We Got Served

Today, I am taking a look at Brent Friedman’s Tab Creator add-in.  To get an idea of what Tab Creator is, I went to his website:

TabCreator is a simple way to host your own applications inside its separate Windows Home Server Console Tab. TabCreator makes it easy to add frequently used applications to the Windows Home Server Console.

Current version: v0.0.0.1

Before I start the process of checking out Brent’s add-in, let’s find out a bit about Brent himself.

About CompuGeek Software

CompuGeek Software is an Arizona based ‘company’ founded in February of 2007. The founder is Brent Friedman, a nineteen year old college student. CompuGeek Software started out as a sandbox where Brent could hold things he programmed and has changed in to a full time hobby. CompuGeek Software is your home for free Windows Home Server Add-Ins and utilities. Sometimes you may find code snippits or tutorials lurking within the abyss.

About Brent Friedman

Brent Friedman is the sole developer and owner of CompuGeek Software. He has been programming since 2001 and started making Windows Home Server Add-Ins in April of 2007. Brent is currently going to a University to earn a Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Information Systems.

Fluent in many programming languages, Brent is the go-to-guy for any programming project!

Languages/Frameworks Well Versed In:

• C#
• Visual C++
• VB.NET
• ASP.NET
• ASP.NET AJAX
• ASP.NET MVC
• PHP (Re-learning..)
• HTML
• CSS
• Javascript

Languages/Frameworks Learning:

• Objective-C
• iPhone SDK
• jQuery

I believe that I have said this before, but that is a very impressive set of credentials for someone as young as Brent!

Installation

Installing the add-in is as simple as any other add-in.  Copy the msi installer to your D:Software/Add-ins folder, open the WHS Settings dialog in the console and install the software from the Add-ins tab, as shown below.

Program Usage

Reopen the WHS console, scroll over and click on the Tab Creator tab.

Obviously, at this point, there is not much to see as I have not created any Tabs.  Since this is what the program was made for, it is time to try it out.

Click on the + (add) button

which brings up this window.  Click on the Browse button under the Target group

browse to an application you would like to have in the console.  Highlight it, click on open and

fill in the Tab Title: under the Tab group, click on save and you are done.  Almost

You do have to close the console and reopen it for your new tab creations to appear.  In the above screen shot, you will also notice several other fields in this screen.  If so needed/desired, you can add Runtime Arguments in the Target group.  For example, I setup WordPad to open a .rtf file.

Under the Advanced group, you can change the icon associated with an application.  Also, under this group, you will find a Application Window Caption text box.  According to Brent:

Sometimes, you may have issues where TabCreator is not hosting the application. In this case, the main window is not able to be automatically detected. To manually detect the window, you need to fill in the applications window caption box with what the title bar shows when the application loads. For example, Internet Explorer’s window caption is: Windows Internet Explorer.

There are simply some applications that will not open in the console using Tab Creator, as can be seen just below.

For the ones that would not normally open, this program option is supposed to help Tab Creator “find” the application.  Unfortunately, I was not able to get this work with several applications that would not open in the console.  And for some applications, you will get this message

when you open the console.  Sometimes you can simply click on OK, and the console opens.  When I tried Windows Explorer, this problem occurred.  The first time this occurred, the console opened.  The second time this occurred, it took several attempts to open the console.  Needless to say, I removed the Windows Explorer tab quickly.  How does one do this?  Go to the Tab Creator tab, highlight the desired tab, and click the X.

A few examples of applications that did work are as follows.

And that is Tab Creator.

Conclusions

Tab Creator is a handy little console utility

• if you need to open an application inside the console and you are not using a RDC.
• it the application will actually open.
• if you do not get error messages when opening the console

I really like the potential of this add-in.  The key word is potential.  Obviously, it needs improved error checking.  I certainly don’t feel comfortable with an application that causes the console difficulty in opening.  In addition, it needs to have a better way to deal with applications that do not seem to want to open inside the console.  Other suggestions?

• After browsing for the target application, it would be nice to see feedback that the operation completed and the target program name.
• Automate the Tab Title creation (like adding a shortcut to the desktop) and allow one to change it, of course.
• It would be nice to have visual feedback on the icon that will be used for the target application.
• Improve the Application Window Caption routine to eliminate the need for this item.
• Allow the user to edit a tab item.  If you need to make a change, you have to delete the tab and start all over.

Author: Brent Friedman

Version Reviewed: 0.0.1

Release: 16October2008