Q3 Engine Minimizer
By TiM
Date: 09-26-2003
Screenshots
Readme
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Q3E Minimizer v1.0 by UberGames
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File Name: Q3E Minimizer v1.0
Version: 1.0
File Size: 196k
Developer: TiM
Date Created: 9/10/03 1:18PM
Build Time: Approx 20 hours
Programs Used: Visual Basic 6, Adobe Photoshop 6.0
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About:
Q3E, or Quake 3 Engine Minimizer is a program that has been created to
give you the ability to quickly and easily minimize nearly every game
that has been coded using the Q3 engine as a base. The reason I made
this was because I was tired of having to spectate, or suffer being
killed over and over again as I used Alt-Enter to switch to my desktop
which took practically forever.
The concept of the Q3 minimizer isn't mine. This one is more of an
extension to an idea that someone else had.
I was cruising JK2files.com one day, looking at the utilities section
(I had just sent in KT 101 and was looking to see if anyone had d/led
it yet) when I saw a file called "JK2 Minimizer". Being interested,
I downloaded the file and found out how simple it was, yet at the same
time, so very very useful. Responding to people on MSN/ICQ, etc was
no longer a grueling task. Later on, I was playing Elite Force online
and found that I greatly missed the ability to minimize it like I could
with JK2. So, I took it upon myself to create my own Minimizer. Using
snippets of VB code around the internet, I managed to create a similar
program I named "EF Minimizer", that I submitted to effiles.com. Many
people found it immensely useful, and I was extremely happy with the
feedback. ^_^
A few months later, I attended a LAN party (My first ever LAN party
actually :D ) where I got involved in a heated battle of Q3A with some
other people there. After a few minutes, I, by reflex, tried to minimize
Q3. When nothing happened, I said at that point "I'm going to make a
version of EF Minimizer that can minimize all Q3 based games". After
the LAN party, I clean forgot about doing that, so the half finished
"Uni Minimizer" (I hadn't thought of a good name then) sat on my hard
drive for a month.
After a month, I downloaded the new Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy demo (May
I point out, an AWESOME demo). Whilst I was playing it, someone on MSN
messaged me, and I realised that I was stuck in-game, having to alt-enter
out. At that point, I remembered Uni Minimizer, and decided to complete
work on it. So, after a few nights of working, I now bring you version
1.0 of the new Quake 3 Engine Minimizer, or Q3E Minimizer! ^_^
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Features:
-Will Minimize/Restore a specified Q3 based game at the touch of a key
-Now has an all new graphical interface (Format is GIF to minimize size)
-Runs in the background so as not to take up many system resources,
leaving it all for fragging!
-Icon in the system tray changes depending what game is running
-Left-Clicking on the system tray icon will bring up the hot keys window,
If game is running, it will instead restore the game
-Right-Clicking the icon will access a simple menu to configure or quit
the minimizer.
-Quitting the minimizer will automatically restore the game.
-Version 1.0 Supports the following Q3-based games:
*Quake III Arena
*Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force (SP)
*Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force Holomatch (MP)
*Star Trek: Elite Force II
*Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (SP)
*Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (MP)
*Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy Demo
*Return to Castle Wolfenstein (SP + MP)
[Wolfenstein had the nifty feature of naming both MP and SP windows the
same thing, so I was able to put SP and MP in one option. ^_^]
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Instructions for Use:
1. Extract the Q3E Minimizer.exe to anywhere in your computer (Location
will NOT affect it's functioning)
2. Upon opening it, the main window will appear. In the drop-down menu
located near the bottom of the window, choose which game you would like
the minimizer to currently focus on.
3. Start up that game as you would normally.
4. To minimize the game, press the default keys: Control-Z
5. To restore, press Shift-Control-Z
To configure the hot keys, right-click on your current game's icon in
the system tray, and choose "Settings...". From there, use the interface
to select your new keys.
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Author/Credit:
TiM
-Main Coder/Graphic Artist
Phenix
-For helping me with some of my pretty stupid questions and providing feedback
BorgKiller
-If you hadn't messaged me, I probably never would have finished this program, d00d. ^_^
*Not being an experienced programmer, I needed to refer to some internet
samples to get this whole thing working together. Here are some people whose
programming skills are awesome and their examples helped me a lot.
Imran Zaheer
-Creator of the Hotkeys Code
MSDN Database
-Referenced the code to show/hide programs
Experts-Exchange
-Helped me create a hot keys interface
Microsoft VB resource
-Showed me how to make programs appear in the system tray
Brian Yule
-Created the code to make the window's edges transparent
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Trouble-Shooting:
I have tested this program on 2 computers, one running Win ME, and one
running XP. On both, the program worked flawlessly with no errors.
This may not be the case for other operating systems, so if you do come
across a system that doesn't work, please e-mail me and I'll see what I can
do to fix it.
The only problem I can see with this is that sometimes, upon minimizing
a game, your desktop may seem extremely bright. This is because the Q3
game will modify your screen's contrast according to your settings in-game.
When you exit the game, the screen will return to normal. To restore the
screen's color to normal whilst the game is running, there are 2 things you
can do. First, in the game console, type '/r_overbrightbits 0' (without
quotes, and sometimes without the '/' at the front, depending on which game)
Secondly, if that doesn't work, go into your games video settings and
adjust the brightness to a lower level.
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Additional:
At this point, Q3E Minimizer does not support ALL Q3-Based games, mainly
because I don't own all of them. At this point in time, the only other
game I can think of that hasn't been included is Soldier of Fortune 2: Double Helix.
To give the minimizer support to other programs I need to find out what the game's
window name is (The title you see for it in the taskbar), so without owning those games,
it makes it a tad hard to give support to them.
If you own SoF2 or any other Q3 based game I missed, and you would like to have
minimizing support for them, there are a few simple things you'd have to do for
me, and I could easily put it in.
For each Exe the game has (Ie, JK2 and EF had a separate single player and multiplayer
EXE file) you must do the following:
a) Take a screenshot of the EXE's icon, preferably against a white background
and send that to me
(So I can make that the icon that appears for it in the system tray)
b) When running the game, alt-enter out of it, and look for the game's window
in the task bar. Copy down the name of the game window EXACTLY as it looks
(Right capitals, any additional space bars, etc) and send the name to me.
(An example would be Q3's Window is called "Quake 3: Arena", without quotes.)
I can easily do the rest from there. ^_^
E-Mail them to timothyoliver@bigpond.com
-Thanks!!
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Contact:
Have you seen a bug? Got a suggestion for the program? Feel like chatting?
I can be reached at:
E-Mail: timothyoliver@bigpond.com
MSN: timothyoliver@hotmail.com
ICQ: 24965853
AIM: DeltaJed
YIM: timo22406
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Thanks:
Well, thank you for taking the time to read all the way down here. ^_^
I hope you enjoy using Q3E Minimizer and that it makes your gaming
experience all the more better.
Happy Fragging!!!!!
-TiM
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Legal Stuff:
I am in no way responsible for any harm this program may cause, even
though the odds of that happening are insignificant. You may freely
distribute the EXE, so long as this ReadMe remains with it, intact, and
unmodified. This program is not officially supported by id, Raven,
Ritual, or LucasArts.
"Quake III Arena" and all related assets are trademarks of id Software,
1999
"Elite Force", "Jedi Knight", "Jedi Outcast", "Jedi Academy" and all
related assets are trademarks of RavenSoft and LucasArts respectively,
2000-2003
"Elite Force II" and all related assets are trademarks of Ritual
Entertainment, 2003