benstat


How to pin SONAR X1 Helper to your Windows taskbar (Vista/7):

1. In Windows Explorer, go to the folder where SONAR X1 Helper is installed.
2. Right click 'SonarX1Helper.exe' and choose 'Create shortcut' from the popup menu.
3. A new shortcut to Helper will be created in the same folder.
4. Rename the shortcut to 'SonarX1Hlper' (note the missing 'e' in 'Helper').
5. Right click the shortcut and choose 'Pin to Taskbar'.

Why does it have to be done this way? I've just learned that Microsoft, in their wisdom, made the ridiculous design decision to prevent any program with the word 'help' in its title, from being pinned  to the taskbar!!!

Because of this, I may have to change the name of Helper to something else! What a PITA. Anyway, this workaround will do for now.
 
Edit: On second thought's I'm not going to change the name of Helper just for this. Too many things need changing, not to mention the fact I just bought the sonarhelper.com domain! I'll just put these intructions onto the website instead.

wow. crazy stuff. I wonder if there are any other 'no fly zones'?

I thought at one point you were considering changing to Sonar X1 Tools? That seemed salient to me, but others may disagree. Domains are pretty cheap, and that one's available... 

Instead of Sonar Helper why not

SONAID
SONARAID
SONASSIST
SONARASSIST
SONARPLUS

i love this program; it has made my X1 experience much much better!

you keep amazing me here - 

SNAP MODE !!!! YIPPIE 

Is there any chance you can make a 'disable for the draw duration tool' and revert to old behavior ? And is there anyway to disable the edit filters? To me this would worth the price of an update... oh a way to get the custom colors box back for track properties.  

Well done keep up the amazing work you are incredible. 
-jeffrey  

roughly


Is there any chance you can make a 'disable for the draw duration tool' and revert to old behavior ? And is there anyway to disable the edit filters? To me this would worth the price of an update... oh a way to get the custom colors box back for track properties.  

Hi roughly,
I'm afraid these suggestions could be very tricky, if not impossible. As I've said before, theres only so much I can do from the outside. It's one thing to provide buttons to give you quicker access to SONAR features, but another thing altogether to start disabling X1 functionality and trying to 'hack' 8.5.3 functionality back into it. I'm not sure I'm too comfortable with that, but I don't think it's possible anyway.
Nevertheless, thanks for your support!
Ben

This ought to be a sticky.  Folks, if you haven't downloaded this, yet, you're missing a great app.

hello ben,
i haven't downloaded sonar helper because i don't know what it is.
in all honesty, it took me two months to figure out what sonar x1 is.
well, i just wanted to say that although i'm not familiar with what you did, i couldn't help but notice all the work you've been doing in order to help people free of charge and that is wwaayy ccooll. sounds to me from all of the great reviews of the sonar helper that you do fine work.

rock on benstat.

giankap


does any helper exist for 8.5.3?

I'm for hire... ;-)

Pardon my lack of knowledge,
This is for Windows 7/64 Bit?
Once X1b comes out, will it mess with anything as far as the patches fixing things?
Just kind of worried about messing something up-but the reveiws by everyone else makes me want to install it. I appreciate the hard work you have done for everyone on this.
How soon do you expect the final version of this to be accomplished-should I wait for that time to install?

Thanks so much!!!

digi2ns

This is for Windows 7/64 Bit?

Yes, works great.

Wonderful, Thanks a bunch guys. Gonna download it later and check it out.

M@ B


hello ben,
i haven't downloaded sonar helper because i don't know what it is.
in all honesty, it took me two months to figure out what sonar x1 is.
well, i just wanted to say that although i'm not familiar with what you did, i couldn't help but notice all the work you've been doing in order to help people free of charge and that is wwaayy ccooll. sounds to me from all of the great reviews of the sonar helper that you do fine work.

rock on benstat.

