11/27/05 News

Here is today's progress:

Added 5 new label that allows the category headers to be customizable
Added 1 new label that allows the title to also be customizable

What am I going to be working on this upcoming week?
Custom icons
Completing cpl paths
Completing the help file, including a tutorial on how to skin TSP*

*Tiger System Preferences

New Spanish Version

Today I have worked for more than 4 hours to bring Tiger System Preferences to a higher customization level. I have made all labels customizable, and not only the ones for the 6 custom icons. This change add 48 new lines of code to the project and forced me to create 2 new background files from scratch and completelly clean (without icons, labels or headers) in order to accomodate the new labels.

I have also linked the search box with Windows search utility, but unfortunatelly it does not transfer the text typed on the textbox to the search window and there is nothing I can do about it at the moment. This change added 15 new lines of code to the project as well as a new module.

But the biggest update I made today was a close-to 90% Spanish version of it, to satisfy requests from my friends at Macthink. I say close to 90% because there are elements of the program that will stay in English, such as tooltips, the About screen, the menu, and the Show All button. I could make those in Spanish, but that would mean creating the whole project for a second time and I don't want to do that at the moment. So I hope people like what I did to make the Spanish version possible: a separate Skin INI file that contains the label names in Spanish. Here is a screenshot of what is done in the Spanish update:

Nov 25, 2005 Screenshots

Here are today's screenshots of what is already done:

About Screen



Main User Interface



















Error windows:



















Transparent menu










Folder Structure






Ini settings for Main and Skins

Hello Everyone, new updates for TSP V2!

It's being a long time since the last time I talk about the development of my second version of Tiger System Preferences for Windows. I was forced to stop its development due to the lack of time to work on it, but now I am coming back and ready to finish it up and release it. I started working on it officially yesterday and I had done the following changes:

• Added a new exe icon
• Fixed a problem that was causing the background image not to load
• Removed the 'hide the last line' code due to an issue with the shadow
• Edited the shadow file
• Edited the credits file
• Edited the properties info on the exe icon

In order to make the installer smaller :

• Removed the WidgetDock folder (540kb)
• Removed the flash help database (6.04MB and counting....)

Currently working on:

• A couple of new icons such as the most requested 'Add/remove programs' icon.
• Fixing a couple of not working links to control panel items
• Adding new links and possible new paths for custom icons
• Creating a pdf help document instead of the flash help database
• Planning to update the website with lastest info
• Trying to find a way to make the search work or point to the windows search utility

I hope this are good news for everyone and if you feel you can help speed up the completition of the project in any way, please feel free to contact me at gsbenitez@gmail.com . By the way, I have given permission to Chris, the creator of Flyakite software to add my new version of the program to the incoming new version of Flyakite: 3.

Tiger System Preferences 2 Help Database

Here is a new screenshot showing a demo version of the Tiger System Preferences 2 Help Database running on Vista using the new IE7. I hope you like it!

Tiger System Preferences 2

Hello everyone! It's been a long time since I have not published any news regarding the development of the new version of Tiger System Preferences, so let me update you all regarding it's progress.

As I said before, this new version of my project its been done in Visual Basic 6 (VB6), which provides more flexibility to add new features and make the project even better than the first version (made using MMB Actionscript). Here is a list of all the features it now has:

Old Features from the previous version:

• Static Mac Skin
• Mouse over and down state effect on all buttons
• Easy to access via the Desktop or Start Menu shortcuts
• Non-square, drag-able User Interface

New Features:

• New Name: Tiger System Preferences 2
• More Background Choices (the user is able to create its own skins and icons) supporting only BMP, JPG, GIF and ICO imagesINI Support to control all the options including images - normal/down, paths and skin locations.
• New choice that allows the user to add up to 6 of his/her own controls to the panel on the new section called Other (New icon already included on the section by request: CPU. I will also provide an icon inside the package for the so much requested Add/Remove Program and provide all the availabe path options (inside the help)
• Improvised usage of the windows search too from the search box.
• New and animated About Screen available from new transparent menu
• New options panel also available from new transparent menu
• New and transparent error windows, Mac style
• New Help Database System using Macromedia RoboHelp X5
• Restore to Default choice
• Lower memory usage

This new project version is currently under construction, and there are no plans yet for its release. So far, there will be only an English version, and I have plans for creating a new page on the official website for Tiger System Preferences 2. The project will also have installer/uninstaller but I have not desided which type to use yet (I might use the embedded VB installer). Please notice that all this wonderful work is being done with the help of my friend DJ Williams aka Dremation, the main coder of the PXP project. Thanks very very much for all the help and ideas.

Well, now here you have the lastest news about the project, but a picture is worth a thousand words, so I have attached a couple images for you to check it out. Enjoy and thanks for all the support!

New User Interface (Top buttons are under construction)

New Transparent menu

New Error Window, Mac Style

Welcome everyone!

Welcome dear friends and visitors to the Tiger System Preferences Blog. Here I will post news, comments and updates about my TSP project.

The project I am currently working on is the Tiger System Preferences MMB version for Windows. If you have not heard about it before, you can get the info by visiting the official website here.

I am also working on a VB6 version of the project with the help of one of the main programmers/coders of the PantherXP project, DJ Williams. Here is a screenshot of the progress so far: