Ťzeigť

This small utility with a very flexible configuration and a small footprint is designed to spare real estate on your desktop and help you in your daily work.

It shows small text or gif files directly on the desktop, without any title, buttons, menu bars, toolbars or status lines so that the minimal amount of room is taken away from your desktop.

It is specially useful for laptop users: keep a small cheat sheet on top of all other windows in a desktop corner while you are doing some work in another application. And start applications, documentation viewers, web pages directly with a double-click.

Rightclick to popup a context menu.

Exit with <Esc> or <Alt/F4>.

There is not much more functionality to expect, however you can:

Drag the window with your mouse to another location.
Change the size by pressing <Ctrl> while using the scroll wheel of your mouse (text files only).
Make the window topmost (always on top) with the <F4> function key (see also below the configuration file).
Start your favourite editor on the shown text file.
Popup a windows explorer window showing the folder (directory) containing the shown file.
Click on some line in the text file, and depending on the line contents, view another file, a documentation file, or a web page, start an application such as an editor on some other file.
And even delete the currently shown file...

Actually, the best way to use Ťzeigť is to prepare your own cheat sheets, small text files to help you in your daily work: see below cheat sheets.

Prerequisites

This program has only been tested on Windows XP.

Download

http://www.lhg.ch/zeig-0.9.4-setup.exe

Installation

Just run the setup program. This will install Ťzeigť in the programs folder, add an entry in the start menu and add an icon on your desktop. You can run Uninstall to remove this.

You may also want to double click the "zeig.reg" file in the installation folder, in order to add an entry "Open with Zeig" in the explorer context menu (see more ideas below). Or maybe you prefer to add a shortcut to zeig.exe in your SendTo folder.

After the first start, a folder is created in your applications folder which then contains the customable configuration file "zeig.ini" (see configuration below).

Starting zeig

In order to start Ťzeigť you can drag a small text or gif file and drop it on the Ťzeigť icon on your desktop.

If a folder icon is dropped on the Ťzeigť icon or if Ťzeigť is started with a folder name, the read.me file in this folder will be shown.

You can also start Ťzeigť from the command line or from the Command box in the Start menu with one the following options, followed by the name of the file that you want to show:

Options

-w nnn	specify the maximum width of the window
-h nnn	specify the maximum height of the window
-x nnn	specify the initial x-coordinate of the window
-y nnn	specify the initial y-coordinate of the window
-topmost	specify the 'always on top' property for the window (this can be reset with F4 at runtime)

and for text files:

-font "name size type"	specify the font (include the name in curly brackets if it contains spaces)
-bg color	specify the background color
-fg color	specify the foreground color
-bd size	specify a border
-relief value	specify the border appearance. value = raised, sunken, flat, ridge, solid, and groove
-justify value	specify the text alignment. value = left, center or right

some playful options:

-alpha value	specifies the degree of transparency for the window. value between 0 and 1
-transparentcolor value	specifies that one of the colors should be replaced by transparency (usually this is the background which is yellow per default)

Check for more options in the Tcl/Tk documentation (label widget). See for instance http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.4/TkCmd/label.htm

Configuration

You can configure function keys and the context menu by editing the configuration file (see zeig.ini in the application data folder). You can access this file directly by hitting <F1> then edit it with <F5>.

In this file you can specify functions and how they are accessed, either via the context menu, a function key or both. The default configuration provides many examples that should work with any standard Windows XP installation, although your mileage may vary.

You can also specify default values for the windows appearance and functionality. The Tcl/Tk documentation (specially the documentation for the label widget) can be very helpful to define this functionality.

If you want to return to the default configuration, just delete the zeig.ini file in the application data folder, Ťzeigť will create a fresh copy the next time it starts.

configuration file format

While reading the configuration file (zeig.ini) Ťzeigť concurently sets internal options, defines key bindings and builds the context menu. The format of each line of this file is:

If the line starts with ! or #, it is ignored (comment)
If the line contains only equals signs (=) a separator is added to the context menu.
If the line is of the form with one of the options as defined above then the option is set as a default. This option value can be overriden at the command line.
If the line is of the form then the context menu is augmented of the given label which, when clicked, follows the hyperlink as defined below. At the same time, the given key is bound to the same hyperlink. Either the label or the key can be left out.

See the documented examples of the zeig.sample.ini file in the installation folder.

Cheat Sheets

You can read any text file with Ťzeigť, provided it does not have too long lines.

But the best way to use Ťzeigť is to prepare your own cheat sheets, small text files to help you in your daily work: howto's, memos, help files, small documentations written in your own language but also including directly callable references, some kind of extended hyperlinks which provide not only access to web pages, but also to local files or folders as well as to start applications or custom commands.

My habit is to keep a small text file called read.me in my folders that describe the contents of the folder, point to the important files and describes the actions that you can take in this folder. It may also point to other related folders.

