Category : Windows 3.X Files
Archive   : SYSMETER.ZIP
Filename : SYSMET.DOC

ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ SysMet v1.00 ³
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ

Hi folks,

SysMet is a small utility written for Windows developers and users.
So what the heck is it for?

Purpose:
SysMet shows you, by means of three nice meter controls, the
percentage of free USER.EXE, GDI.EXE and system resources.

Why would you want that:
Well, suppose you're developing an app that involves LOTS of
fonts, colors, window and menu handles ekcetra ekcetra, and
you've NEVER heard of instructions like DeleteObject,
DestroyIcon or DestroyMenu (or you were always too afraid to
use them!). Every time you run your app during the development
cycle, you'll be loosing LOTS of system resources.
"But Windows 3.1 is supposed to clean up those objects!" NOT!
Anyway, you'll know what I mean when you run the app.
Windows users can use SysMet to check if enough memory is
available to run a 9th instance of an enormously BIG app, say,
MickeySoft Blurb 2.0 for Windows.
Developer or user: SysMet is the answer ... er ... let's now
try and find out what the question is!

Features:
Actually, I wrote SysMet to test Blaise Computing's custom
control collection, Windows Control Palette. SYSMET.XXX (some
archiver's extension) also includes CPALETTE.DLL, where the
routines for the meter controls reside.
While I was having fun, I added some other features:

- Menus-On-Demand (TM): that's right, just right-click
the mouse button anywhere on SysMet's window, and you'll get
a context-sensitive menu (a so-called Object Inspector).
- Dynamically change colors: you may wonder about the initial
colors for the meter controls - that's Belgium's flag
(you know Belgium, the capital of Brussels ).
- Dynamically change fonts: choose any font from the font list
to change the appearance of the meter text.
- And YES! there's at least ONE hidden feature in SysMet.
- SysMet does NOT use any undocumented API calls. That's
because you generally DON'T NEED undocumented calls in a
program as, er, simple as this. To get the percentages, I used
GetFreeSystemResources(), not GetHeapSpaces().

Room for improvement:
- Maximizing SysMet on a 800x600 screen will manifest that the
leftmost meter control isn't painted. This is probably a bug
in Blaise Computing's meter control. When you have enough
other apps loaded, however, everything's OK (go figure!).
- Resizing SysMet to a tiny window will show you that I used
static controls underneath the meter controls. There's
definitely some room for improvement there!
- I welcome (really I do!) any comments or suggestions regarding
SysMet. You can reach me by email on CIS and MCI (see below).

Disclaimer and licensing agreement:
- You may use SysMet as you would use a book: read it, then store
it on your bookshelf never to look at it again. Should you have
any spare time, try running it on your computer as well.
- What you do with SysMet is up to you. Any hardware, software,
brain or other damage is probably caused by aliens orbiting
Earth. I'm NOT responsible. (That's what my mum's been telling
me for years!)

Source code:
Read on, it's for free!
This archived file normally contains the .PAS and .RES file
necessary to rebuild SysMet. Should you, however, get this
stuff WITHOUT the source code, you can still get the source
by sending me an email message with an answer to the questions:
1) "My name is ........... and I am function key"
(fill in the missing word)
2) "Where would you put an extra arm on your body, and why?"
(be honest in your answer)

Credits:
1) I would especially like to thank Frozen Pizza for the icon
stuff, and more generally for, er, more general things, too.
2) Other credits are listed in SysMet's menu (right-click the
client area or the caption bar).
3) A special thank you to Zack, for UNSPEAKABLE things, and to
Danny Thorpe, for the unlimited-mileage car.
4) And a very special, last minute thank you to Charlie Calvert,
for being THE very first SysMet fan! Let's do a course on Yen
Buddhism together, Charlie!



Luk Vermeulen.

CIS 100065,101
MCI LVermeulen