Topic: StartWatch v. 0.4.0 beta released

[tinplate]

http://www.softwx.com/windows/startwatch.html

Go to the link above for description, docs, download, and screenshots.

StartWatch lets you coordinate the startup of applications and monitors them after startup. It includes hang and crash detection and recovery.

And please, read the release notes and user guide. Or at least glance at them before you start using it.

Steve

[Mark / Ohio]

Thanks Steve!  

Downloading, reading the release notes and printing the manual as I post.  

[Anole]

Installed and testing now. First impression is that Steve is turning out another quality product!

A couple of things to think about before you do your first restart with Startwatch running (figured these out the hard way):

1) take out the existing links to your programs in your "Startup" folder.

2) if you're using the startwl.bat batch file to start WeatherLink in bulletin mode, don't add the batch file to Startwatch. You will be _very_ unhappy if you do. I had no problems starting WL directly but if you try to make Startwatch run that batch file, it will keep trying and trying and trying to open it and you'll end up with _many_ copies of Weatherlink open on the machine. I'm no windows programmer but I imagine this probably has something to do with a lack of a "hey I'm started" message from the batch file. Not a big deal and if that's the case I wouldn't call it a bug. Just wanted to make folks aware.

[Mark / Ohio]

In my case I had about 6 instances of VWS running before I got it shutdown.  

I decided I'd better turn off monitoring until I at least get the start up sequence worked out, which i did, then play with the monitoring part later.  One thing I noticed was it did not minimize my programs which I had checked.  I've had some issues with getting other programs to auto minimize on startup.  Going to play with that some more yet too.

[Anole]

On the problem using the batch file to start weatherlink in bulletin mode, Steve pointed out to me that when you add weatherlink, Startwatch detects that and you get an extra option to "Put WeatherLink into Bulletin Mode", so there's no need to run the batch file to do this. Sweet!  

[tinplate]

Adding to what Anole mentioned in the previous post, StartWatch has the ability to simulate common UI interaction (button pushes, menu selections, etc) after a program has started. Right now, it only does this for WeatherLink. However, if people suggest a common action or series of actions for a commonly used program, I can add the same sort of special option as I've added for WeatherLink. If it seems of general usefulness, theres a good chance I will add it to StartWatch for everyone's benefit, and growing the usefulness  of StartWatch.

If there's a program that you run that's not of general interest or an action sequence that would likely only be of interest to you, I can add custom options that would only show up in your copy of StartWatch (which would use the registration serial number to know whether to expose them or not). I'd have to charge for this kind of private customization, but for simple things (like I've done for WeatherLink) the charge would be under $50. I've set it up so I can add these things fairly easily. It does require that I be able to run the program (you will need to provide me a copy), so I can determine precisely what I need to send to the program to get it perform the desired actions. For more complicated action sequences such as those involving multiple actions and popping up and automatically interacting with other windows within that program, the charge would be a little more.

Steve

[saratogaWX]

Steve:

It would be great if you'd add support for GRLevel3 radar startup.  It needs a manual F)ile , Web Publishing, Start, then an 'OK' button push to begin FTP upload after GRLevel3 startup.

It's the only weather-related program I use that doesn't automatically restart the publishing after program startup.

Best regards,
Ken