Softpedia >Windows >Office tools >Other Office Tools >AlomWare Toolbox >  Changelog

AlomWare Toolbox Changelog

What's new in AlomWare Toolbox 3.0.0.1

Apr 28, 2024
  • Additional info: Bug fix: Fixed a timing issue that was introduced with the last version
  • (for example, the "Show street camera image" action could sometimes fail to show the
  • image).
  • Addition: Dimmed app windows! AlomWare Toolbox is a Win32 app so it can't support dark
  • mode natively, but now there's an option in Settings to dim its windows to relieve the
  • brightness on your eyes. Note: This doesn't currently work on menus, drop-down lists, or
  • message boxes that appear in the app. We hope to overcome this limitation in a future
  • update.
  • Addition: New automation action step called "Window: Dim", which dims the assigned window.
  • This means you can now dim any window on your desktop to reduce its brightness. Note that
  • as mentioned above, dimming does not currently apply to that window's menus, drop-down
  • lists, and message boxes.
  • Maintenance: Internal bug fixes and code optimisations. Updates to the instruction manual.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 3.00.00 (Apr 23, 2024)

  • LICENSE CHANGE: The usage code for free sessions is back to daily again, instead of until the app quits. Purchasing an unlock code will free you of this.
  • App change: Removed the need for the external "Toolbox.sys" file by embedding it back into "Toolbox.exe". You can delete "Toolbox.sys" if you wish.
  • Stability fixes: Re-wrote a lot of internal code to be more memory-efficient and not clash with other app functions and threads.
  • Bug fix: For reminders/scheduled tasks that ran automated actions on arrival.
  • Bug fix: Hotkeys using the Windows key were slower to respond than those without.
  • Change: The "Alert: Show a splash message" step has longer timeouts for the number of lines: 1 line = 2 seconds, 2 or 3 lines = 4 seconds, 4 to 6 lines = 6 seconds, and 7 or more lines = 8 seconds.
  • Addition: New app system tray menu item called "Center all windows", which moves all non-maximized and non-minimized windows to the center of the desktop.
  • Addition: New automated action step called "Computer: Desktop layout snapshot", which temporarily (not permanently) remembers your current desktop layout, specifically: its resolution, icon positions, and open window sizes and positions. You can then later restore this layout with the "Computer: Desktop layout restore" step. This snapshot step is useful before you run a game, put your PC to sleep, or switch a monitor off.
  • Addition: New automated action step called "Computer: Move all windows", which moves all open windows to the left, right, up, down, or centered on the desktop; in steps of 500 pixels (can be changed in Settings), to give yourself a bigger desktop working area. Maximized windows are resized to the desktop size first, and minimized windows are ignored. Specify the direction as "left", "right", "up", or "down"; or as "center" to center them all. If you accidentally lose track of them, you can right-click AlomWare Toolbox's system tray icon and select "Center all windows" to bring them all back.
  • Addition: New automated action step called "String: Assign from assigned window", to get the text (if any) found on the assigned window; using Windows 10 (and later) OCR technology. This means you can now perform actions based on the text seen on a window's interface, such as setting a scheduled task in the "Calendar" tab to do something when a window with specific text opens and becomes active.
  • Addition: New default action called "ComputerSave and restore desktop layout", which demonstrates the new desktop layout steps mentioned above. Add this via the "Action Wizard" button in the "Automation" tab (use the "Re-add default actions" item).
  • Enhancement: Right-clicking a clipboard text item now has a menu option to open that item if it's an app, file, folder, or website.
  • Enhancement: Screenshots of files can now open those files when double-clicked (or right-clicked) in the Screenshots list. Previously only apps, folders, and websites could be re-opened.
  • Enhancement: Stopped the Dock's appearance from being too sensitive, so it won't accidentally show when you click a window button in the taskbar.
  • Maintenance: Internal bug fixes and code optimisations. Updates to the instruction manual.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 2.02.02 (Apr 14, 2024)

  • Maintenance: Internal bug fixes and code optimisations. Updated the "Toolbox.sys" support file. Updates to the instruction manual.
  • Bug fix: For the "Action: Set date$ format to" and "Action: Set time$ format to" steps, which were expanding the specified formats instead of staying literal.
  • Bug fix: The opening window state "Class Editor" wasn't saving the list if it were just a single line (you had to have a blank line after it to make it actually save).
  • Addition: New setting in the Screenshots area called "[Win 10+] Take auto-screenshots of notifications", so you can see all system notifications (with OCR text) that appeared while you were away.
  • Addition: Taking screenshots of apps or folders with the focus, now lets you double-click those shots in the Screenshot list to re-open those apps or folders (just like URL shots will re-open websites).
  • Enhancement: Updated the "Action: Update online$ variable" step to respond much faster by setting a shorter timeout when your PC is offline (it's now just 250 ms, whereas before it could take several seconds).
  • Enhancement: Some minor cosmetic wording changes to descriptions and text in the app, so some longer app messages will now display correctly on 140% DPI desktops instead of being cropped.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 2.02.01 (Apr 9, 2024)

  • Maintenance: Internal bug fixes and code optimisations. Updated the "Toolbox.sys" support file. Updates to the instruction manual.
  • Bug fix: Deleting or renaming an action inside a group that had trigger text was showing duplicate actions for that group (until you manually refreshed the list again).
  • Bug fix: Right-clicking an action to add trigger text would not show that text if you did it twice in a row but cancelled the first time. A rare situation but we want the app to be perfect. :)
  • Major addition: Powerful new convenience PC tweak called "Highlight active admin windows when Toolbox is standard", so when you're running Toolbox with standard rights and you click a window, it will show an admin line across the top of the window if that window was run with administrator rights. The admin line is a series of dashes in the Windows admin shield colors of blue/orange. This enables you to instantly see that the window can't be modified, moved, tweaked, or typed to with AlomWare Toolbox because AlomWare Toolbox was run with standard rights. If you run AlomWare Toolbox with admininstrator rights, then this tweak is not needed (the app can access any window) and therefore no admin line will be shown.
  • Addition: New automated action called "ComputerDo activity in clipboard", so you can open/run a file from the clipboard text, open a folder/website from the clipboard text, open a Registry key from the clipboard text, or do an equation from the clipboard text to be copied back into the clipboard.
  • Enhancement: The Command Box now supports file and folder paths, so you can run/open a file or folder by typing or pasting it into the box and hitting Enter.
  • Enhancement: New file rename mod called "From the clipboard list", so you can bulk-rename a folder of files based on a list of text names in the clipboard.
  • Enhancement: The Work Overview window now shows tooltips for the text under the window thumbnails, so you can hover the mouse over them to see their full text.
  • Enhancement: The "Action: Repeat next step" and "Action: Repeat this block" automation steps now support a value of "forever" to repeat them indefinitely until you manually stop their action.
  • Enhancement: The "Always on top" option for the Power menu and "Window: Always on top" automated action step will now keep that window on top of the taskbar as well (even when you click the taskbar), but only while AlomWare Toolbox is running. Note that this won't stay on top of AlomWare Toolbox's "Work Overview" window or AlomWare Toolbox's Dock, as these are meant to always be visible when in use.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 2.02.00 (Mar 29, 2024)

  • Maintenance: Internal bug fixes and code optimisations. Updated the "Toolbox.sys" support file. Updates to the instruction manual.
  • Startup change: Due to Windows security issues, it wasn't possible to run the app with admin rights if "Windows Script Host" wasn't enabled (or even installed) on your PC, which led to a system prompt asking how to open ".VBS" files. Instead of forcing you to enable or install "Windows Script Host" (which requires modifying your PC and is thus contrary to AlomWare Toolbox being portable), we've done away with that approach and the app now comes with two new batch files: "Toolbox Standard.bat" and "Toolbox Admin.bat". You run either of these to start the app now with your desired control level, or just directly run "Toolbox.exe" if you want it as admin. There is an unfortunate brief black pop-up window when these batch files run; this is normal and unavoidable.
  • Bug fix: The internal keyboard hook wasn't exiting correctly, which was affecting keys in other third-party apps.
  • Bug fix: Macro playback with the Ctrl key could sometimes abort by mistake (bug introduced in v2.00.00, but was unreported until today).
  • Change: Aborting macro playback is now done by pressing the Esc key, instead of the Ctrl key. Macros with Esc recorded will still send it. When a macro is aborted, a confirmation message now also pops up.
  • Change: Default automated actions are no longer added when using the app for the first time; the user is offered to have them added instead. Also, hotkeys for these actions are no longer set (you must set them yourself).
  • Change: The "Keyboard: Type keys" step has been renamed to "Keyboard: Type to active window" to better explain where it will type.
  • Change: The "Keyboard: Type to other window" step has been renamed to "Keyboard: Type to selected window" to better explain that you'll get prompted with a window selection for it.
  • Addition: New step called "Keyboard: Type to assigned window", to type pre-defined keystrokes to the assigned window, even if it's minimized or doesn't have the focus; and without leaving the current window that you're using.
  • Major enhancement: The app now uses the logged-in user's profile folders. This means if you run the app with admin rights from a non-admin account, then an action that saves a file to the desktop will actually use the desktop of the logged-in user instead of the admin account. (In older versions of the app, doing this would make the file not be seen on your desktop until you logged into the admin account).
  • Enhancement: If two or more actions with the same clipboard trigger or typing trigger exist, then the duplicates are now shown in red in the Action list to highlight this for you, and the "Trigger" column title will show the number of clashes. However, different text cases are permitted (so "abc" and "ABC" are considered to be different triggers).
  • Enhancement: Icons in the screenshot list now reflect the type of screenshot taken. For example, a screenshot of a folder will show a folder icon, and a web page screenshot will have a globe icon, etc. This makes finding your screenshots easier when scrolling through the list. Note that the icons shown are generated on-the-fly from the screenshot's description, so occasionally they might not be accurate.
  • Enhancement: Screenshots taken when folders have the focus will now have the screenshot name prefixed with "Folder", for easy filtering in the screenshot list.
  • Enhancement: Launching apps with the "Computer: App launch" automated action step now accepts command-line parameters.
  • Enhancement: Macro playback now shows an animated icon in the system tray for the app, with a flashing green "play" triangle; so you know not to use your PC until the animation stops when the macro playback ends.
  • Enhancement: All functions that execute a DOS command have been rewritten from scratch to more cleanly handle different command scenarios (environment variables like %TEMP% now get fully expanded, etc).
  • Enhancement: PC state captures should now relaunch all system tray apps correctly that didn't have an open window at the time of capture.
  • Enhancement: The option to right-click a macro action step to convert its speed now allows setting it to 0 milliseconds (the previous lower limit was 1 millisecond).
  • Enhancement: The "Image: Save as" step now supports saving the assigned image as a PDF document. Previously it only supported saving as a PNG image.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 2.01.01 (Mar 12, 2024)

