5. WinID Settings

The Settings window has several tabs that categorize settings information.
 

General Tab

This tab contains general settings for WinID:

• "Auto resize Readout Pane after display options change" - when checked, will automatically resize Readout Pane to its optimal height each time you change display options in the Main Menu. Use this option to save space on the screen occupied by WinID window and have the best readability of the data in the Readout Pane at the same time;
   
• "Show Class Selector window after click on 'Manual Class Recognition' toolbar button" - when checked, will display Class Selector window when you click Manual Class Recognition button on the WinID toolbar. This window gives you an option to select window class from the list of supported classes for the Manual Class Recognition Mode. When this option is off, WinID will use previously selected class without displaying Class Selector window when you click Manual Class Recognition button on the WinID toolbar. In this case you can select window class by pressing Ctrl key on the keyboard;
   
• "Capture Shots only when WinID has keyboard focus" - when checked will make WinID recognize Capture Shot button keystroke only when WinID has keyboard focus. If unchecked WinID will look for this keystroke even if it is brought to the background.
   
• "Copy Shot as text to the Windows Clipboard when captured"  - when checked, will copy information to the Windows Clipboard as plain text when Shot is Captured. The top line of the text copied to the Clipboard will contain unaltered title (or text) of the window. You can use this feature to instantly copy text from control underneath the mouse pointer on to the Clipboard;
   
  INFORMATION: After being copied the information is available for other Microsoft Windows applications by means of the Paste option.
   
  INFORMATION: Only data displayed in the General tab of the Captured Shots window is copied to the Windows Clipboard.
   
• "Play sound when Shot is captured" - when checked, will play a short sound when Shot is Captured using the keyboard. This will give you an audible proof that Shot of the control underneath the mouse pointer was captured successfully. If this option is on and you didn't hear the sound after you pressed Capture Shot button on the keyboard this means that WinID did not register the Shot. In this case try pressing Capture Shot button again;
   
• "Main keyboard button to capture Shot" - this field displays a keyboard button name that is used to Capture Shots of controls underneath the mouse pointer. By default the Shift key is used, but it can be changed to almost any button on the keyboard. To specify another button to use for Capturing Shots simply select it from the list. The list contains all supported buttons in alphabetical order;
   
  INFORMATION: To disable Capture Shot feature select "<None>" in this field.
   
  INFORMATION: Although WinID allows you to select almost any button on the keyboard to Capture Shot you must be careful about which button you use. Since the whole idea of Capturing Shots is to make it transparent for other programs, using alphanumeric keys as well as keys like Space and/or Enter may interfere with other applications that you will attempt to Capture Shots of. In case you don't want to use Shift key, we recommend you use the following buttons: Print Screen, F (function) keys, Windows Specific Keys that you don't normally use.
   
  INFORMATION: Ctrl keyboard key could not be selected to Capture Shot as it is used to display Class Selector window.
   
• "Use second button to capture Shot" - when checked, will let you select a second button to Capture Shot;
   
• "Second keyboard button to capture Shot" - field displays a keyboard button name that will be used as a second button to Capture Shot in combination with a main Capture Shot button on the keyboard. To specify a second button select its name from the list. The list contains all supported buttons in alphabetical order. This option could be disabled if "Use second button to capture Shot" is not checked;
   
  INFORMATION: Second keyboard key cannot coincide with the main Capture Shot key.
   
  INFORMATION: Ctrl keyboard key could not be selected as a second key to Capture Shot as it is used to display Class Selector window.
   
  INFORMATION: You cannot use second keyboard button to Capture Shots if "Capture Shots only when WinID has keyboard focus" option is checked.
   

More Tab

This tab contains additional settings for WinID:

• "Use window regions for Highlighting Selected Controls" - when checked, enables WinID to highlight controls underneath the mouse pointer using window regions of those controls. If unchecked, WinID will treat controls as rectangular forms;
   
  WARNING: This option enabled on older computers may slow the operation in Highlight Selected Control mode while working with controls that contain "heavy" and/or complex regions. Unselect this option to prevent lagging.
   
• "Apply background mask color to images" - when checked, will apply a uniform background color to each transparent portion of an image obtained as dynamic resource. This will improve "readability" of the image. If unchecked, WinID will leave those images intact.
   
  IMPORTANT: This option affects images that will be captured after it is changed and has no effect on already Captured Shots!

