Yet Another Launcher Application?
Yes but with a difference...
Children's Game Launcher
Features:
This application was designed for pre-school children who are able to control a mouse and play simple games / use child-friendly websites, but cannot read or write. My son started to use this from under three years old, and my 2 year old daughter is just beginning to use it with a little help.
Takes advantage of Virtual CD Drives and Virtual CD images to launch their favourite games without the danger of damaging the original CD disk, and with the speed of a HDD drive.
Once installed and the applications added to it by a parent or older child, all they have to do is click on the image of their favourite game and it starts automatically.
Up to nine images per tab, and between 6 and 15 tabs (depending on use of images/text) giving a total of up to 135 applications/websites can be launched.
Uses Access 2000 database to store settings, applications, and image paths
Recognises the following Virtual CD applications:
Virtual
CD 4 Trial download available |
Virtual
Drive Trial download available |
Daemon Tools
Freeware |
Visual Basic Techniques used:
| Database Creation using DAO | Database Table-Type recordsets |
| Database Navigation | Database Search using .Seek |
| Use of Tabstrip control - Placing other controls on frames | Use of Drag'n'Drop of image controls |
| Control Arrays - Loading and unloading frames and images | Shell and ShellExecute - Run external applications and web pages |
| Status bar - Displaying application name as mouse moves | Common Dialog |
| ImageList Control - Adding and removing images at run-time | |
The project along with a few sample bitmaps can be downloaded from here. Note if using Winzip to extract, use the "Extract" option to preserve folder structure, rather than select all and drag'n'drop.
Forget the code . How do you use it?