  • Quick bug fix: We changed the compiler used for the app which broke macro recording in the last version. Now fixed. Sorry! :(
  • Bug fix: When multiple reminders are missed, you were previously only warned about the first missed one. Now all are alerted.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 2.01.00 (Mar 10, 2024)

  • Security fix: All system DLLs used by the app are now force-loaded from the "C:WindowsSystem32" folder to prevent DLL hijacking.
  • Bug fix: Opening the Power menu would sometimes totally crash the app under certain conditions, due to a shared memory bug that went undetected.
  • Bug fix: For the keyboard PC tweak for "auto-closing of pairs" of brackets, etc; which wasn't working with some laptop keyboards and OS languages.
  • Bug fix: The opening window state feature, and scheduled task reminders, weren't running some DOS commands (such as those starting with "shell:::").
  • Bug fix: When quitting the app, some system item transparency tweaks weren't restoring properly due to being overlooked.
  • Addition: New productivity item in the "Calendar" tab's date list called "End of workday", to show a countdown till the end of your workday (user-definable) or any other daily time.
  • Maintenance: Internal bug fixes and code optimisations. Updated the "Toolbox.sys" support file. Updates to the instruction manual in the "Troubleshooting" section.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 2.00.04 (Feb 25, 2024)

  • Bug fix: For the Power menu's "Quit forcibly" menu options.
  • Bug fix: The PC tweak to hide the volume HUD now works on Windows 11.
  • Bug fix: Transparency for the Windows 11 "Notification center" now works.
  • Addition: New PC tweak to enable transparency for the Windows 11 "Quick Settings" panel.
  • Addition: New step called "Mouse: Lock to assigned window", which locks the mouse to the assigned window. Use the "Mouse: Unlock" step to release it, or close the window to release it.
  • Addition: New default action called "WindowsLock mouse to current window", which locks the mouse the current window while a hotkey is held down. Useful for being able to easily move the mouse to any window edge without flying past it.
  • Powerful addition: New PC tweak called "Create gray notification ghosts (click them to dismiss)", which means you'll never miss an app notification again due to a ghosted copy staying on-screen until you actually click it to dismiss. Please note that this feature won't work for system notifications; and admin notifications will require AlomWare Toolbox to be running as admin as well.
  • Maintenance release: Internal bug fixes and code optimisations. Updated the "Toolbox.sys" support file. Updates to the instruction manual with a new "Troubleshooting" section.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 2.00.03 (Feb 18, 2024)

  • Bug fix: Sometimes the app would silently quit after running for a while. This has now been fixed and was due to an incorrect quit signal that could mistakenly get triggered.
  • Bug fix: Right-clicking the "Computer: App launch" step has an option to open the app's location in its folder, but this wasn't previously working if the step's prefix was + ? # etc.
  • Bug fix: Right-clicking the "Computer: App launch" step has an option to run the selected app, but this wasn't previously working if the step's prefix was + ? # etc. It now runs the app without any prefixes (use "Run selected step" to include them).
  • Change: All references to "toast notifications" have been changed to "app notifications" now, due to Microsoft altering that term (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/design/shell/tiles-and-notifications/adaptive-interactive-toasts?tabs=appsdk).
  • Optimisation: The PC tweak to move toast (app) notifications to a different desktop/monitor position has been optimised to release the CPU (it previously was in a tight CPU loop until the notification was dismissed).
  • Maintenance release: Internal bug fixes and code optimisations. Updated the "Toolbox.sys" support file. Updates to the instruction manual.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 2.00.02 (Feb 11, 2024)

  • Bug fix: The "WebCheck AlomWare Toolbox version" action has been updated because we changed our website (which is where it reads the version). Click the Action Wizard button (wand icon) in the "Automation" tab and select "Re-add default actions" to install it over the broken version. We won't change the website version text anymore! :)
  • Enhancement: The Command Box now supports entering a web URL in it (which must start with "http") to open in the default web browser.
  • Enhancement: The "Computer: Terminate process" step, and all other process-killing functions in the app, no longer let you kill AlomWare Toolbox itself.
  • Maintenance release: Internal bug fixes and code optimisations. Updated the "Toolbox.sys" support file. Updates to the instruction manual.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 2.00.01 (Feb 4, 2024)

  • Bug fixes: For renaming actions, and creating new actions with existing names.
  • Change: This Change Log is now only available online for viewing at: https://www.alomware.com/toolbox-changes.txt
  • Cosmetic bug fix: For setting typed triggers for actions (wouldn't show red for invalid when they should, and vice-versa).
  • Addition: Process killer buttons! Found under the "States" tab, you can set up to 15 buttons with a process name of your choice to kill those processes without reaching for the Task Manager.
  • Enhancement: Added "ApplicationFrameHost.exe" and "RunDLL32.exe" as protected process names that can't be killed with AlomWare Toolbox, as they're essential system processes used by the OS.
  • Enhancement: The "Window: Assign active" step now excludes the desktop and taskbar, as they could end up being moved or made invisible by mistake if an action was accidentally applied to them.
  • Maintenance release: Internal bug fixes and code optimisations. Updated the "Toolbox.sys" support file. Updates to the instruction manual.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 2.00.00 (Jan 17, 2024)