Have a look at www.sonarhelper.com for some more information. I've been meaning to update the website with a lot more info for a while, but will finally get around to it later this week. If there's anything you want to ask about it, I'm sure the folks here would be happy to help, or by all means send me an email at feedback@sonarhelper.com.

digi2ns


Pardon my lack of knowledge,
This is for Windows 7/64 Bit?
Once X1b comes out, will it mess with anything as far as the patches fixing things?
Just kind of worried about messing something up-but the reveiws by everyone else makes me want to install it. I appreciate the hard work you have done for everyone on this.
How soon do you expect the final version of this to be accomplished-should I wait for that time to install?

Thanks so much!!!

Hi digi2ns,
 
It works on XP, Vista and Win7 (32 and 64 bit). mudgel is right when he says I'm only making use of things that are already exposed and accessible via other means. There isn't really any 'hacking' involved, which in my opinion is the beauty of it. It doesn't change any SONAR files at all, and does everything dynamically at runtime. What this means is that you can run Helper with confidence. If you don't like it, or anything goes wrong with it, just don't run it, or delete it from your PC and you are back to square one. If you install a SONAR update, Helper will check to make sure it's designed to work with the new version. If it isn't, it will warn you so you can choose to try it anyway or wait for a patch.
 
As I said above, I'll probably need to issue minor updates when new SONAR patches and versions come out, but I don't anticipate any problems or lengthy delays with that. If I ever decide not to carry on maintaining it (I have no intention of stopping ATM), then I intend to release the source code on the forum.
 
The final version will arrive in a week or two. I'm also changing the name of it due to an annoying Microsoft limitation (programs with the word 'Help' in their title can't be pinned to the Win7 taskbar!). More about that soon though. I wouldn't wait for the final release, this RC has proven to be very stable so far.
 
Thanks,
Ben

A1MixMan


Benstat,

Do you think Panup's X1 tweaks can be implemented into your SonarX1Helper program to make it easy for all of us to use?

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?high=&m=2225095&mpage=2#2227475
I'm going to ask him the same question.

I looked into skinning SONAR over Xmas and got something working using a similar technique to the one Panup recently described. I decided to postpone it because (a) there were more important features to add at the time, (b) I am generally quite happy with the new look of X1 anyway, and (c) mainly because it involves modifying the SONAR resource DLL. I wanted to keep Helper 'clean' and avoid changing any SONAR files because of all the downsides that entails. I PM'd another forum member who expressed an interest in producing a new X1 skin, but I haven't got around to sending him the images to modify yet.

Having said that, I do know how to automate the modification of a resource DLL, to the point where I could create some sort of skinning application that does it for you. Having given it some more thought recently (prompted by Panup's thread), there are also ways I could make it robust and tolerant of future Cakewalk updates.

If there is enough demand for something like this I'll consider adding it, but I suspect it would be quite a bit of work. I wonder how many people actually want to skin X1, and whether the number would make the effort worthwhile?

UnderTow


I suppose any kind of skinning would be limited to images that are the exact same size as the original bitmaps/PNGs, right?

Anyway I just had a look at Resource Hacker and ResEdit-x64 and a couple of others and my main issue is just one of practicality: In Resource Hacker you have to open each of the resource numbers and then click on it to view the actual resource. That means that finding something to be able to replace it could take a very long time. So to make a long story short, if there is any tool or a method to make this process easier (for instance viewing resources as folders with thumbnails to quickly locate the one you need), then that is all I personally would need. (Even if it is just to locate a bitmap/png to then edit with Resource Hacker or whatever...).

Of course if things could also be resized or even moved... Then things would be much more interesting but I suspect that isn't possible.

UnderTow

 
You're right, any replacement images would most likely need to be exactly the same size as the original. So, for example, you couldn't simply replace the Control Bar images with smaller ones to make the Control Bar smaller. Not that simple I'm afraid. There may be exceptions to this, but as a rule I suspect the new image dimensions would need to be exactly the same, as would the relative size & positions of any buttons etc within the image. Having said that, you still have total freedom to change the look and feel of X1.
 
An X1 skinning program with convenient features like those you describe is quite possible, but quite a bit of work. As I said above, if there is sufficient demand then I'm happy to look into it. However, Panup has already started work on something that makes use of a free resource editor, so maybe we should see how he gets on first? That leaves me to concentrate on Helper. After all, there's still a long list of feature requests!