My girlfriend was asking me several times before that she needs a handy tool to know how many days are before her due-date and in the future she needs to know our son’s age in the number of days.
This is an easy task for me, and I don’t want to use complex programming languages such as C++, C# because such programs need to be compiled. I don’t want to use Python in this case because my girlfriend dosn’t want to install any additional software. She will probably delete it sooner than you expect. In fact, her desktop is cleaner than the blu sky.
HTA is suitable for this task because most windows platforms support HTA. HTA stands for HTML Application, and in fact, it is purely a HTML page except that it has an extra tag <HTA:APPLICATION /> which specifies the attributes of the application, which you need to place it between the <head></head>
The HTA is small, but acts as a stand-alone application if you rename the file as *.hta extension. The HTA can be modified freely by using text-editor e.g. notepad. However, the source code is not protected. You can use [Script32] to protect the HTA source code.
The DateDiff function in VBScript can be used to compute the difference between two dates, based on that we can customise the message. For example,
The HTA refreshes the output every 30 seconds, if the date changes.
The HTA source code is given below, which you can modify freely e.g. customise messages etc. My girlfriend said the interface is ugly. 🙁 Most programmers do not like GUI design…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 | <html> <head> <title>Eric, How Old Are You?</title> <HTA:APPLICATION APPLICATIONNAME="Eric" ID="EricLai" SCROLL="NO" MAXIMIZEBUTTON="NO" BORDER="THIN" VERSION="1.0"/> </head> <script language="VBScript"> Sub RefreshDate days = CInt(DateDiff("d", CDate(DueDate.Value), Now)) msg.InnerHTML = "" If (days < 0) Then days = Abs(days) msg.InnerHTML = "Dear Eric Lai,<BR/> There are still " & "<B><font color='red'>" & days & "</font></B>" & " days to go. We cannot wait to meet you! <BR/> <BR /> Yours, <BR/>Mum & Dad" Else days = Abs(days) msg.InnerHTML = "Dear Eric Lai,<BR/> You are " & "<B><font color='red'>" & days & "</font></B>" & " days old. We love you! <BR/> <BR /> Yours, <BR/>Mum & Dad" End If End Sub Sub Window_OnLoad strComputer = "." Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2") Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * From Win32_DesktopMonitor") For Each objItem in colItems intHorizontal = objItem.ScreenWidth intVertical = objItem.ScreenHeight Next width = 410 height = 300 If IsNull(intHorizontal) Then intHorizontal = 1024 'in case value cannot be obtained End If If IsNull(intVertical) Then intVertical = 800 'in case value cannot be obtained End If intLeft = CInt((intHorizontal - width) * 0.5) intTop = CInt((intVertical - height) * 0.5) window.resizeTo width, height window.moveTo intLeft, intTop RefreshDate iTimerID = window.setInterval("RefreshDate", 30000) ' refresh every 30 seconds End Sub </script> <body bgcolor="white"> <div id="msg" style='font:30px'></div> <input type="text" name="DueDate" style='display:none' id="DueDate" value="2012-8-13"> </body> </html> |
<html>
<head>
<title>Eric, How Old Are You?</title>
<HTA:APPLICATION
APPLICATIONNAME="Eric"
ID="EricLai"
SCROLL="NO"
MAXIMIZEBUTTON="NO"
BORDER="THIN"
VERSION="1.0"/>
</head>
<script language="VBScript">
Sub RefreshDate
days = CInt(DateDiff("d", CDate(DueDate.Value), Now))
msg.InnerHTML = ""
If (days < 0) Then
days = Abs(days)
msg.InnerHTML = "Dear Eric Lai,<BR/> There are still " & "<B><font color='red'>" & days & "</font></B>" & " days to go. We cannot wait to meet you! <BR/> <BR /> Yours, <BR/>Mum & Dad"
Else
days = Abs(days)
msg.InnerHTML = "Dear Eric Lai,<BR/> You are " & "<B><font color='red'>" & days & "</font></B>" & " days old. We love you! <BR/> <BR /> Yours, <BR/>Mum & Dad"
End If
End Sub
Sub Window_OnLoad
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * From Win32_DesktopMonitor")
For Each objItem in colItems
intHorizontal = objItem.ScreenWidth
intVertical = objItem.ScreenHeight
Next
width = 410
height = 300
If IsNull(intHorizontal) Then
intHorizontal = 1024 'in case value cannot be obtained
End If
If IsNull(intVertical) Then
intVertical = 800 'in case value cannot be obtained
End If
intLeft = CInt((intHorizontal - width) * 0.5)
intTop = CInt((intVertical - height) * 0.5)
window.resizeTo width, height
window.moveTo intLeft, intTop
RefreshDate
iTimerID = window.setInterval("RefreshDate", 30000) ' refresh every 30 seconds
End Sub
</script>
<body bgcolor="white">
<div id="msg" style='font:30px'></div>
<input type="text" name="DueDate" style='display:none' id="DueDate" value="2012-8-13">
</body>
</html>–EOF (The Ultimate Computing & Technology Blog) —
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