  • HAPPY NEW YEAR! :) This is a massive update with some powerful new features and enhancements. Enjoy!
  • App change: The app ("Toolbox.exe") now reads a separate support file when at startup called "Toolbox.sys", which holds compressed and encrypted data that was previously embedded in "Toolbox.exe". However, this unfortunately meant that "Toolbox.exe" needed regular white-listing with anti-virus vendors with each new update, so moving this data into its own file means "Toolbox.exe" itself doesn't need as many updates in future (we only need to update "Toolbox.sys" instead).
  • Bug fix: For PC state restorations, some Win 10+ app windows wouldn't show themselves when restoring (such as the Clock app). Also, the keystrokes parameter now also works when "Restore layout of listed items" isn't ticked.
  • Bug fix: If the "Computer: Sleep permitted" step was set to "0" to deny sleeping, then the "Computer: Sleep" step would still sleep the PC anyway. Now it won't when "0" is set.
  • Preventative bug fix: The watched items list in the Files tab now has a maximum limit of 9999 rolling items to be shown, in order to prevent the app crashing if watching is never stopped.
  • Major change: Actions that are triggered by typing the action name have changed. The action name can now be anything, but the trigger type is now "Type" with the desired text to type.
  • Change: The "Keyboard: Clear action name" step has been renamed to "Keyboard: Clear trigger typing" per the major change above. Your existing actions will auto-correct to use this new step.
  • Change: The default hotkey for the app is now "Ctrl + ` (Grave)" instead of "Ctrl + ` (Tilde)", because "`" is actually the grave symbol. Can't believe this went unreported for so long! :)
  • Change: The "Computer: Show the ruler" and "Computer: Show work overview for" steps have been renamed to "Toolbox: Show the ruler" and "Toolbox: Show work overview for". Your actions will auto-convert with this version.
  • Change: The "Automation" tab has been moved to near the end of the panel to just before the "Log" tab (which itself is used by automated action steps). Sorry if this breaks your muscle memory. :(
  • Change: All references to "UWPApp:" in your actions and PC states now just use "App:" instead, and your actions and PC states will auto-convert to this when you first run this Toolbox version.
  • Change: When recording a macro, you now press the Ctrl key three times to stop recording, instead of pressing Scroll Lock. This is due to some modern keyboards not having a Scroll Lock key.
  • Change: When playing back a macro, you now hold the Ctrl key down to stop the playback, instead of pressing Scroll Lock. This is due to some modern keyboards not having a Scroll Lock key.
  • Major new addition: Maps! This is like Win+V for the clipboard, but also includes recent apps, docs, and folders. The map list is used to remember where you've been and what you've done on your PC, to provide an easy way to get back to an item again. For example, copying clipboard text will store the text in the map list; and opening an app, doc, or folder will store their locations in the list for easy re-opening again after you've (accidentally?) closed them. For privacy, nothing in the map list is saved anywhere; it's just session-based data. You can stop the map from tracking your activity by clicking the 'Enable tracking' checkbox, and you can clear map items at any time by selecting them (or Ctrl+A for all) and pressing the Delete key. And yes, clipboard text that you've set NOT to be remembered (in Settings) will not be added to the map list. :)
  • Major enhancement: Actions can now be triggered when the clipboard contains partial text that you specify for that action. As an example: when using actions, you can now literally modify clipped text on the fly!
  • Major enhancement: The "Opening Window States" manager has been tweaked in two ways: (1) It now has a neater two-column display for better readability, and (2) It now has a Class Editor so that windows whose class changes with every launch can have the non-changing part of the class text specified, whioch means that the window can now always be matched.
  • Several enhancements to the desktop ruler: The desktop ruler now has larger text and larger pin/close buttons, for easier reading and access on large desktop resolutions. The text also dims when the ruler isn't activated. You can now move the ruler with the Shift+Arrow keys, to move in steps the size of a standard list in Win32 apps. Perfect for jumping from line to line in such a list! You can now also press the Home and End keys on it, to mark the start and end of its vertical position on the desktop, so pressing PageUp or PageDown will move the ruler up or down that distance.
  • Enhancement: New setting to show the time in the corner in either 12-hour (am/pm) or 24-hour format. Also, the default format is now 12-hour (am/pm) due to repeated feedback.
  • Enhancement: Macro recording has been optimized and will convert shifted first letters to capitals (so a macro recorded as "{shiftdown}h{shiftup}ello" becomes "Hello" instead).
  • Enhancement: "Show the desktop ruler" and "Show your work overview" in the "General" menu have been changed to "Toggle the desktop ruler" and "Toggle your work overview".
  • Enhancement: New setting for specifying the number of decimal places that the app uses for the Command Box and in automated action calculations (0-10, default is 2).
  • Enhancement: All the in-app child windows (such as "Settings" and "Window Zone Manager") no longer stay on top of other windows when you switch away from the app.
  • Enhancement: The Alt+LeftMouseButton setting for moving windows by dragging them anywhere now ignores maximized windows, and also checks that the mouse is over the window.
  • Enhancement: Changed the default action called "Computer: Toggle clipboard history" to show a self-closing splash message, instead of a message box to be dismissed.
  • Enhancement: The "Alert: Show a splash message" auto-timeout is now just one second for one line of text (the old default of two felt just a little bit too long).
  • Enhancement: The "Computer: Show work overview for" step now supports "toggle" as a value, to hide or show the work overview window depending on its current state.
  • Enhancement: The "Computer: Wallpaper is" step now supports "image$" as a value, to use the assigned image for the wallpaper.
  • Enhancement: Much improved and far more accurate OCR detection of text in images/screenshots/snips.
  • Enhancement: The step called "Toolbox: Show the tab named" now supports "Map" as a value, to directly open AlomWare Toolbox to the new Map tab.
  • Addition: New default action called "ComputerShow the map list", which opens AlomWare Toolbox's window to the Map tab. The default hotkey for it is Shift+Ctrl+M, but you may have to change this if it's already in use.
  • Addition: New step called "Toolbox: Move the ruler", which moves the desktop ruler # pixels up or down if you specify the value as "-#" or "#"; or with a value of "custom" per what you set with the Home and End keys as mentioned above.
  • Addition: New step called "Window: Assign from under the mouse", which assigns the window that's currently under the mouse to be used by all 'Window' steps.
  • Maintenance release: Internal bug fixes and code optimisations, and updated the "Toolbox.sys" support file to have current data definitions.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 1.05 (Dec 10, 2023)

  • Removed: Due to multiple user feedback, the chime sound that plays whenever most prompts appear has been removed.
  • Removed: PC states no longer support the Internet Explorer browser, as Windows just redirects it to use Edge instead.
  • Bug fix: For the "Image: Show at desktop position" step, which sometimes didn't resize the assigned image correctly.
  • Update: Various additions and edits to the Help manual (which are mirrored to the online version: https://www.alomware.com/manual/index.html).
  • Enhancement: Saving a new PC state now grays the desktop while the scanning takes place, to discourage users from using their PC during the scan.
  • Enhancement: Saving a new PC state on a supported web browser now gets the URL from each open tab, saving you the work of manually adding them later.
  • Enhancement: Restoring PC states that were saved with a supported web browser will now restore them without needing to click a custom HTM file launcher.
  • Enhancement: Editing a PC now lets you put an optional dash (-) at the start of the "Launcher" field, so you can kill that launcher's process before re-launching it.
  • Enhancement: You can now press Ctrl+S while editing a PC state to save its current configuration (no need to click the "Save" button if you prefer the keyboard).
  • Addition: New default action that auto-corrects the incorrect spelling of "alot" to "a lot".
  • Maintenance updates: Several internal bug fixes and code optimisations.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 1.04 (Dec 2, 2023)

  • Quick bug fix: Stopped this Change Log from being shown with each launch. Oops! :(
  • Enhancement: Pressing F1 on the Command Box now has better Help on how to use its commands.
  • Enhancement: Pressing F6 will now toggle between the Command Box and the previously-selected item (instead of always just going directly to the Command Box).
  • Enhancement: The Command Box's information box (to its right) now adds "chars" to the end when showing the number of characters, to avoid confusion when showing a calc result.
  • Enhancement: Re-did the keyword text-expansion code from scratch, to properly detect non-US keyboard layouts such as the United Kingdom, etc.
  • Enhancement: The "Window: Activate" and "Window: Assign and wait to activate" steps now activate the assigned window in a more reliable way.
  • Enhancement: The "Window: Assign active" step will now work with windows that don't have an actual title set at startup (such as "KMPlayer").
  • Enhancement: If a PC state closes all apps and windows, there are now four "close" circles shown at the top-left of its icon, to visually remind you of the closure.
  • Enhancement: If a PC state has no options set, there is now a question mark shown at the top-left of its icon, to visually remind you that it will do nothing.
  • Enhancement: Selecting a PC state now shows what it does (in summary version) in the app's status bar, so you don't need to select "Edit" to see its restore options.
  • Enhancement: The window opening state function now ignores asterisks in the title (such as "*Untitled - Notepad") so the window is always matched despite being edited or not.
  • Enhancement: Holding down the Shift key when selecting "Always on top" from the Power menu on a standard window (not Win 10+ app window) now keeps that window always visible on the desktop as well.
  • Addition: New step called "Toolbox: Enable clipboard history", that lets you enable or disable AlomWare Toolbox from remembering your cut/copied text and images.
  • Addition: New default action called "ComputerClipboard history toggle", which lets you toggle AlomWare Toolbox's clipboard history function on or off.
  • Maintenance updates: Several internal bug fixes and code optimisations.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 1.03 (Nov 19, 2023)

  • Reversion: Reinstated the "Delay is needed" option for opening window states that was removed in v1.02, as it broke the default window opening settings.
  • Change: The Microsoft Office dock default actions have been renamed to remove the "+" at the end, so they don't open with the default Dock anymore.
  • Enhancement: Added "Item (Hex)" and "Item (hWnd)" to the desktop zoom stats list, to see window handle information for the item under the mouse.
  • Maintenance updates: Several internal bug fixes and code optimisations.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 1.02 (Nov 14, 2023)

