TBTicker

TBTicker - or Taskbar Stockticker - started out like almost all other projects of mine. I found myself trying to figure out a way to make it easier to stay informed, preferably in an automated way. In 9 cases out of 10 I never actually use the solution I find for my problem since by then I’ve moved on to something else. But this is one of those rare exceptions.

This application has two modes. A full size mode and a mini mode. The full size mode is just a regular application, acting as a browser, and the mini mode sits in the taskbar of Microsoft Windows. That’s the mode I use the most since it takes no efforts to find out how my portfolio is doing.

I went for C# for the main application but there was really no way of making the taskbar - or bandobject as it is called - work like I wanted it to using C#. Firstly, the .NET CLR doesn’t load in time for the bandobject to load properly after restart. Second, the amount of P/Invoke calling native methods was so staggering that going with a natvie language was the only viable choice. So the bandobject supporting the minimode of the application is written using C++.

By the way, implementing a band object is one of the toughest programming challenges I’ve ever come across. There’s just no easy way of debugging it.

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