FloatLED V1.0 - February 2006
"Super space optimized HD monitoring LED"

For WindowsXP Home/Pro only, possible Win2000 (not tested)


FloatLED (c) 2006 Stone Oakvalley Studios

Using code from DriveGleam.dll (c) 2005 Engeltek - Svein Engelsgjerd (waxhead@online.no)
http://sengelsg.home.online.no

* No CD-ROM, Removable USB Sticks, Network Drives, Floppy Drives or other non-standard Windows HD config are monitored! *

Rules for developing FloatLED was:
1: An alternative to those other similar priced & bloated HardDrive LED software on the market.
2: Make FloatLED completely FREEWARE.
3: No bloating, no special gfx, no bells, no whistles nor sounds.
4: Just plain useful, and shows JUST exactly what it was intended to show....HD ACTIVITY!
5: Super space optimized, intelligent design and no trayicon filler.
6: Use very low or no CPU-Time at all.
7: Clean install, INI prefs, single exe, no registry entries and no hidden code.

Conclusion: I just reached those goals. An fine example of a serious project and a superb end result. SEE AND LEARN!





Some insight into the existence of FloatLED:
--------------------------------------------
There were some useful alternatives out there, but they was not in my opinion thoughtfully tuned/designed
to what the software was really trying to accomplish. It should be out of workspace, non interrupting, easy, 
non bloated or other routines that do not belong in such a program. Putting it into the tray is also
not an good idea, because some people have auto hide on their taskbar. Program would be useless. 

The solution was to have a ONTOP draggable and lock position window functionality. The design of the
LED was also thought hard of. Other software seemed to bloat the graphics, making the LED look like LEDS
in the real world, with chrome, borders and artwork taking up those precious pixels, why oh why?

Just show LED activity with read, write and read/write + the HD volumeletter as small as possible.
Simple. So FloatLED was created.

It will show all the different volumeletters assigned in the system as blinking graphical icons simulating
Read, Write or both at the same time. Green is read, red is write. If you have 1 HD with 2 partitions, these
will be shown as C & D for instance. The maximum amount of LEDS are 24. From C -> Z.

A & B are system specified as Floppy 3.5" and Floppy 5.25" useally and are not needed in this software, as it
only detect HD's, and USB removable HD's. USB sticks are not shown or detected, neither CD-ROM and volumeletter
assigned Network drives. FloatLED would become something else than it was supposed to be. It would have been
a transfer data monitoring LED activity software if these were included, and that was not my plan!

Huge thanks to my friend Svein Engelsgjerd for letting me use a customized snippet code from his own DriveGleam.dll
which he uses in DriveGleam - a more advanced LED monitoring software with PAR: LED features++
Please check his software at the homepage (noted in the top of this ReadMe.txt)





Usage:
------
Use the provided installer to install it, a menu group will be made with FloatLED.EXE, ReadMe.txt and Uninstal option
along with the fact that the installer will add a entry in the Startup folder, so it start with Windows.

The size of the window is 18 pixels in height. If you have one drive, the icon/window will only be 17x18 pixels
big. Place it somewhere on you screen, where it would not be in any way of your workflow. I placed it in the middle
of screen topmost (slightly to the right) where the titlebar for windows are. Totally out of harms way and utterly
useful.

You may lock the position so that you do not accidentially move it around after placing it. 

You may experience that FloatLED icons will sometimes be shown during loading of games. This because it was programmed to
be ONTOP of all windows all the time. I did not detect any problems with having this, and it will be non visible
when you start playing.

Exiting FloatLED will save the last current position and the LOCK status (ON or OFF).

The LED icons are tip programmed. You will see the volumename and it's name there.

Right click in the window for a simple menu. Choices available are ABOUT, LOCK WINDOW POSITION and EXIT
At the bottom of the menu, are the current HDDetectRate shown in MS as it is specified in the FloatLED.ini file and
a new concept with the possibility to uninstall FloatLED fast and easy from within FloatLED itself
(will call the regular uninstaller and start uninstalling). Why not, it's part of the FloatLED package :)

That's really all you need to know, and just what the software does. 




Alternative INI editing.
------------------------
In the program directory a FloatLED.ini file is placed. You may edit the "HDDetectRate" (in millseconds) to
speed up or slow down the detection of new drives being added. USB HD Drives useally. It was set to 10 seconds (10000ms)
by default.

As a safety measure, the value is forced to be 5 sec (5000ms) which should be suitable in the most extreme cases.
If you delete the INI file, a new .INI file will be automatically be created with the default settings in any case.



Testing and revision history:
-----------------------------
V1.0 - Added HD detection for HardDrives and rescaling of window/icons - Tested for 3 days - no crashes or hangup detected.
V0.9 - Tested for 1 year on two computers - no crashes or hangup detected.



FloatLED was programmed by Stone Oakvalley - with the superb PureBasic from Fantaisie Software - www.purebasic.com
DriveGleam.dll was programmed in C by Svein Engelsgjerd.



Regards,
Stone Oakvalley
www.stone-oakvalley-studios.com
post@stone-oakvalley-studios.com