  • Removed: Due to negative user feedback, the email address in the title bar for paid users is no longer shown.
  • Removed: The Setting to use the app in Classic Windows theme, as it doesn't work anymore with all item types.
  • Bug fix: Some opening window states would not show the keys, DOS command, or action that was saved with them.
  • Update: The "Check AlomWare Toolbox version" default action has been updated (broke when our website changed).
  • Update: Lots of minor cosmetic text changes and app formatting fixes for users with non-standard OS DPI settings.
  • Update: The "Wait: For action hotkey to be released" step now waits for all hotkeys (some were left out by mistake).
  • Update: Due to DPI issues, the ruler now shows the position of the mouse via a tooltip, instead of on the ruler itself.
  • Update: The "Alert: Ask for two texts" step window now uses a larger font, in line with matching the other alert boxes.
  • Update: The clipboard history function has been updated to use more modern Windows API code, in order to be more reliable.
  • Update: Including the mouse pointer in tutorial screenshots will now show it in yellow, to stand out from the grayscale background.
  • Addition: New default actions called "WindowSize decrease by 20%" and "WindowSize increase by 20%", which you can set hotkeys to, for easily changing the size of the current window without using the mouse.
  • Addition: The "Misc -> Desktop zoom" tab now has mouse X/Y offset fields (-99 to 99 for each), so you can zoom under the mouse by those pixel amounts. Handy for items that disappear when the mouse isn't over them (like tooltips).
  • Addition: Window zones! You can now use the Power menu on any window to create a named zone for that window's position and size. You can then move any window into that zone from the Power menu, or use the "Window: Move to desktop position" step to do it.
  • Enhancement: The "Window: Move to desktop position" step now accepts a window zone name to move the assigned window into that zone. You can use this step with either a hotkey, or as part of an action (such as to move a bunch of windows into zones).
  • Enhancement: The "Image: Show at desktop position" step now accepts a window zone name to move the image window into that zone. You can use this step with either a hotkey, or as part of an action (such as to move a bunch of windows into zones).
  • Enhancement: If you don't want a saved window opening state to be applied when such a window is opening, just hold down the Ctrl key when opening that window, and the window state will be ignored for that launch.
  • Enhancement: The "Opening state" prompt for saving or editing your window opening positions now uses a larger font; plus the "Delay is needed" option is now obsolete as the app takes slower apps into account.
  • Enhancement: The Desktop Zoom tab now shows the value of the selected stat item in the window's status bar in real-time, so you can see longer text in their entirety and not be hidden by the stats column width.
  • Enhancement: When holding down the Ctrl key and clicking the app's system tray icon, the window is shown centered on the desktop (as before), but now also resizes itself to its default layout size. Also, the on-top status of the window won't be saved when using this option as it causes confusion at the next launch. The on-top state is now only saved when the user specifically clicks the "pin" button at the top-right of the window.
  • Maintenance updates: Several miscellaneous internal bug fixes and code optimisations, and some minor instruction manual updates.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 1.01 (Nov 3, 2023)

  • Due to the v1.00 release, we've had some fresh new feedback and bug reports from users who weren't using the Beta versions. Thankfully, they weren't show-stopper bugs! They are as follows:
  • Change: The "Properties windows should always open centered" setting is now disabled by default, as it might cause issues on multi-monitor settings when the "Use only the main monitor for window/notification positions" setting is disabled.
  • Change: The "Use only the main monitor for window/notification positions" setting is now enabled by default, so as not to cause concern for users with multiple monitors. Such users can always disable this and test the results with their particular monitor layouts.
  • Bug fix: The Productivity Score window had incorrect formatting, and now shows all items correctly. This was due to whether the setting for the normal or larger font for the app was enabled.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 1.00 (Nov 1, 2023)

  • GOLD RELEASE! Due to the final bugs below being ironed out, we are proud to declare v1.00 as officially released. :) Thank you for using AlomWare Toolbox!
  • LICENSE CHANGES: The license system has changed starting with this version in two ways: (1) The app is now licensed solely for private home use only, with any other use requiring a different license and payment (contact us for details). (2) Licenses are now based on your PayPal email address and PayPal account details that you used to pay for an unlock code. This means you can now enjoy the app on any PC that you personally own, and you won't need to deal with hardware PC IDs anymore. Sharing your unlock code with others is against the terms in the End-User License Agreement and doing so will cause it to be immediately and permanently banned in future versions of the app, along with legal action being taken for piracy. Thank you for respecting our hard work and playing fair.
  • Change: Due to the license changes above, the "Toolbox Licenses" folder in AlomWare Toolbox's folder can now be deleted if you're not using older versions of the app.
  • Change: Per multiple user feedback, the default setting for rolling up a window to its title bar is now to make the rolled title be the same width as the rolled window.
  • Change: Per multiple user feedback, the "Log: Add text" step will no longer show the action name in a box first, and neither show a confirmation "End" message in a box.
  • Bug fix: Including the mouse pointer in tutorial screenshots will now always show the arrow pointer (instead of sometimes incorrectly as the busy pointer).
  • Bug fix: The unique ID for the window being referenced in the "Desktop zoom" list is now correct (it shows the main window and not its hovered child elements).
  • Bug fix: If auto-typing fails after heavy CPU use (due to the OS disabling it), then hiding or showing Toolbox's window will now reset it to start working again.
  • Bug fix: Holding down the Ctrl key when rolling down a rolled-up window (to close it) will no longer briefly flash the rolled window back into view.
  • Bug fix: When loading file search settings that relate to dates, the date was shown in the selector but not used internally, leading to incorrect date searches.
  • Bug fix: File searching by size is now correct when "#kb", "#mb", "#gb" or "#tb" is specified. (Specifying an exact byte size was always correct).
  • Enhancement: File searches have been optimized in a few areas so that matching results appear faster than in previous versions.
  • Enhancement: File searches now have "before" and "after" date selections, so you can find files before or after a specified date.
  • Enhancement: Rolling a window up to its title bar now takes invisible borders into account, so the rolled title bar edges match the real rolled window's edges.
  • Enhancement: Making a tutorial screenshot image now has a 5-pixel gap between each tutorial panel for better legibility; and the blur behind each panel's text is a bit larger.
  • Enhancement: There is now a Setting to use a slightly bigger font size for the app. Further, all input prompts (like when being asked for a list filter) will now use this bigger font as standard.
  • Enhancement: Status bar info messages (where "Ready" is normally seen) now has tooltips for the text, so you can hover over it to see long messages that might not be fully visible in the status bar.
  • Enhancement: New setting where the app's dialog boxes that ask for text can now either select all existing by default, or jump to the end of the text by default.
  • Enhancement: Entering commands in the Log tab can now be done anywhere in the log box, instead of only on the last line of it. Results go to the end of the log, though.
  • Enhancement: Pressing F11 on the app's main window will now toggle maximized mode (like full-screen) for it.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.999g Beta (Oct 8, 2023)

  • Bug fix: The "Keyboard: Re-type the last typed line" step is now working again after being accidentally broken in the last beta. Sorry! :(
  • Bug fix: The "Computer: Show only windows with" step no longer minimizes the Work Overview window, thumbnailed windows, or rolled-up windows.
  • Bug fix: When restoring a PC state with just "Restore layouts of listed items" set, it didn't work unless "Relaunch listed items" was also set. Now it works without relaunching them (and assuming they're already launched).
  • Bug fix: Scrolling the font preview with the mouse wheel now works correctly when Toolbox doesn't have the focus; and the right-click menu for it now has "Reset to default text/size" always enabled.
  • Change: When using the clean slate or PC state restoration functions, any open Toolbox windows will no longer close as part of those functions (they are exempt).
  • Change: Renamed the step "Computer: Show windows with" to "Computer: Show only windows with", to more accurately describe what it does.
  • Change: The Power menu option for hiding/showing a window's taskbar button is now disabled for Win 10+ app windows, as their buttons cannot be removed.
  • Change: Added a note to the "Window: Border" and "Window: Taskbar button" steps that explain they only work with Win32 exe windows, and not Win 10+ app windows.
  • Enhancement: The color scheme used by the app is now saved in its own settings file ("Toolbox Colors.ini") for easy sharing with others without sharing your other app settings.
  • Enhancement: The Power menu's "Properties" sub-menu and the "Desktop zoom" list now shows the unique ID for the window being referenced, for use with automated actions.
  • Enhancement: The file rename mod list has "Numbered" changed to "Numbered up from #", to specify a starting number for numerical names that increase in value.
  • Enhancement: The file rename mod list has a new mod called "Numbered down from #", to specify a starting number for numerical names that decrease in value.
  • Enhancement: New Power menu option for opening window states: "Don't activate (give focus to the desktop)", so you can set an opening window to not take the focus.
  • Enhancement: Pressing F1 on the file rename mod list now shows more help about how you can specify "old$", "clip$", "date$", and "time$" for the script items.
  • Addition: New PC tweak called "Center mouse on new window when Alt+Tab is released" so that the mouse follows you to the new window that gets activated.
  • Privacy addition: New setting as to whether the last-used folder on your PC is remembered (for re-opening with the "Folder: Re-open last used" step).

