AutoPlay v1.33

Welcome to AutoPlay, A shareware application to use with your Autorun enabled CD/DVD's. As an example have a look at the screen shop below which shows what the demo in this distribution looks like:

Features

• Configurable background bitmap, including complete 256, hi-colour, true-colour and full palette support.
• Start-up and shut down sounds
• Will work on 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP and 2003 without any service pack or 3rd party DLL requirements.
• Supports "Hot look" buttons with hyperlink cursor.
• Flyby sounds for each button.
• Supports mailto, ftp and http URLs as well as standard absolute and relative file links.
• A Complete WYSIWYG editor to allow creation of a single executable which you can ship without the need for any external files.

Usage

To use AutoPlay our your CD's simply point the autorun.inf file on the root of the CD to the executable which the AutoPlay Studio application created, as follows:

[autorun]
open=myprog.exe
icon=youricon.ico

For further information about AutoRun enabling your CD's please check out the Microsoft Platform SDK or the developers section on the Microsoft Web Site.

The values which can be configured in AutoPlay Studio are:

General Application Properties

Title

This is the title text which appears in the AutoPlay caption bar

Icon

This is the ico file to use for the large and small icons associated with AutoPlay when it is executed.

StartupSound

This is the wav file to play when AutoPlay starts up.

ExitSound

This is the wav file to play when AutoPlay exits.

BackgroundBitmap

This is the background bitmap to use in the AutoPlay window.

Button Properties 

CommandType

"ShellExecuted": This can be a relative or absolute path to a program. registered shell documented such as a .doc file or an Internet hyperlink such as "mailto:pjna@naughter.com" or "http://www.naughter.com". Normally you would include one button to run your Setup program which would be located on the CD somewhere.
"Explore the CD": This is a special command which will open a shell window showing the root folder of the CD.
"Exit the App": Specify this for a button to close the program.
"ShellExecute and Exit the App": A combination of the two.

Command

This is the actual command to execute if the "CommandType" is 1, e.g. "\setup.exe" or "mailto:pjna@naughter.com"

FlyBySound

This is the sound to apply when the mouse moves over this button

Left

This is the "X" client window coordinate of the top left hand corner of this button.

Top

This is the "Y" client window coordinate of the top left hand corner of this button.

Right

This is the "X" client offset of the bottom of the button.

Bottom

This is the "Y" client offset of the bottom of the combo

TextColor

This is the color of the text when the button is not highlighted.

TextDeltaY

This is the "Y" offset from the top left edge of the button to the text.

TextDeltaX

This is the "X" offset from the top left edge of the button to the text.

HighlightColor

This is the color of the text when the button is highlighted.

DropShadowColor

This is the color of the drop shadow which appears behind the text.

Caption

This is the text to display associated with this button.

FontSize

This is the point size of the font to display the button text with.

FontName

This is the name of the font to display the button text with. e.g. "Times New Roman".

DropShadow

Set to TRUE to enable a drop shadow, FALSE to disable display of the drop shadow.

DropShadowDeltaX

This is the "X" offset from the text to the drop shadow.

DropShadowDeltaY

This is the "Y" offset from the text to the drop shadow.

HighlightDeltaX

This is the "X" offset from the normal text position to the highlighted position.

HighlightDeltaY

This is the "Y" offset from the normal text position to the highlighted position.

Italic

Set to TRUE to enable an italicized font , FALSE for non-italicized.

Bold

Set to TRUE to enable a bold font , FALSE for non-bold.

Underline

Set to TRUE to enable an underlined font , FALSE for non-underlined.

Directory

Using this option you can set the start-up directory for an application to be what you want.

Verb

This allows you to specify the "Verb" used in the ShellExecute call.

Exe

This allows you to specify the application to run e.g. To print your config.sys you could specify Verb=print, Exe=Notepad and Command=c:\config.sys

Close App When Clicked

This allows you to specify whether or not the application should be closed when this button is clicked.

UseBackgroundColor

Set to TRUE to enable drawing of a solid color in this button's client area when the mouse is not hovering over the button.

BackgroundColor

The actual color to use if "UseBackgroundColor" is set.

UseHighlightBackgroundColor

Set to TRUE to enable drawing of a solid color in this button's client area when the mouse is hovering over the button.

HighlightBackgroundColor

The actual color to use if "UseHighlightBackgroundColor" is set.

BackgroundCornerSize

Setting this value to a non-zero value results in the button's edge being drawn with a round corner. This value is used when the Background Color or Highlight Background Color is enabled.

BackgroundEdgeColor

This is the color which the edge of the button is draw with. This value is used when the Background Color or Highlight Color is enabled.

Combo Box Properties

FontSize

This is the point size of the font to display the combo text with.

