, select Multimedia, and then check or uncheck
the box that says "Show volume control on the taskbar."
Or you can right-click the speaker icon on the taskbar and
select "Adjust Audio Properties". Then check or uncheck the
box that says "Show volume control on the taskbar."
z.2. Save as default Explorer settings
To save the current window settings as the default Explorer
settings for all new windows, hold the Ctrl key while you
click the "X" button. Note that "Save settings on exit"
must be enabled for this to work.