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.999f Beta (Sep 30, 2023)

  • Change: Due to being a portable app, the "Run at startup/login" setting is no longer automatically set to "Limited" by default; the user must now manually choose to set an auto-start type. This is so users who delete the app won't have a residual shortcut to it in the Windows OS "Startup" folder.
  • Change: Swapped all "Hotkey" references to "Trigger" instead, as actions can be triggered by their names and not just hotkeys. This also allows additional trigger types to be considered in future.
  • Change: The app's dialog boxes that ask for input will no longer auto-select all the default text, to reduce the risk of data loss if a user starts typing over the text.
  • Bug fix: Fixed a scaling issue when the Windows OS DPI was set to a non-standard value (such as 140% DPI), which resulted in cropped text in the initial startup box.
  • Bug fix: When using the Power menu on a folder, the menu would open slowly if the clipboard had large text in it.
  • Bug fix: The "Opening Window States" window no longer incorrectly shows two closing brackets in its list; and it's height now matches the main window height so you can see more items in the list.
  • Bug fix: The Power menu items for folders called "New folder -> From a plain text file list of names" and "New folder -> From the clipboard" will now only use a maximum of 100 characters for each new folder name.
  • Bug fix: When action steps are in the clipboard and you select the "New action -> Blank" menu item, the new action no longer has the copied action in it (it now starts blank as expected).
  • Enhancement: Reworked the auto-typing and auto-expanding code, so that you can trigger actions with more text characters instead of mainly letters and numbers.
  • Privacy addition: For better privacy, you can now specify full or partial names of apps where cutting or copying text in them are NOT saved to Toolbox's history list (such as when copying passwords from password apps).

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.999e Beta (Sep 15, 2023)

  • Bug fix: For typing repeated keys with the "Keyboard" and "Macro" steps.
  • Bug fix: Typewriter keyboard sounds, when enabled in Settings, weren't playing for the numpad keys.
  • Bug fix: The "Work Overview" window now detects more specific window types that weren't being detected before.
  • Bug fix: Pressing the Delete key when the screenshot list is NOT selected in that tab, no longer shows a warning prompt about deletion.
  • Bug fix: For the "Window: Restore size from max/min" step, so that borders of specific window styles don't appear corrupt after restoring.
  • New typing tweak option in Settings called "Auto-close pairs when typing these keys", which relates to: " ( { [ For example, if you type ( then () will appear so you don't need to type the closing bracket as well.
  • New step: "Computer: Show windows with", which minimizes all open windows and then shows only the windows with the specified text or app name, making it a handy way to switch between groups of like windows. Apps need to end with ".exe" when being specified. For example, specifying "winword.exe" will minimize everything except Word documents, and specifying "- Notepad" will minimize everything except Notepad windows. Specify "explorer.exe" to show only folders.
  • New default actions: "ComputerShow only Notepad windows" and "ComputerShow only Word documents" to demonstrate the new step above. You may need to click the Action Wizard button (wand icon) in the Automation tab to add these new default actions.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.999d Beta (Aug 27, 2023)

  • Update: The Help manual has been updated with some further information, but is still nowhere near complete.
  • Bug fix: For the "String: Assign from date" step, and now allows 0 to be specified for today.
  • Bug fix: For the "Window: Close" step.
  • Change: The "Window: Add border" step has been renamed to "Window: Border", and is now used with Win32 exe windows (not Win10+ app windows) to add, remove, or toggle the border of the assigned window.
  • Change with enhancement: Saving a window state, and using the "Opening windows states" list, now has the app/exe name of saved windows shown for better identification of each window in the list. Unfortunately, this means all your old saved window states (but not PC states) won't work anymore, so you'll need to re-create and re-save them. We apologize for this inconvenience.
  • New step: "String: Assign from clipboard history", which assigns the string from the text found in AlomWare Toolbox's clipboard history (in the Clipboard tab). Specify the history index number from 0 to 99; with 0 being the top session item, 1 being the most recent cut or copied text, 2 being the second most recent cut or copied text, etc.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.999c Beta (Aug 18, 2023)

  • Bug fix: The app would crash (but auto-restart itself) whenever "explorer.exe" in Windows crashed. This was due to some buggy system tray icon code that v0.997 introduced, which has now been reverted back to the working v0.996 code.
  • Bug fix: When restoring a PC state from the app's system tray icon and Toolbox's window wasn't shown, the window doesn't accidentally show after restoration.
  • Bug fix: Macro recording now includes mouse wheel movements again, and is less prone to miss keystrokes and mouse clicks due to newer and tighter code.
  • Bug fix: Clicking the title/executable name of a thumbnail in the "Work Overview" window now toggles between those text types again.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.999b Beta (Jul 24, 2023)

  • Bug fix: For clicking list headers when filtering (got broken in the last update, sorry!).

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.999a Beta (Jul 22, 2023)

  • Bug fix: For setting a saved window back to open how the OS determines.
  • Bug fix: Syntax coloring in action step descriptions is now present again.
  • Bug fix: The dock now shows correctly with multiple monitors due to supporting the "Use only the main monitor" setting in the app.
  • Bug fix: The "WindowSave to desktop as an image" default action had a renamed step that was overlooked, and is now corrected.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.999 Beta (Jun 25, 2023)

  • Change: Removed the default hotkeys for all default "Window" actions (except for "Show the Power menu") as they were clashing with default hotkeys used by other apps. The onus is now on the user to specify the hotkeys that they wish to use.
  • Bug fix: For saved window states where folders are the target executable.
  • Bug fix: For the "String: Get middle of" step, which could miss some text in complex strings.
  • Enhancement: For the "Folder: Sort files into sub-folders by" step, and also for the "PC Tweaks -> Sort desktop files" menu item. Files that have sub-folder names ending in "_files" will no longer be moved, as these are usually file and folder pairs that must always remain together. Now only single standalone files will be sorted/moved.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.998 Beta (Jun 11, 2023)

  • Bug fix:
  • Some internal code that needed extra checks. Nothing damaging; just some better error-checking.
  • Reversion:
  • Due to negative feedback, the system tray icon now shows all the time again. Just remember that it won't respond while the app has a open dialog/message/window waiting for your input.
  • Enhancement:
  • When filtering the clipboard, notes, and screenshots lists and only one match is found, that item is now auto-selected for immediate viewing.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.997 Beta (May 28, 2023)

  • Change: The app's system tray icon is now only shown when the app's main window is hidden. You can still press the app's main hotkey to show the window at any time.
  • Bug fix: The Power menu with a middle-mouse click now works with different size window icons; and also now works with a triple-tap acting as the middle mouse button on PCs with a touchpad.
  • Bug fix: The app no longer shows "ghosted" windows on the desktop when Taskbar transparency is enabled in the app.
  • Preventative fix: The default action called "Window: Show the Power menu" no longer shows an error if a window isn't active.
  • Enhancement: Right-clicking an action step item that has a file for its value (such as "c:windowssystem32notepad.exe") now has a menu option to open the file's folder and select the file.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.996 Beta (May 13, 2023)

  • Bug fix: When using AlomWare Toolbox for the first time on PCs with multiple monitors, the app's window could appear off-screen (and thus be unreachable). It now opens correctly on the center of the main monitor.
  • Preventative fix: The app now saves its Settings when the PC is logging off or shutting down (in case the Settings window was still open at the time and thus hadn't saved any changes).
  • Enhancement: Bulk file renaming now lets you specify these variables as part of the new name: "old$" which inserts the old file name at that text, "date$" which inserts today's date as "yyyy-mm-dd" at that text, and "time$" which inserts the current time as "hh-mm-ss" at that text.
  • New step: "Window: Use main monitor", for when using the "Window: Move to desktop position" and "Window: Resize to" steps. It makes the assigned window use only the main monitor (or not) on PCs with multiple monitors.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.995a Beta (May 7, 2023)

  • Bug fix: The Power menu item for creating new folders with free text now works correctly again.
  • Bug fix: The "Log: Add text" step sometimes didn't put the action name inside its title box correctly.
  • Bug fix: The "String: Assign from file [...]" steps will no longer show an error if the string is blank.
  • Bug fix: Opening websites with the "Visit website" menu option for actions now works with all sites (doesn't make the URL lower-case anymore).
  • Cosmetic fix: The "Alert: Ask for two texts" step now shows a text icon instead of search icon in its window.
  • Enhancement: The "Folder: Create" step now creates nested folders if assigned that way (such as "parentchildgrandchild").
  • Enhancement: The Power menu for new folder creation now lets you create multiple new folders from lines of text in the clipboard, and also from lines of text in a file that you select.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.995b Beta (May 4, 2023)

