I’m back at VB and currently working on three programs; one of them being my old ShellMPX frontend for SCMPX. I never tire of its simplicity and exceptional audio quality, but over the course of using my shell, I have come up with a few improvements. But then of course, nobody uses SCMPX. I bet even S. Chiba, the author of SCMPX, uses Winamp or some mainstream crap. Anyways, the second app I have put a lot of time into programming. It’s a utility for creating game scripts for use in Rise of Nations. It’s nearing final release status, but it’s been getting slow. More info can be found in my thread over at RON Heaven.

My latest project is even more practical than the last. After purchasing a Logitech MX510 mouse to replace my first replacement (an MS Intellimouse Explorer 4.0) for my much-loved MS Intellimouse Explorer 3.0, I found it to be superior in many aspects. The only thing that is lacking in the MX510 is the Logitech software to support it. Unlike the MS mouse software, Logitech doesn’t include application specific button settings. This creates a great conflict when switching between playing games and doing work in Windows. There was a fix mentioned around the web to make two registry files for the two differing tasks so that you can run them and then open the mouse control panel briefly for the settings to take affect. I found this to be a clumsy and annoying workaround, especially since being pampered by Microsoft’s application specific settings for a year. I examined the way the Logitech software made use of the registry, and without a second thought, begin writing a program that will appropriately load button settings according to what application has focus. After around 16 hours of programming on two occasions, I have come up with a program that will load button settings from a configuration file in the aforementioned way. I had even tested it in Thief3 and concluded it to work well already. In the game, I bound the keystrokes that were assigned to the cruise buttons to zoom in and out. Immediately after quiting to desktop, I then used the cruise buttons in their normal manner. The only thing left now is to make a pretty GUI, include the rest of the button functions supported by Logitech’s software, and hunt for bugs. For the savvy users that googled their way to this page, you can download this highly alpha version now at http://www.snakebytestudios.com/download.php?id=7. You have to edit the butsets.ini (hehe…that sounds like butt sex 😀 ) file and the only functions available are the ones already listed. Keystrokes settings function and appear exactly the same as in the Logitech software. The [Default] profile is what the program loads when there is no specific profile for an application. App-specific profiles are listed exactly as they do in the GUI, thus [iexplore.exe] would be the heading for Internet Explore settings. Hopefully, I will get some time soon to finish all these programs.