Hector is dead! Long live Hector! Ermm, I mean, long live the Big Red Button!

[gypsythief]

Hello all,

 

for those for you that use Hector's World Safety Button, you may have noticed it no longer runs on Windows 10. I emailed the authors about this, and they told me that they had no plans to update it.

 

(If you don't know what Hector's World Safety Button is, it's a small e-safety program that had a cheerful dolphin swimming annoyingly in the corner of your screen; when you clicked the dolphin it covered the screen up, the intention being that if a pupil saw something unsavoury, they could hide whilst they got a teacher to deal with it.)

 

As I support a couple of schools who still use it and are starting to migrate to Windows 10, I thought that I'd better do something about this. So I wrote a new one.

 

It's called Big Red Button, and you can get it from here.

 

I've released it under an MIT licence, so you can pretty much do as you please with it. It's been tested on Windows 7 and 10, and works fine on both of those. I've not tested Vista or 8/8.1, but it should be ok.

 

Enjoy, and let me know if you have any problems.

[elsiegee40]

Without checking it out, is this still flash based?

[unixman_again]

I thought you were going to talk about Longmire

[gypsythief]

Without checking it out, is this still flash based?

 

Flash?!? *shudders*

 

No, nothing to do with Flash. It's written with PWCT, using Harbour programming language; I think it all ultimately compiles down to C.

 

I intend to do a re-write in Python to make it more universal; PWCT is already out of development. I'm having to learn Python first though, so it might be a few months!

 

Edit: I've just noticed the e-safety forum section in your sig; I didn't spot that when looking for somewhere to post this thread.Might this be better off over there?

Edited May 20, 2016 by gypsythief

[elsiegee40]

Consider it moved

 

I am also tagging @esafety_officer as I guess she is asked about Hector's demise.

Edited May 20, 2016 by elsiegee40

[gypsythief]

Thanks!

[catshilllearning]

Many thanks for this Gypsithief, I'll share it with the online safety community.

[Michael]

Hector works absolutely fine on Windows 10. You need to enable .NET 3.5, which includes .NET 3.0 and .NET 2.0 also.

[gypsythief]

I'm not sure if .NET3.5 is installed or not. I'll have a look into that tomorrow; Thanks! Edited May 23, 2016 by gypsythief

[Michael]

I have Hector running on many Windows 10 devices without any issues, so I really don't know why you're experiencing issues.

[gypsythief]

Crumbs, that was a quick reply. I've just gone and edited my post above, as I started to doubt whether I _had_ added .NET 3.5 or not.

 

I'll be in a school that uses Hector tomorrow, so I'll have a look.

[Michael]

By default .NET 3.5 is switched off in Windows 10, but many other applications require it and not just Hector. It'll be sometime before .NET based applications are all .NET 4 or later.

[whartomt01]

I like the Big Red Button

looks really good. Customisable for different schools too.

Without going into code, is it possible to change the writing on the Screen Cover, something a little friendlier for Primaries.

[gypsythief]

By default .NET 3.5 is switched off in Windows 10, but many other applications require it and not just Hector. It'll be sometime before .NET based applications are all .NET 4 or later.

 

I had a spare 10 minutes, so I've just tried this on my work laptop, running Windows 10 Pro 64bit; I installed .NET3.5, rebooted, installed Hector, rebooted, and nothing. Simply does not run.

 

But then as I was typing this, I realised all the Windows 10 installs I've done are 64bit, so maybe that's the issue. Are the ones you have Hector running on 32bit or 64?

 

I like the Big Red Button

looks really good. Customisable for different schools too.

Without going into code, is it possible to change the writing on the Screen Cover, something a little friendlier for Primaries.

 

Thank you! Unfortunately it's not currently possible to change the text without coding.; I toyed with the idea of having the writing as part of the image, which is replaceable, but I thought it would end up too distorted with mixed ratio screens (a lot of my schools have both 4:3 and 16:9 monitors)

 

I'll have a fiddle about with it; it should be possible to detect the screen ratio, and then display a particular image based on that. That would resolve the distended text issue, and allow schools to customize all aspects. Or simply find a way to read the text from a text file.

Edited May 23, 2016 by gypsythief

[Michael]

That reminds me - you may need to manually create an entry within:

 

HKCM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

 

Then Hector will run at Startup.

[gypsythief]

That reminds me - you may need to manually create an entry within:

 

HKCM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

 

Then Hector will run at Startup.

 

There is a shortcut in the Start Menu Startup folder; besides, manually running the program does not work either.

 

Anyway, we're getting somewhat off topic here as this isn't really a Hector support thread; if you wouldn't mind dropping me any further tips in a PM or a new thread. Thanks!

Edited May 23, 2016 by gypsythief