Latest non-official releases here always check file size/date to see if updated, to use just unzip content in your actual CoolTicker directory.

Get informations from any source and display them on CoolTicker.

Centralize display of notices, alerts, messages or alarms received or retrieved from local or networked applications, text file, web page or e-mail account.
No more multiple windows, centralize them all in one Scrolling banner, multi-zones DashBoard or TipBoard depending your needs.
CoolTicker can get informations from HTTP, TCP-IP, DDE, POP3, Text Files sources.
Recognize compatible CoolTicker messages format or use customizable text extraction filters.
Provided with alarms manager and network messages sender addons.
Create your own applications without the need of making the message display interface...use CoolTicker instead !

No JAVA, no ActiveX, no DLL in system, no Database Registry modification.

What can CoolTicker do for you ?

CoolTicker is a tool for centralizing the display of multiple grabbed informations in a small screen space. The informations can be any kind of texts, received or retrieved by/from any compatible CoolTicker text source thru TCP-IP, HTTP, POP3, DDE, Text Files. Users can also create text filters to extract strings from any HTTP/HTML, POP3, Text Files that are not in CoolTicker structure format (stock values, temperatures, web forum subject headers). You can also use theses filter to be only warned when a document/web page contains a certain text/number (like when a stock value reach a certain number or when a specific text appears in a web news header ).

Programs can prepare CoolTicker messages and send them to it immediatly, or just when needed or let CoolTicker go and retrieve them.

CoolTicker is also able to adapt itself to any text source thru simple Text Extraction Filters, and get/display only what a user want on a Web Page, E-Mail, Text File.

Messages can be displayed into one of the 3 small windows zones called "Boards". Each board has it's own specifications and uses :

• ScrollBoard is a banner that loops permanently its messages and let you double-click on them to deal with.
  
  This is usually for display "complete" messages with title/text and can have some actions/objects associated with (image, sound, url link, external application launch).
  Each message in ScrollBoard can be updated or deleted remotely simple by sending/receiving same message again but with certain parameters to tell CoolTicker to update it's content or delete it from ScrollBoard when the message has no need to be displayed anymore.
  
  
• DashBoard is a window with dynamic number of fields that can be used for regular updated small informations based on numbers or 20 max. lenght strings (sizes, stock quotes, temperatures, time/date, counting values).
  
  Each field that will appear can be removed/deleted manually or automaticaly. Each one can have an action associated (url, external application launch).
  Fields can display directly the string or can add a mask defined by the user if the creator of this ticker just send a "brute" value without any description text like "45" that will be displayed "Stock value : 45".
  
  
• TipBoard is a simple window that display text lines "on-the-fly" like a typewriter, it's excellent for displaying some kind of logging informations, instant notices that do not need any special action or news headers.
  
  Lines added to TipBoard can come from a structured CoolTicker message or from any simple text lines received from a direct tcp-ip connection done by any application without any special structure.
  A line will use default color values (text and background) but it can also be colored as wanted if specified in message structure or if special text tag is present at beginning of each direct tcp-ip incoming text lines.

How it works ?

CoolTicker by itself is nothing more than an information and messages displayer.
Theses can be received or retrieved from many ways and methods.

CoolTicker can use one of these following methods to get messages, some of them will be retrieving methods (it's CoolTicker that go to get informations), other will be receiving methods (CoolTicker wait for some external application to connect and send it informations) :

• HTTP (retrieve) : web pages, static html or cgi/perl/asp/php dynamic generated pages.
• Text files (retrieve) : located on multiples local or networked directories. It will regularly read these directories and retrieve .txt compatible files.
• POP3 (retrieve) : dedicated e-mail accounts that will receive e-mailed Ticker, very good for protected networks that can only send and receive e-mails.
• TCP-IP (receive) : direct connection to CoolTicker on it's listening port.
• DDE channel (receive) : connection from external DDE capable applications.

If the source of HTTP or Text File is not in CoolTicker format, you can create Extraction Filters to get the exact information you want and create a Ticker from it.

Who need it ?

All people or company that need to spread informations over a network or a local machine in a little screen space without multiple windows or dialog boxes.

Any developer that needs to create one or more local or networked applications and want to centralize all the information displaying part.

How to generate Ticker messages ?

CoolTicker can either receive or retreive informations from a local or networked compatible text source, theses informations must be simple text formatted into a special structure that CoolTicker will recognize as a "Ticker".

If the text source do not contain any Ticker message, you can ovveride it and create you own Ticker extraction filters that will get the exact part of the text that will produce the message.

It can also receive simple text lines thru a direct TCP-IP incoming connection with no special format but this text line will be redirected to TipBoard display zone only.

Theses Tickers can be created from any kind of appplication or web based interface.

Theses messages will be formatted into a compatible CoolTicker message structure.

What could be possible CoolTicker sample uses ?

CoolTicker is originaly provided with a simple alarm manager that uses CoolTicker for displaying alarm notifications, and a network message sender for messages sending between CoolTickers.

But you could use CoolTicker for displaying many other things like :

• System monitoring.
• Stock quotes displaying.
• General informations spreading.
• E-mail notifiying.
• Instant alerts.
• Advertisements.
• Statistics displaying.
• Logging.

Installation instructions

Simply start coolticker.exe.
By default, some sample messages are provided. Just double-click each one to get rid of them, or use right-click to access menu and "Delete All".
Use shift-click to switch between scrolling and list view. Use right-mouse button to access menu.

If you want to be automaticaly notified for updates, just go to Dod@Checker and fill a Check Request just with "CoolTicker" as Request information form description.