I also often create a small description file for important files, such as downloads, which are not self-explanatory. The description file has the same name as the file to be documented with the extension .! (yes: dot bang, why not?), for instance:

some-download-V.1.03.exe the download of a cute application some-download.! the description file some-download.! would contain for instance the date and circumstances of the download, what this application does, the name of the application, the installation folder, the configuration folder, the web page where the download comes from, and whatever information that should be available about this application.

I configured the files with extension .me and .! to open in Ťzeigť on double-click.

But of course, your mileage may vary...

If you use a word processor (Open Office, MS Word) to edit your cheat sheets, do not use any formating options and make sure that you save the file as a plain text file.

Hyperlinks

If you double-click some line in the file that you are viewing, Ťzeigť will make its best to interpret the contents of the line. Here are the rules:

A leading ! or # is ignored
Leading and trailing spaces are ignored
Replace the internal variables in the line
If the first or only word of the line is an internal command, execute it
Otherwise pass the line to the windows cmd processor with the following command:

internal commands

ClipLine	copies the contents of the line to the windows clipboard.
ToggleTopMost	toggles the topmost (always on top) option.
Reposition x y	position the window to the x and y coordinates on the desktop.
Exit	terminates the program.
exec command	executes a windows 'cmd' command (you may have a few problems with quotes or backslashes - this is a known bug)

internal variables

$filename	the name of the current file.
$directory	the folder where the current file is located.
$appdir	the folder containing the user's configuration data.
$inifile	the name of the configuration data file (zeig.ini).
$progdir	the installation folder (typ. C:\Program Files\zeig).
$env(xxx)	some windows environment variable as set at the start of the programm, e.g. $env(userprofile).

More ideas

Make Ťzeigť the default program for files with some extension like ".me": This allows for instance to write with your favorite text editor small documentation files (read.me) in your important folders, then double-click them to view them and take some further actions. In order to do that, right click on some read.me file, click on "Open with..." then "Browse...", choose zeig.exe in the installation folder, and check the "Always use the selected program" checkbox before you click on OK.
Create a shortcut to zeig.exe in your SendTo folder: This will allow you to view any text or gif file by rightclicking it to popup the explorer context menu then clicking on the Ťzeigť entry in the "Send To" submenu. In default context menu of Ťzeigť, there is an entry to open your SendTo folder as well as for the Ťzeigť installation folder. Just drag zeig.exe and drop it with the <Alt> key pressed in the SendTo folder. Or copy the desktop shortcut to the SendTo folder.
The registry file (zeig.reg) provided with the Ťzeigť distribution adds an entry in the explorer context menu to open any file with Ťzeigť. Before you use this registry file, make sure that it points to the folder that you did choose at installation time. Then just double-click it.
Make Ťzeigť the default program for the gif files.
Use Ťzeigť in conjunction with a screen capture utility: I use an older (freeware) version of "FastStone Capture" which allows me (among other things) with two mouse clicks to cut a portion of the screen, save it to a gif file in a default folder with a temporary name and open that folder in the explorer. A double click on the file and a small window with the desktop extract pops up in the topleft corner. And once I don't need the gif file any more, there is an entry in the context menu to delete it...
Create a barebones text file with only lines that you can double click to start applications, view files or web documents and use this text file as a taskbar. The corresponding shortcut, that you can create on your desktop or even in your autostart folder, may also contain configuration options for the font size, color, position, etc..

You don't have to read this...

The name Ťzeigť means "show me" in german. I could have named it something like "Spickzettel", which means "cheat sheet" in german (or "antiseche" in french). It would apply quite nicely to this program. I use it in fact not only to remember sequences of actions, but also to help me actually doing them. Instead of writing somewhere (on a postit ;-) "don't forget to edit the version number before release", I enter a paragraph in the read.me file of the development folder such as: before release change the version: edit zeig.tcl edit read.me edit deploy.bat then: deploy.bat and check the result http://www.lhg.ch Thereafter I only have to doubleclick myself through the file, to execute all the needed steps. And the cheat sheet can be modified easily by hitting a function key to open it in my favourite text editor.

History

There are other very good (much better) file viewers on the net, but I could not find any barebones application which displays files with a minimal desktop footprint. That's why I decided to make my own, possibly somewhat suffering from the NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome.

I then thought it would be cute to add some extended hyperlink features so that these small cheat sheets become an active help to do one's work. Something like using them as intelligent check lists.

On the other hand the program had to stay very sleek, so that you don't spend most of your time waiting for windows to popup. This meant some tradeof, specially in the domains of scrolling and of hyperlinks containing spaces, backslashes or quotes.

Yet, have fun with Ťzeigť. Any comments are welcome, preferably constructive: LHG@acm.org