  • Change: New versions of the "Files\Bulk rename files in this folder" and "Files\Bulk replace text in text files" default actions, to cater for the new "Alert: Ask for two texts" step mentioned below.
  • Bug fix: Right-clicking a clipboard text item and selecting "Action" wasn't always copying the selected text to the clipboard (resulting in the wrong text being actioned).
  • Bug fix: Double-clicking an action that needs a hotkey to run when a hotkey was already set for it, will no longer prompt you for a hotkey after showing its error message.
  • Bug fix: When the user had two or more text prompts open in the app (or from an action), the text entered wasn't separate for each prompt, leading to the wrong data being used and/or the app crashing.
  • Cosmetic fixes, corrections, and clarifications: For many text items in the app, such as action step descriptions and app messages.
  • Powerful addition: New PC tweak called "Drag windows when holding down Alt + Left Mouse button", which is something Linux users have enjoyed for years. Now do it on Windows with AlomWare Toolbox!
  • Powerful addition: New PC tweak called "Sort desktop files", which moves all desktop files (not folders) into their own sub-folders by file type. For example, all desktop JPG and PNG images will go into a new desktop folder called 'Toolbox Sorted Files\Images', and then further into their own 'JPG' and 'PNG' sub-folders. De-clutter and sort your desktop with just a couple of mouse clicks!
  • Protection addition: Added some more checks to assigned folders so you can't accidentally delete or modify system folders with your automated actions. Note that it's not possible to catch all system folders, though, so please ensure you only work with non-system folders when assigning them. System folders as defined by AlomWare Toolbox are the following (and their sub-folders): "C:\", "C:\Boot", "C:\ProgramData", "C:\Program Files", "C:\Program Files (x86)", "C:\Users", and "C:\Windows".
  • Enhancement: The "Keyboard: Type to other window" step will now auto-select the other window when it's the only valid window to type to.
  • New default action in the "Clipboard" group called "Clipboard: Speak the text", so you can listen to the clipboard text being spoken.
  • New action: "Folder: Sort files into sub-folders by", which works the same as the new PC tweak mentioned above, but for whichever assigned folder you specify. This step supports two values: "ext" or "group", so you can sort the moved files by group as explained above, or just into their own extension folders alone.
  • New step: "Alert: Ask for two texts", so the user can enter two separate lines or blocks of text to be used with an action, such as old/new data to be used for text replacement in strings, or to rename files with old/new names, etc. This removes the current hack method of needing to use the "String: Get left and right of" step to separate a single line of text into two parts.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.994b Beta (Apr 25, 2023)

  • Bug fix: The app was accidentally preventing the PC going to sleep when the OS was set to do so.
  • Enhancement: The "Window: Save image as" step now appends ".png" to the filename if omitted.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.994a Beta (Apr 19, 2023)

  • Quick bug fix for yesterday's release: When using the app for the first time and adding a new step to a new action, the step chooser splitter was at the top of the window instead of the middle.
  • Addition: Put in a new blank default action so you can quickly create a new action when using the app for the first time.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.994 Beta (Apr 19, 2023)

  • Change: The "Window: Save image to" step has been renamed to "Window: Save image as" for consistency.
  • Bug fix: The "String: Line into art" step with the "scroll" value no longer has spaces at the end of some lines.
  • Bug fix: For "String: Save as ID" being limited to single lines. Now it accepts multi-line strings as was meant to be.
  • Bug fix: For "String: Swap variables" being limited to single lines. Now it accepts multi-line strings as was meant to be.
  • Preventative fix: The "Window: Close forcibly" step will no longer permit AlomWare Toolbox itself to be closed forcibly.
  • Workaround: The "String: Assign" steps now work correctly with Microsoft Edge window titles when assigning. This was not technically a bug because Edge composes its titles in an unorthodox way.
  • Powerful addition: Taking screenshots now saves OCR text from them, so you can filter/search screenshots by the text they contain. The OCR text depends on how well Windows (the OS) gets the information. To filter such screenshots by OCR text, click the list header and specify the filter in this format: "ocr=text".
  • Powerful addition: When right-clicking an old screenshot and selecting "Copy text", the OCR'ed text is now also added to the screenshot's data so that it can be searched with the new "ocr=" filter option mentioned above.
  • Addition: New Setting to specify process names that are to be killed whenever PrintScreen is pressed to take a screenshot. The default is "screenwings.exe", which is an app that prevents screenshots being taken on your PC. AlomWare Toolbox can now kill that app before taking a screenshot. Note that AlomWare Toolbox may need to be run as admin for killing some processes.
  • Addition: New step called "String: Assign URL from active browser", which uses internal keystroke automation to get the URL from the address bar of a supported web browser that is active. Supported web browsers are: Brave, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera.
  • Enhancement: The "Computer: Save screenshot as" and "Window: Save image as" steps now use the process-killing feature mentioned above, so anti-screenshot apps like "ScreenWings" can't stop a screenshot being taken.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.993 Beta (Apr 10, 2023)

  • Bug fix: The "Action: Abort if not from hotkey" step now works if an action is double-clicked in the action list, and also when Enter is pressed on an action in the action list.
  • Bug fix: The "String: Assign from file image" step didn't update the string's variables after OCR'ing the image.
  • Change: The "Toolbox: Hide its window" step has been renamed to "Toolbox: Visible", and now supports "0" for no, "1" for yes, and "toggle".
  • Powerful addition: New step called "String: Assign from desktop text", which uses Windows OCR technology to grab all text on the desktop and assign it to the string. You could then test that string to see if it contains text of interest to you, and then do something based on whether such text was found. See the new default action called "ComputerIs Notepad's title visible" for an example.
  • Addition: New step variable called "space$", which is just a space character as a word, as an option for better readability in your actions when needed.
  • Addition: New step called "Computer: Delete desktop icons layout", which deletes the desktop icons layout that was previously saved with the 'Computer: Save desktop icons as' step. This step does NOT delete any actual icons from your desktop.
  • Addition: New step called "String: Remove repeats", so you can remove repeated text in the assigned string; such as to remove double spaces in text, or remove multiple slashes in file and folder names, etc.
  • Addition: New step called "Wait: For desktop text to appear", so the action pauses until the specified text is found anywhere on the desktop.
  • Enhancement: The assigned "File" and "Folder" steps now auto-remove multiple slashes in the path (so "C:\Hi\\There" becomes "C:HiThere", etc).
  • Enhancement: Modified the OCR code so that small images now get recognized properly and don't show an error about no OCR text found. Of course, if no text can actually be found then you'll still get the error. :)
  • Enhancement: Right-clicking an image in the Screenshot list now has a "Properties" menu item at the bottom, which shows the size, width, height, orientation, and aspect ratio of the screenshot.
  • Enhancement: Scheduled tasks/reminders now let you specify a message to be verbally spoken by your PC, such as "Hey dude, it's time to take a screen break!".
  • Enhancement: You can now right-click an action and select "Enable" to enable or disable it, without having to do it with a rename. (The rename option is still there).

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.992 Beta (Apr 1, 2023)

  • Bug fix: The action "Debugger" window now remembers which item is selected in each of its tabs, so switching tabs doesn't mistakenly show the previous item text from a previous tab.
  • Bug fix: For the "String: Get middle of" step.
  • Powerful addition: You can now hold down the Ctrl key when clicking AlomWare Toolbox's system tray icon, and this shows it after centering it on the desktop and putting it on top of all other windows. Handy for emergencies when your PC gets out of control and you need guaranteed access to AlomWare Toolbox to fix things.
  • Powerful addition: New step called "Computer: Say", which lets your PC speak the text you specify (up to 700 words at a time). This means you can now make actions to actually say things to you, such as alerts, reminders, etc. Only the system default voice is used and can't be changed at this time. This step may require Microsoft Speech SDK 5.1 to be installed (it normally is by default on Windows 7 and later), so if speech isn't happening then you'll need to install the SDK from: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=10121
  • Addition: New default action: "ComputerSay the current time" to demonstrate the new speech ability of AlomWare Toolbox.
  • Addition: New default action: "WebCheck AlomWare Toolbox version" to demonstrate how to get the text of a website and parse it.
  • Addition: Two new Power menu options for actions to take when a window closes. The first is to make your PC speak a message when it closes, and the second is to add a message in the Log tab when it closes.
  • Enhancement: The "Alert: Show [...] message" steps are now shown on top so they always appear in front of the current window, and thus not be missed. You don't have to acknowledge them immediately (they're not modal) and won't stop you continuing to work in your current window.
  • Enhancement: The "File: Assign" step now lets you specify "target", so that an assigned file of shortcut type (".lnk" file) will be reassigned as the shortcut's actual target file instead.
  • Enhancement: The "Window: Resize to" step now lets you specify a percentage to resize to (has to be 1% or more). Anything under 100% will reduce it, and anything over 100% will increase it. For example, specify 50% to reduce the window size by half, or 200% to increase it by double.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.991 Beta (Mar 23, 2023)