Advanced Tab

This tab contains advanced settings for WinID and its performance:

• "Priority to run WinID" - field allows you to select priority level with which WinID will run. You can select among the following values:
  • 2 Points Below Normal - the lowest priority that is 2 points below Normal priority. WinID will give up CPU time share to any process in the system. Use this setting in the situation when you need most of the CPU time share for some other process. WARNING: WinID may omit to display some information in the Readout Pane or lag in response with this priority setting!
  • 1 Point Below Normal - priority one point below Normal priority. WinID will give up CPU time share to most processes in the system;
  • Normal - priority of many running applications in the Operating System. This is the default setting. WinID will run with the same CPU time share as any other regular process in the system. INFORMATION: It is recommended that you use this priority level for the regular operation of WinID;
  • 1 Point Above Normal - priority one point above Normal priority. WinID will have a slight edge over default processes in the system;
  • 2 Points Above Normal - priority two points above Normal priority. WinID will dominate almost all running processes in the system including critical Operating System processes. Use this setting to trap dynamic information from controls that could be missed in normal circumstances. As one of suggested uses would be to track changes in an application controls while it's starting up or loading;
  • 3 Points Above Normal - the highest priority that WinID can run with. This priority level will make WinID to "hog" almost all CPU time share and dominate over all running processes. Use this setting to track time critical changes in the application.

  WARNING: Exercise extreme caution when running WinID with priority levels 2 points and above Normal! This may suppress Operating System critical processes and make your system slow or render it not operational!
  
  INFORMATION: Selected priority level will take effect after you click OK button at the bottom of the Settings window.
   

• "Constant Polling interval" - field lets you specify a time interval in milliseconds which WinID will use in the Constant Polling Mode to poll controls underneath the mouse pointer. In other words, this value is the frequency of constant polling. Accepted values are from 10 milliseconds up to 5000 milliseconds (that is 5 seconds);
  
  WARNING: Be careful when setting constant polling interval to a very low number. Value of 10 milliseconds will make WinID update its Readout Pane almost nonstop without giving up any CPU time share for other processes in the system! The default Constant Polling interval is 100 milliseconds.
   
• "Enable hooking on Windows 95/98/Me" - when checked, enables WinID to employ technique using Windows Hooks to obtain data from window/control underneath the mouse pointer. In normal circumstances you won't have to disable this feature. Only if you experience problems running WinID on your system should you disable this option;
   
  INFORMATION: We allowed disabling hooking for Windows 95/98/Me since WinID uses undocumented feature of those Operating Systems to retrieve information and we cannot guarantee full correctness of such undocumented use. During our extensive tests we did not observe any errors reported during WinID's operation with this option enabled.
   
  INFORMATION: This check box will be disabled if you run WinID on the Operating System other than Windows 95/98/Me. Hooking is a well documented and supported feature on Windows NT family Operating Systems, thus it is enabled all the time by default.
   
  WARNING: Disabling this option may prevent WinID from retrieving essential information about some controls, such as command lines, environment strings and many of dynamic resources!
   
• "Enable DLL injection if hooking fails" - when checked, will enable WinID to employ DLL Injection technique to retrieve information from window/control underneath the mouse pointer only if Hooking method fails. This method allows to retrieve information from a wider range of controls but may make WinID run a little slower. In normal circumstances you won't have to disable this feature. Only if you experience problems running WinID on your system should you disable this option;
   
  INFORMATION: Dll Injection technique is not supported by Windows 95/98/Me Operating Systems, thus this setting has no effect there.
   
  INFORMATION: Dll Injection technique does not retrieve dynamic resources from controls, thus if Hooking option fails some of the dynamic resources could be omitted.
   
  WARNING: Disabling this option may prevent WinID from retrieving essential information about some controls.
   
• "Number of unsent messages in the queue" - field displays the number of messages in the Feedback Message Queue that are still in the WinID's memory and are not yet sent to the web server. This option allows you to check if your feedback messages were submitted to us successfully. Zero means that all messages were successfully sent to the web server. For more information see Feedback option;
   
• "Clear Queue" - button lets you clear the Feedback Message Queue if it has any messages in it without sending them to the web server. This button is disabled if there're no messages in the queue;
   
  WARNING: All your feedback messages will be erased if you decide to clear the Feedback Message Queue.
   
• "Try Sending" - button if clicked will make WinID to attempt to submit all unsent messages in the Feedback Message Queue to the web server. When you use WinID's Feedback window to compose and send message to us WinID stores your message in memory and attempts to submit it to the web server later in the background if Internet connection is on. This button makes WinID to commit to this process immediately. This button is disabled if there're no messages in the queue;
   
  INFORMATION: Internet connection is required to use this option. If all messages are sent to the web server you will see a tooltip message at the top of the WinID window.