A FOSS Earth VB6 Widget for Reactos, XP, Win7, 8 and 10+.

The Panzer Earth VB6 gauge is a simple utility displaying a rotating earth in a dieselpunk fashion on your desktop. It can be resized and placed anywhere on your desktop. It uses minimal resources and helps give your desktop a dieselpunk make-over.

This widgets functionality is limited as it is just a template for widgets yet to come, however, it can be increased in size, animation speed can be changed, opacity/transparency may be set as to the users discretion. The widget can also be made to hide for a pre-determined period.

Right-click on the widget to display the function menu, mouse hover over the widget and press CTRL+mousewheel up/down to resize. It works well on Windows XP to Windows 11.

The Panzer Earth VB6 gauge is Beta-grade software, under development, not yet ready to use on a production system - use at your own risk.

This version was developed on Windows 7 using 32 bit VisualBasic 6 as a FOSS project creating a WoW64 widget for the desktop.

It is open source to allow easy configuration, bug-fixing, enhancement and community contribution towards free-and-useful VB6 utilities that can be created by anyone. The first step was the creation of this template program to form the basis for the conversion of other desktop utilities or widgets. A future step is new VB6 widgets with more functionality and then hopefully, conversion of each to RADBasic/TwinBasic for future-proofing and 64bit-ness.

This utility is one of a set of steampunk and dieselpunk widgets. That you can find here on Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/yereverluvinuncleber/gallery

I do hope you enjoy using this utility and others. Your own software enhancements and contributions will be gratefully received if you choose to contribute.

CREDITS:

I have really tried to maintain the credits as the project has progressed. If I have made a mistake and left someone out then do forgive me. I will make amends if anyone points out my mistake in leaving someone out.

MicroSoft in the 90s - MS built good, lean and useful tools in the late 90s and early 2000s. Thanks for VB6.

Olaf Schmidt - This tool was built using the RichClient RC5 Cairo wrapper for VB6. Specifically the components using transparency. Thanks for the massive effort Olaf in creating Cairo counterparts for all VB6 native controls and giving us access to advanced features on controls such as transparency.

Shuja Ali @ codeguru for his settings.ini code.

ALLAPI.COM For the registry reading code.

Rxbagain on codeguru for his Open File common dialog code without a dependent OCX - http://forums.codeguru.com/member.php?92278-rxbagain

si_the_geek for his special folder code

Elroy on VB forums for the balloon tooltips

Harry Whitfield for his quality testing, brain stimulation and being an unwitting source of inspiration.

Tested on :

ReactOS 0.4.14 32bit on virtualBox  
windows 7 professional 32bit on intel  
windows 7 ultimate 64bit on intel  
windows 7 professional 64bit on intel  
windows xp sp3 32bit on intel   
windows 10 home 64bit on intel  
windows 10 home 64bit on amd  
windows 11 64bit on intel   

Dependencies:

Requires a PzEarth folder in C:\Users<user>\AppData\Roaming\ eg: C:\Users<user>\AppData\Roaming\PzEarth Requires a settings.ini file to exist in C:\Users<user>\AppData\Roaming\PzEarth The above will be created automatically by the compiled program when run for the first time.

o Krool's replacement for the Microsoft Windows Common Controls found in mscomctl.ocx (slider) are replicated by the addition of one dedicated OCX file that are shipped with this package.

During development only, this must be copied to C:\windows\syswow64 and should be registered.

• CCRSlider.ocx

Register this using regsvr32, ie. in a CMD window with administrator privileges.

c:                          ! set device to boot drive with Windows
cd \windows\syswow64s	    ! change default folder to syswow64
regsvr32 CCRSlider.ocx	! register the ocx

This will allow the custom controls to be accessible to the VB6 IDE at design time and the sliders will function as intended (if this ocx is not registered correctly then the relevant controls will be replaced by picture boxes).

The above is only for development, for ordinary users, during runtime there is no need to do the above. The OCX will reside in the program folder. The program reference to this OCX is contained within the supplied resource file, saturn.RES. The reference to this file is already compiled into the binary. As long as the OCX is in the same folder as the binary the program will run without the need to register the OCX manually.

• OLEGuids.tlb

This is a type library that defines types, object interfaces, and more specific API definitions needed for COM interop / marshalling. It is only used at design time (IDE). This is a Krool-modified version of the original .tlb from the vbaccelerator website. The .tlb is compiled into the executable. For the compiled .exe this is NOT a dependency, only during design time.

From the command line, copy the tlb to a central location (system32 or wow64 folder) and register it.

COPY OLEGUIDS.TLB %SystemRoot%\System32
REGTLIB %SystemRoot%\System32\OLEGUIDS.TLB

In the VB6 IDE - project - references - browse - select the OLEGuids.tlb

• Uses the RC5 Cairo wrapper from Olaf Schmidt.

During development the RC5 components need to be registered. These scripts are used to register. Run each by double-clicking on them.

RegisterRC5inPlace.vbs RegisterVBWidgetsInPlace.vbs

During runtime on the users system, the RC5 components are dynamically referenced using modRC5regfree.bas which is compiled into the binary.

• SETUP.EXE - The program is currently distributed using setup2go, a very useful and comprehensive installer program that builds a .exe installer. Youll have to find a copy of setup2go on the web as it is now abandonware. Contact me directly for a copy. The file "install PzEarth 0.1.0.s2g" is the configuration file for setup2go. When you build it will report any errors in the build.

• HELP.CHM - the program documentation is built using the NVU HTML editor and compiled using the Microsoft supplied CHM builder tools (HTMLHelp Workshop) and the HTM2CHM tool from Yaroslav Kirillov. Both are abandonware but still do the job admirably. The HTML files exist alongside the compiled CHM file in the HELP folder.

Project References:

VisualBasic for Applications  
VisualBasic Runtime Objects and Procedures  
VisualBasic Objects and Procedures  
OLE Automation  
vbRichClient5  

LICENCE AGREEMENTS:

Copyright © 2023 Dean Beedell

In addition to the GNU General Public Licence please be aware that you may use any of my own imagery in your own creations but commercially only with my permission. In all other non-commercial cases I require a credit to the original artist using my name or one of my pseudonyms and a link to my site. With regard to the commercial use of incorporated images, permission and a licence would need to be obtained from the original owner and creator, ie. me.

Showing the VB6 program running on OpenSuse Linux with Wine.

Showing the VB6 program running on Mac os/X Mojave with Wine.