  • Changed: For the "Action: [...] if" steps, when testing with a keypress you must now put literal keys in braces (like you would for special keys like Ctrl). So to test for an A keypress you specify {A} instead of A.
  • Changed: The "Clipboard: Assign from screenshot" step has been removed. Use "Image: Assign" with "screenshot" as the value, and then "Image: Copy to clipboard" instead. This has the added benefit of using the other "Image" steps before copying it to the clipboard, such as resizing it first.
  • Changed: The "Image: Assign" step now uses "clip" and "window" instead of "clip$" and "window$" (the "$" incorrectly referred to text and not an image); and now also lets you specify "screenshot" to assign an image of your desktop.
  • Bug fix: The app now properly redraws itself after a window snap move (Win+Left and Win+Right hotkeys).
  • Bug fix: The Power menu was failing on borderless windows when middle-clicking their icon area.
  • Bug fix: Incorrect parsing of the "Action: [...] if" steps so they now recognise string$ and other variables in all situations.
  • Bug fix: Renaming an action now shows the new name in the Status Bar (instead of the old name continuing to be seen there).
  • Added: New default action: "ComputerIs Notepad running", to show how to check if a process is running.
  • Added: New default action: "ComputerRestore desktop icons after game", to show how to save your desktop icons layout before running a game and then restore the layout after the game quits.
  • Added: New default action: "FilesBulk replace text in text files", where you can replace old text with new text in a folder of plain text files. For use with a hotkey when a folder is active.
  • Added: New step called "Alert: Set the default text to", which sets the default text shown for the 'Alert: Ask for a block | line of text' and 'Alert: Ask for a password' steps. If this step has been used before in the same action and you now want it to be blank, then specify blank$ to clear it.
  • Added: New step called "Alert: Show an error message", which displays the specified text with an error icon in the message box.
  • Added: New step called "Keyboard: Type keys", which is just as a fallback for newbies to find easily. The superior and preferred way to type keys is with the existing "Macro: Type keys or use mouse" step.
  • Added: New step called "String: Assign from assigned image", to get the text (if any) found in the assigned image; using Windows 10 (and later) OCR technology.
  • Enhancement: Added error-checking to the "Files: Bulk rename files in this folder" default action.
  • Enhancement: Favoriting a tab (either in the Settings or by right-clicking it) now shows a heart icon on the tab.
  • Enhancement: Modified the "Show 1 USD to AUD" action to use the Australian Reserve Bank's RSS feed, to provide better reliability (don't need to worry that a commercial website will change its data format). You'll need to restore the default actions from the Action Wizard to get this new version.
  • Enhancement: Right-clicking the clipboard images box now lets you toggle the sorting by date or name. The default is also now by date, so the most recent copied images appear first in the box.
  • Enhancement: Right-clicking an action's step value now has menu options to run/open/visit the value if it's an app/exe, document, folder, or website.
  • Enhancement: The "Image: Resize to" step now lets you specify a percentage to resize to (has to be 1% or more). Anything under 100% will reduce it, and anything over 100% will increase it. For example, specify 50% to reduce the image by half, or 200% to increase it by double.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.990 Beta (Mar 18, 2023)

  • Bug fix: For auto-completion of text typing with some keyboard keys.
  • Bug fix: Choosing a custom toast notification in Settings would get the prompt stuck behind the Settings window.
  • Bug fix: "Properties" windows opened from a Toolbox search result will now be centered if that option is ticked in Settings.
  • Bug fix: Renaming a screenshot would accidentally show the image filename when a website URL was meant to be shown instead.
  • Bug fix: Toggling a new scheduled task between time/date and duration could sometimes show incorrect duration/repeat fields.
  • Change: Renamed the automation action step "Wait: For the mouse to move to" to "Wait: For the mouse to be", so you can now specify either: an exact X/Y position, "clicked", "leftclicked", "middleclicked", "rightclicked", "moved", "above Y", "below Y", "before X", and "after X".
  • Enhancement: The Power menu for a document now shows the document name (with folder) under "Properties".
  • Enhancement: Added more info under the mouse when desktop zooming: the item's X position, Y position, width, and height; and the window's X position, Y position, width, and height.
  • New automated action step: "Computer: Show the Task View", for Windows 10 or later. Shows the Task View screen that you get when pressing the Win+Tab hotkey.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.983 Beta (Mar 13, 2023)

  • Change: Free mode has changed from five repeatable hours per session to until midnight on the day of each session. Just re-enter the free unlock code every day to use it free all day again.
  • Change: Per user feedback, the "PC Overview" feature has been renamed to "Work Overview" to better reflect what it does (as opposed to being an overview of your PC itself, such as its hardware). Any settings you changed for this feature will need to be redone (sorry).
  • Preventative fix: Action hotkeys using Shift with Numpad numbers on the numeric keypad are no longer permitted, due to a Windows limitation (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040906-00/?p=37953).
  • Bug fix: The Settings window would cover some prompts when they appeared.
  • Bug fix: Renaming a screenshot now correctly shows the new name above the screenshot.
  • Bug fix: The "Window: Resize to" automated action step now works correctly with multi-monitor displays.
  • Bug fix: Using the "/old" filter on clips and shots now correctly uses the modified date, rather than the created date.
  • Bug fix: PC state restoring now works with partial window titles again (was a regression in a previous version).
  • Bug fix: For PC states where a missing file could cause the restoration to go into an infinite wait loop. The app now does a pre-check of a state's files and won't try to restore it if an app or document is missing.
  • Addition: When resizing Toolbox's main window, it now purposely doesn't update all items in real-time until the mouse is released. This was needed due to feedback from users on lower-end PCs, and makes resizing a lot smoother/fluid as a result.
  • Enhancement: You can now manually add extra apps and folders to a saved PC state that didn't get included when the snapshot was done.
  • Enhancement: Apps that are minimized to the system tray (such as "qBitTorrent.exe" or "Winamp.exe") are now included in PC state snapshots.
  • Enhancement: The "File: Add text to end" step now supports the option of prefixing the text with a plus (+) so that the text is literally added to the file's end, instead of being added on its own new line.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.982 Beta (Jan 26, 2023)

  • Bug fix: Some apps were not included in PC state saves due to their child windows not being detected.
  • Bug fixes for rolled-up windows: (1) The roll-down button could sometimes get covered when the window didn't have the focus, and (2) These windows are no longer included in the PC overview (no point).
  • PC overview updates: Minimized windows will now have their title in italics in the overview (not prefixed with "Min" anymore); and the selected window will be in bold title text in the overview. Some windows would also actually hide themselves when their minimize button was clicked, instead of actually minimizing; so the PC overview now takes this unorthodox behavior into account and not include them.
  • Addition: New default automated action in the "Clipboard" group to make multi-line text in the clipboard become a single line.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.981 Beta (Jan 15, 2023)

  • Bug fixes for the "PC Overview" window: (1) It would incorrectly horizontally stretch the thumbnails of each window too wide when more than one monitor is in use; (2) It would sometimes incorrectly assess a normal window as being a child window, and therefore not show it unless the Setting to show child windows in the overview was enabled; (3) It would "flash" (update itself) when the user moved it by dragging its title bar, when it really shouldn't actually do so.
  • Bug fix for the window roll-up feature: Icons that are larger than 16x16 pixels (such as Task Manager) now get resized to 16x16 for correct displaying on the roll-up bar.
  • Enhancement: Better positive detection for the window opening state feature, BUT this means you'll need to delete all your existing opening states and redo them (sorry!). This is done from the "General -> Opening window states" menu. Select all and then delete them. Next time the windows open, use the Power menu to set up and re-save them with this new enhanced detection.
  • Enhancement: The opening window manager now shows icons for the saved windows, so you can more easily see your windows in the list.
  • Enhancement: New app Setting called "Use only the main monitor for window/notification positions", so that a window set to open in the center of the desktop can be either literally the center position on a multi-monitor setup, or just centered on your actual main monitor.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.98 Beta (Jan 8, 2023)

  • Change: Re-did the hotkey selection window to use longer and better-identifiable key descriptions. You may need to redo your hotkeys for your actions as a result.
  • Change: Removed the "Calendar" tab's "End of financial Year" and "Easter" date calculations, as these are different in various countries. You can manually add your country's correct date in the "Annual Events" area instead.
  • Change: Creating a new note no longer inserts the date/time as the default text. You can press F5 to insert the date/time instead (like Windows Notepad). The date/time format can now also be changed in Settings.
  • Bug fixes: Several fixes for macro recordings (blank action steps, mouse wheel issues, and final mouse click).
  • Bug fix: Aborting a PC state save when an app/task is busy could make subsequent saves not start.
  • Bug fix: Putting encryption marks on a note or automated action step without a password set first, would make the note non-editable and the step have incorrect text.
  • Enhancement: Better window opening state detection, so that your saved windows will open in the state you save them with the app. One new enhancement for this is a checkbox for "Delay is needed" for windows that take a short moment to be ready for use, such as a movie opening in "Media Player Classic". Ticking this new checkbox for that app will try for up to 10 seconds to match the opened window before giving up.
  • Enhancement: The step values for actions can be be either fully or partially encrypted (just like Notes).
  • Enhancement: Recording macros has been changed to use fewer resources and also to keep the automation steps smaller.
  • Enhancement: The "Calendar" tab now shows the date for 5 and 10 working days ahead, for instant reference for businesses that need to know these dates quickly.
  • Enhancement: The "Misc" tab has two new sub-tabs: "Desktop Zoom" and "Font Browser", as these were together before and thus too small to be useful on high-DPI displays.
  • Enhancement: The "Desktop Zoom" function now ranges from 2x to 64x magnification (was 1x to 32x before), for better zooming on high-DPI displays.
  • Enhancement: The "Notes" tab now has a "New note" button at the top-left of the Notes list.
  • Enhancement: The "A" to "Z" index buttons on the "Note" tab will now ignore any characters that do not start with a letter. For example, if your note starts with "(Hello)", then clicking the "H" index button will now list that note.
  • Addition: New clipboard Setting to optionally force cut/copied text to be plain text instead of rich text.
  • Addition: There is now a button to enable "Desktop Zoom" in the "Misc" tab, for users on laptops without an easy-to-access Scroll Lock key.
  • Addition: You can now right-click any app tab to make it a favorite (so its shown whenever the app's window opens), and to access Settings relating to that tab.
  • Addition: There is a new Power menu option called "Roll up to title", so you can show only the window's title; but has an added bonus of a unique 32x32 real-time thumbnail of the window itself.
  • Addition: New automated action step: "Window: Roll up to title", which does the same thing as the new aforementioned Power menu function. This step can also unroll a rolled window.
  • Addition: New automated action step: "Toolbox: Hide its window". Renamed from an old step called "Action: Hide Toolbox's window".
  • Addition: New automated action step: "Toolbox: Show the tab named", so you can open Toolbox at a specific tab with a hotkey or other trigger.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.971 Beta (Dec 20, 2022)

  • Bug fix: Using automation to center some windows vertically would sometimes fail, depending on the desktop's taskbar state.
  • Bug fix: Copying a file rename script item would crash the app. Cutting them was safe, though.
  • Change: The file rename mod named "Partial CRC32" is now called "CRC32" and does the whole file hash, but only if the file's size is up to a limit you specify in Settings.
  • Change: The file rename mod named "Partial MD5" is now called "MD5" and does the whole file hash, but only if the file's size is up to a limit you specify in Settings.
  • Addition: New file rename mod named "From the text file X" to rename the files in order from a sequential list in a text file.
  • Addition: New file rename mod named "Letters and numbers" to keep only the letters and numbers of a filename.
  • Addition: New "Help" menu option called "Copy this PC's info for AlomWare" for users wanting to report bugs.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.97 Beta (Dec 12, 2022)

  • Fix: Re-worded some in-app text that didn't fit properly in their fields on PC's with 125% or higher DPI.
  • Bug fix: The "PC Tweaks -> Center all windows" menu option no longer affects the desktop wallpaper, and now works correctly on multi-monitor setups.
  • Bug fix: The "Computer: Monitor power" step had to be changed due to the way Windows 10 now switches on/off a monitor's power. This step is now able to turn the monitor back on again.
  • Change: Removed the "Active window border" feature, as user feedback was negative about the border showing on top of other windows that were partially covering the active window.
  • Change: The Power menu option to freeze the window focus now shows the abovementioned colored border around the frozen window instead, which makes better sense from a user experience point-of-view.
  • Change: Renamed the "Computer: Re-open the last closed folder" automated action step to "Folder: Re-open the last used", to better explain what it does and keep it with the other folder steps.
  • Change: Renamed the "Computer: Restore the last clipboard text" automated action step to "Clipboard: Restore the previous text" to keep it with the other clipboard steps.
  • Addition: Added a new Setting called "Tweaks for your PC -> Windows -> Choose the border color for surrounding frozen windows", for use with the amended focus-freeze feature.
  • Addition: Added a Power menu option to re-apply a window's saved opening state (if not opened where the OS determines). Useful when you've moved/changed a window but then want to re-apply its saved opening state again.
  • Addition: Added a Power menu option called "Keep locked here" so that a window's position and size can't be changed. Useful to keep a window where it is, even if the user or the OS tries to move/resize it.
  • Addition: New automated action step called "Window: Lock in place", which locks a window's position and size so that it can't be changed. Same thing as the new Power menu feature above.
  • Enhancement: The Power menu option to open a window in a specific way has been extended to lock a window into a position and size, so that it can't be moved or size after it opens there.
  • Enhancement: The Power menu option to open a window in a specific way has been extended to minimizing any opening window to the system tray, even if the window's app doesn't support that.
  • Enhancement: When choosing the setting to open all windows at a default position, you can now choose whether or not to include or exclude child windows of the main window, such as file open/save dialogs.
  • Enhancement: The "Brave" web browser has been added to the supported web browsers used by Toolbox (like when taking a screenshot of an active browser window).

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.961 Beta (Dec 9, 2022)

  • Quick bug fix: To make auto-opening window states work better for troublesome apps. If this still doesn't work for certain windows (which can happen due to technical limitations), then you can set a hotkey with an action to manually set the window's position and attributes (on-top, etc) instead. It's the Power menu option named "Opening state -> Create a hotkey action to set this state instead".

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.96 Beta (Dec 7, 2022)

  • Bug fix: Setting new windows to open to other than where the OS decides, has been fixed so these windows don't move again after you manually move them to another position.
  • Enhancement: Added a new Setting to auto-save your Toolbox notes every minute while they're being edited, to keep your notes safe if your laptop battery dies or if your PC closes down/restarts for whatever reason.
  • Addition: Using the middle mouse button to open the Power menu on tabbed folders on Windows 11 no longer works, as Microsoft now uses that mouse button to close a folder tab (or the folder itself if only one tab exists). The mouse button still works for pre-Win 11 machines, but we've added a new automation step called "Window: Show the Power menu" so you can set a hotkey to open it as well. This step is designed to work with the current active window (which may or may not necessarily be the assigned one).
  • Addition: Added a new default action called "WindowShow the Power menu" (related to the above addition), so you just need to set a hotkey for it. You can add the default steps from the Wand icon the Automation tab.
  • Addition: Added a Privacy Declaration to the "Privacy" Settings area, at the request of a user who wanted an in-app statement about the app and how it affects their privacy.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.95 Beta (Nov 27, 2022)

  • Bug fix: Renaming an action now updates the name above the Step list.
  • Bug fix: The "Image: Make grayscale" and "Image: Make negative" steps now work correctly again.
  • Preventative fix: The "Computer: Lock with overlay" step now shows a timed message on too many incorrect tries, instead of a static message box. This means you can't get accidentally locked out if the message box loses the focus.
  • Change: "Image: Assign" now lets you specify the clipboard, a file, a website image, or an assigned window. This means the following steps are no longer available: "Image: Assign from clipboard" and "Image: Assign from window".
  • Addition: This Change Log is now accessible from within the app via the "Help -> View Toolbox's Change Log" menu; and is now also auto-shown (once) whenever you run a different version of the app from your last version.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.94 Beta (Nov 23, 2022)

  • Bug fix: PC state restoring now won't conflict with existing windows when relaunching an app or folder.
  • Bug fix: Saving a window position to auto-open at a corner of the desktop at 150% DPI will now re-open correctly there if your desktop is later using 100% DPI.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.93 Beta (Nov 23, 2022)

  • Change: The app's icon has been altered in design (but still the same general look) to now scale properly with different Explorer icon sizes.
  • Bug fix: The app now auto-sets compatibility with high-DPI displays to ensure its items aren't cropped, blurry, or positioned out of view. This fix also makes the desktop zoom (in the "Misc" tab) work correctly on high-DPI displays.
  • Bug fix: Restarting the app as admin from the "General" menu now works again.
  • Bug fix: The drop-down list of action groups wasn't parsed correctly for first-time use.
  • Redone: The PC states feature has been redone from scratch to produce a more seamless restoration effect, and also fixes some bugs that couldn't be done with the old code (namely: saving some states could fail, and some rare window styles can now be restored correctly).
  • Removed: PC states no longer save/restore the desktop wallpaper due to some users having a daily wallpaper in use and don't want it removed when restoring a state.
  • Addition: Due to popular request, a new system tweak to mute the sound volume while the computer is locked has been added.
  • Addition: New system tweak to change the Task Manager's "Details" tab to use compact view, making it perfect to see more processes without scrolling.
  • Addition: The "Files -> Backup" tab now lets you right-click the files and versions list, to perform functions on the selected files/backups.
  • Addition: New automated action step called "Computer: Save the current PC state", for users whose keyboards do not have 2 x Shift and 2 x Ctrl keys to invoke the save. Just assign your own hotkey to it, or double-click it in the Action list to invoke it. There is now also a button in the "States" tab to save a PC state without using any keys.

New in AlomWare Toolbox 0.92 Beta (Nov 23, 2022)

  • Change: Free mode now runs in repeatable five-hour sessions instead of just two hours, giving you a lot more time to enjoy or evaluate the app before re-entering another free unlock code.
  • Change: Saving a window's opening state now only allows a choice of "Opening" or "Ready" window titles, and not of "Custom" type. This was regrettably necessary due to too many false matches. The upside is that better matching of windows is possible, leading more accurate and faster auto-positioning of your favorite everyday windows.
  • Bug fix: Deleting a window's opening state could sometimes delete all other opening states by mistake.
  • Bug fix: Adding or editing an action step no longer opens the step prompt at the top-left of the desktop. Sorry for this regressive bug that was accidentally reintroduced!
  • Bug fix: Trying to select a Dock action to run while an action is currently being edited, will no longer repeatedly flash the edited action's prompt.
  • Bug fix: Trying to select a Dock action for editing with a right-click in the Dock, while an action is currently being edited, is no longer permitted.
  • Bug fix: The "PC overview" window has been fixed to position itself properly in all situations (including now when the Windows taskbar is auto-hidden), and also works with custom positions.
  • Enhancement: Modified the way restoring PC states works to be more reliable. As noted before, this feature will never be able to 100% restore all open apps, but we tweak it when we discover more incompatibilities.