FontName

This is the name of the font to display the combo text with. e.g. "Times New Roman".

Italic

Set to TRUE to enable an italicized font , FALSE for non-italicized.

Bold

Set to TRUE to enable a bold font , FALSE for non-bold.

Underline

Set to TRUE to enable an underlined font , FALSE for non-underlined.

Left

This is the "X" client offset of the top of the combo

Top

This is the "Y" client offset of the top of the combo

Right

This is the "X" client offset of the bottom of the combo

Bottom

This is the "Y" client offset of the bottom of the combo

Buddy

This is the associated button for this combo. The current item in the combo box will be run when this button is clicked.

Items

This is the number of items to display in the combo

For each Item to appear in the combo there are 5 attributes namely:

Text This is the text to display for this item in the combo box

Command This is the command to use for this combo item. It will be ShellExec'd when the associated button for this combo is clicked.

Directory Using this option you can set the start-up directory for an application to be what you want.

Verb This allows you to specify the "Verb" used in the ShellExecute call.

Exe This allows you to specify the application to run e.g. To print your config.sys you could specify Verb=print, Exe=Notepad and Command=c:\config.sys

History

V1.0 (14 June 1999)

• Initial public release.

20 June 1999

• A compiled version of AutoPlay for the NT running on an Alpha CPU is now provided in the alpha directory in the AutoPlay zip file. Thanks to Rich Peters for producing and testing this (since I don't have a DEC Alpha lying around <g>).

V1.1 (8 May 2000)

• Now supports combo boxes in addition to buttons.

V1.11 (11 September 2000)

• Fixed a problem where the device context was not being restored correctly in the method CTrackingButton::DrawItem.

10 February 2001

• Updated links in the sample autoplay application to point to my new web site and email address.

V1.2 (11 February 2001)

• Image to be loaded can now be a jpeg or gif in addition to the usual Windows bmp file. Please note that to release code which uses the GIF format, you will need to obtain a license from Unisys.
• If an ini file cannot be found, then the app aborts rather than displaying anything.
• The name of the ini file can now be overridden by the command line to AutoPlay. e.g. Autoplay.exe bla.ini
• Now fully supports a Exe, Directory and Verb commands. This allows complete control over the ShellExecute call to bring up your desired app. For more info check out the sample autoplay.ini file shipped with the code.
• Please note that the Alpha version in the distribution has not been updated.
• Updated sample app to demonstrate the Exe, Directory and Verb commands.

V1.30 (18 October 2002)

• Major update to AutoPlay to include an "AutoPlay Studio" application which allows for WYSIWYG design of AutoPlay applications.
• AutoPlay applications are now fully contained in one executable (Use the menu item File -> Make Exe). This makes it easier for you to distribute on your CD's.
• Fixed a bug with the loading of DropShadowDeltaY and HighlightDeltaY values for a button.
• AutoPlay is now built with Visual C++ v6.
• Unregistered versions of AutoPlay applications display a reminder message about registering when the application is closed.

V1.31 (20 December 2002)

• Buttons now support an additional attribute called "Close App When Clicked". Thanks to Pete McBraida for this suggestion.
• AutoPlay Studio now supports drag and drag of scripts from the shell.
• AutoPlay Studio now supports automated builds of the executable. This is achieved using two new command lines. "/make" will instruct it to build the resultant exe and an optional "/output:filename" which allows you to override the output executable path. e.g. using the command line: APStudio.exe /make "/output:c:\temp\PJ.exe" "c:\temp\Untitled.ini" will load up the script "c:\temp\untitled.ini" and build the exe to "c:\temp\pj.exe". Thanks to Pham Hai for this suggestion.
• Produced a better help message when Autoplay.exe is run and it cannot find the payload which is produced when you "Make Exe" in AutoPlay Studio.
• Fixed the file extension filter for icon attributes in AutoPlay Studio.
• "Make Exe" Dialog in AutoPlay studio now includes a "Make AUTORUN.INF" option.
• AutoPlay Studio now supports automated creation of autorun.inf files. This is achieved using a new "/makeinf" command line. e.g. using the command line APStudio.exe /makeinf "/output:c:\temp\pj.exe" "c:\temp\untitled.ini" will produce a "c:\temp\AUTORUN.INF" file to match the contents of the script. This streamlines the creation of builds quite a lot when you are integrating it into a build procedure!.
• "Make Exe" option in AutoPlay Studio now includes an Accelerator, namely Ctrl+M.
• Updated documentation to include info on how to register online.

4 February 2003

• A Unicode version of AutoPlay is now available if you are a registered user. No new functionality has been added, but the Unicode version just makes production of internationalised AutoRun CDs more easier.

v1.32 (5 October 2003)

• AutoPlay now provides support for a "ShellExecute and Exit App" type button.