Details for V1.1 / 11-Feb-2002

What is this?

IEGroup helps you achieve a very simple requirement for you - namely organizing your browsing over the internet. Most of us spend a significant portion of our time in the Internet - and we invariably find it difficult to restrict ourselves only to a single window. So, soon we find ourselves looking at several browser windows - with probably no meaningful buttons in the task bar - instead they all start shrinking in size. Also, as we browse, we hit interesting pages - may or may not be relevant to the current purpose - but, we would like to make a note of it. (No doubt, the Favorites is helpful - but ... read on!) And, of course, when we leave at the end of the day, unless we are ready to leave the machine on or our PC / Laptop has a hibernate feature, we do not readily know which are the sites we were visiting to enable us to continue from there the next morning.

If  you find yourself nodding your head while I was narrating some scenarios above - welcome to IEGroup. Here is the software that is going to solve your problems.

In one sense, it is a simple tabbed browser. There are, of course, several tabbed browsers in the market - some freeware and some sharewares. In fact, I have tested most of them. They are all good, no doubt. However, not all purposes of mine were served by them. Hence, I decided to develop one myself and having done so, I thought that I will share them with the others as well.

OK, I forgot to mention explicitly that this works with only IE browsers. And, as Explorer is also implemented as a browser, explorer windows are also treated similarly.

Features

The best way to taste the product is just to try. Anyway, here are some major features:

1. The browser windows do not appear in the Task bar - instead they are all shown as another 'task bar' like control (actually a tab strip - where the tab can be clicked for going from one browser to another - with, of course, only one browser visible all the time with the others not in the view. Let me hasten to add that clicking on a tab only brings the associated browser to the view - but does not load it at that time!)
2. The tab strip can be in a single row or can occupy multiple rows and the browser windows are automatically adjusted to the space above the tab strip. However, the full desk top will be available to the the other windows.
3. IEGroup's icon is visible (there is an exception when you invoke the options window, as explained later) not in the task bar but in the System Tray. So, when some other window is occupying the Desk top, to go to any browser, simply click on the IEGroup's icon in the tray.
4. Incidentally, this provides a convenient mechanism to hide all your IE / explorer windows (there could be obvious and non-obvious reasons for this).
5. Each tab shows a convenient caption or title for easy reference and you can give a name (called as Short Name) for each tab yourself or restrict the number of characters to be used for constructing this title (done by IEGroup) from the URL name.
6. Even if some browsers were open before IEGroup start, IEGroup automatically consolidates them.
7. You can cause the  IE browser to be opened from any other applications and IEGroup will automatically consolidate them. Of course, through IEGroup you can
8. You can choose to close IEGroup any time and based on your options, the browsers will also be closed or they will be left on the task bar.
9. Through the right click on a tab, you can close the associated browser window, or directly close the window (by clicking on the X in the window) and either way, IEGroup will adjust the tabs automatically.
10. Another major convenience offered by IEGroup is through its Options window. Here, you can change the options and operate on the tabs (like closing, refreshing and storing the details of them) and the Groups. A group is defined as a set of records with a short name and an associated URL (Somewhat similar to the Favorites). You can have any number of groups with one identified as a Default group. You can choose to open all URLs specified in a Group or select a few specific URLs.
11. Through the right click on the tab, you can add the URL details to the default group. This way, you can make sure that you make a note of the sites you visit.
12. When IEGroup closes, based on your preference the existing browsers' details may be automatically stored in the Default Group (or you can choose to save all or some of them to any other Group of your choice) and when IEGroup starts, you can have it start the Default Group automatically or you can control it so that you can decide the Group and the URL's in it.
13. The main point to note is that IEGroup does not introduce any browser of its own and hence whatever goodies you have added to your IE continue to be available - with the convenience of Tab automatically coming to you.

Platforms Supported

IEGroup has been tested reasonably well in Windows 2000 and IE6 platform. Though the API's used are expected to work similarly in the other Windows 32 platforms, I am unable to confirm it. I would appreciate if you send me some feedback on this fact. 

Installation and removal Details

The basic IEGroup program, written in VB needs less than140K bytes of hard disk for loading. However, the ActiveX controls and the run time environment needed for running this VB application requires more than 2MB of hard disk space. Hence, there are two alternatives, depending on the existing set up in your machine:

Option 1: Simplified Download - without VB run time and special controls

IEGroup1.zip: This does not include run time environment and the special ActiveX controls (MSCOMCTL.OCX MSHFLXGD.OCX and MSSTDFMT.DLL). Just download the zip file and unzip them (using some unzip utilities) into any directory of your choice and create a short cut to the EXE in the desk top or under the Start button.

While running, IEGroup will create an additional file called IEGroup.cfg to store your options and a sub-directory called as Groups. All your groups will be stored under this.

In case you need to remove the program (if you really do so, let me know why), just remove the directory and all files below them. (Of course, if you installed Visual Basic run time for the sake of IEGroup, it will continue to remain without an easy mechanism to remove them. My apologies!) 

Option 2: Full installation package

IEGroup2.zip: This, of course, is a full installation package and offers a formal removal as well. Download the zip file and expand it to any convenient temporary directory and run the setup.exe in that directory.

To remove the program, use the Control Panel - Add/Remove programs option,

Please note that the Group files contain the URL's of your interest and as they are simple text files you may decide to process them appropriately before deletion.

License Conditions and Disclaimer

This software is licensed currently as a freeware. However, this does not prevent the author of the software to convert it into a Shareware or a commercial product in future.

You are free to use and distribute it to the others provided you do not charge any money for that.

Though this has been reasonably tested, the Author does not guarantee any result and shall not assume for any damages caused, directly or consequentially.

Some 'Not to Worry' Statements While Using IEGroup

IEGroup does not do any harms to the open browser windows, unless you explicitly gave instructions / set up the options. Even if IEGroup terminates abnormally or you remove it from the Task lists, the browser windows are still available, except that they are not listed in the task bar. To make them active, simply start the IEGroup again.

Sometimes, you may get a message suggesting that some resource is held by another task and you will be advised to  ask the application to make a retry or 'switch to' the other task to set it right. Mostly this is due to some browser taking more time in some task (such as setting Internet options or decoding some pages) and the only option for you is try to be patient. Of course, if you want, you can forcefully terminate the IEGroup task and restart it.

When Windows 2000 is closed in Hibernate mode and re-opened, the IEGroup has been found not to respond. In such a case, simply remove IEGroup from the task lists and restart it.

Future plans

Of course, a lot of features can be built in future. One of them I have in mind is making a better graphical interface including changing the current absolutely amateurish icon for the application  and the About screen. Another thought is to rewrite this in VC++.

And, finally

a big thank you for trying the software. Please feel free to send feedback and comments to sunsesh@yahoo.com