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Forum Discussion
New Windows 7 Raidar sidebar gadget
Edit: RaidarGadget 0.4 download is available here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qptedbnxa7udy6a/RaidarGadget.gadget
Refer to http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=57672&start=15#p359201 for a list of changes.
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I would like to introduce "RaidarGadget 0.1", a windows sidebar gadget capable of displaying Raidar info. This is the initial beta 0.1 release so please let me know if you have any feedback about this gadget's installation process, stability, appearance and features. The gadget is written for WPF (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Presentation_Foundation) and requires the .NET 4.0 framework to be installed in order to run. Although Microsoft announced last week that it will abandon gadgets in Windows 8 in favour of it's new Metro applications I thought it would be nice to make this gadget available anyway since Windows 7 will be around for some time. I also hope that the WPF core of the gadget will be easily transferable to Metro.
Description:
RaidarGadget 0.1 is a Windows 7 sidebar gadget that can be used to monitor NAS statistics like temperature, fan rpm, disk status etc. just like the Yahoo! Raidar widget and Netgear Raidar utility display. Due to the limited screen real estate of a gadget the most important information is displayed in the gadget, all other information can be found in tooltips when hovering over the items in the gadget. This gadget will also inform of any errors, like disk failure, by changeing the color of that part of the gadget.
Author: TheGarf
Prerequisites:
- Microsoft .NET framework 4.0 should be installed
- Windows 7 (not tested on Vista) with sidebar enabled.
Known limitations:
- Supports only 1 ReadyNAS in the local network (it will monitor the first NAS that responds on the network).
- The RaidarGadget will start somewhat slower than the other gadgets since it has to wait for the WPF web host to start.
- The gadget doesn't work correctly with windows display scaling for monitors with high DPI.
- No gadget configuration panel and gadget flyout possible due to an interoperability issue in the sidebar application.
Tested on:
- ReadyNAS NV
- Windows 7.0 x64 with Internet Explorer 8.0
- Windows 7.0 x64 with Internet Explorer 9.0
Example:
RaidarGadget v0.1
RaidarGadget v0.1 showing extra info in a tooltip
Installation:
1. Use the link below after you make sure you've met the prerequisites above and accept to install the gadget.
Edit: See link above for latest version
2. Windows firewall or your firewall application will tell you that the gadget application tries access the network. It has to have local network access in order to communicate with your ReadyNAS.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qptedbnxa7udy6a/RaidarGadget.gadget
Refer to http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=57672&start=15#p359201 for a list of changes.
---
I would like to introduce "RaidarGadget 0.1", a windows sidebar gadget capable of displaying Raidar info. This is the initial beta 0.1 release so please let me know if you have any feedback about this gadget's installation process, stability, appearance and features. The gadget is written for WPF (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Presentation_Foundation) and requires the .NET 4.0 framework to be installed in order to run. Although Microsoft announced last week that it will abandon gadgets in Windows 8 in favour of it's new Metro applications I thought it would be nice to make this gadget available anyway since Windows 7 will be around for some time. I also hope that the WPF core of the gadget will be easily transferable to Metro.
Description:
RaidarGadget 0.1 is a Windows 7 sidebar gadget that can be used to monitor NAS statistics like temperature, fan rpm, disk status etc. just like the Yahoo! Raidar widget and Netgear Raidar utility display. Due to the limited screen real estate of a gadget the most important information is displayed in the gadget, all other information can be found in tooltips when hovering over the items in the gadget. This gadget will also inform of any errors, like disk failure, by changeing the color of that part of the gadget.
Author: TheGarf
Prerequisites:
- Microsoft .NET framework 4.0 should be installed
- Windows 7 (not tested on Vista) with sidebar enabled.
Known limitations:
- Supports only 1 ReadyNAS in the local network (it will monitor the first NAS that responds on the network).
- The RaidarGadget will start somewhat slower than the other gadgets since it has to wait for the WPF web host to start.
- The gadget doesn't work correctly with windows display scaling for monitors with high DPI.
- No gadget configuration panel and gadget flyout possible due to an interoperability issue in the sidebar application.
Tested on:
- ReadyNAS NV
- Windows 7.0 x64 with Internet Explorer 8.0
- Windows 7.0 x64 with Internet Explorer 9.0
Example:
RaidarGadget v0.1
RaidarGadget v0.1 showing extra info in a tooltip
Installation:
1. Use the link below after you make sure you've met the prerequisites above and accept to install the gadget.
Edit: See link above for latest version
2. Windows firewall or your firewall application will tell you that the gadget application tries access the network. It has to have local network access in order to communicate with your ReadyNAS.
37 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- Liking it - thanks 8)
- Hi, TheGarf
Nice looking gadget. I tested RaidarGadget 0.1 on Windows 7 64bit with Internet Explorer 9.0. It first shows the status of ReadyNAS Ultra 2 in my LAN but soon turns to be "NAS connection lost". The tooltip says "TimedOut". Maybe timeout length is too short?
By the way, I am also interested in the fate of gadgets in Windows 8. If they can easily converted to Metro app, it will be great. But Metro allows relatively limited number of APIs... - Hi emoacht,
I've set the timeout of the UDP client in the gadget to 5 seconds which is quite long for latency on a local network so maybe it's just a bug in my code. I'll look into it tomorrow and I'll up the timeout to a minute or so. Maybe the NAS needs more time to respond when it is very busy. I'll let you know when I've updated the gadget. - Good stuff Garf -- you need to make sure if disks are asleep, disk spin-up can take longer than 5 secs. Not sure if emoacht was hitting this or not.
- Argh, I'm sorry but it was because of Windows Firewall. When I turned off Windows Firewall, RaidarGadget keeped itself updated. I didn't imagine this possibility because, from my experience, if a program is blocked by Windows Firewall, the communication will be completely shut off. But in case of RaidarGadget, it seems to succeed first exchange and subsequently lose connection.
Well, so... how to expressly make a rule for gadget app? I need to learn more about Windows Firewall...
Hi, Yoh-dah,
The disks of my Ultra 2 were not asleep. So I think it is not the case. I checked the response time (including internal process of my PC) from Ultra 2 by my app. In most cases, it was around 100 milliseconds after sending request. - Hi emoacht,
You should get a dialog from windows firewall that asks if the PresentationHost should be allowed to have access to the local (private) network. Simply allowing access should be all that is necessary. Unfortunately I have no clean install of Windows 7 to test this on. I'll see if I can simulate a clean install on my development machine.
The RaidarGadget uses one initial UDP broadcast to discover all the NAS devices on the network. Then, to monitor the first discovered NAS on the network, it will communicate with the IP-address of that NAS over UDP. The remote port in both cases is 22081.
I'm currently testing a revised version of the gadget which fixes a minor bug and has more lenient UDP time outs (30 sec). I'll see if I can post it here tomorrow but it'll need some testing first. - I've updated the RaidarGadget to version 0.2
Change History:
- Changed the network time out to a more lenient value (30 seconds)
- Fixed rare bug when parsing the NAS name
- More efficient network code
You can get the update here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13081582/RaidarGadget.gadget - Hi, TheGarf
Thanks for the info. I got RaidarGadget 0.2 worked on Windows 7 64bit with my Ultra 2 by creating a rule for C:\Windows\System32\PresentationHost.exe in Windows Firewall. JFYI, I did the following:- Open Windows Firewall --> Press "Advanced Settings" --> Select "Inbound Rules" in left pane --> Press [New Rule...] in right pane --> Press [Next] with "Program" checked --> Put "C:\Windows\System32\PresentationHost.exe" in "This program path:" box --> Press [Next] --> Press [Next] with "Allow the connection" checked --> Press [Next] with "Private" checked --> Put rule's name in "Name" box like "PresentationHost" --> Press [Finish]
- After the rule created, Open the rule's properties --> Select [Protocols and Ports] Tab --> Select "UDP" in "Protocol type:" --> Select "Specific Ports" in "Remote port:" and put 22081 in the box below --> Press [OK]
- Hi, TheGarf
firstly sorry may bad english
i would like use your gadget, but not work
.net 4.0 installed
firewall turn off
i use Readynas duo
tested: Win7 home premium x32, Win 7 enterprise x64, Win 7 ultimate x32 (HUN, ENG language) and same error:An error occurred in the application you were using
Startup URI: C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Sidebar\Gadgets\RaidarGadget.gadget\RaidarGadget.xbap
Application Identity: file:///C:/Users/xxx/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows%20Sidebar/Gadgets/RaidarGadget.gadget/RaidarGadget.xbap#RaidarGadget.xbap, Version=0.2.0.92, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=6cafc54d27d557dd, processorArchitecture=msil/RaidarGadget.exe, Version=0.2.0.92, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=6cafc54d27d557dd, processorArchitecture=msil, type=win32
System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
---> System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at RaidarGadget.RaidarGadgetPage.SetTemperatureInfo()
at RaidarGadget.RaidarGadgetPage.UpdateNasStatus(String result)
at RaidarGadget.RaidarGadgetPage.OnDeviceDiscovered(Object sender, MessageEventArgs args)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.RuntimeMethodHandle._InvokeMethodFast
.... more line
What is the problem? What can i do?
Thanks
Szerda
Sorry my bad English - Hi Szerda,
Thanks for your response! The error you sent me leads me to suspect that the gadget has an issue interpreting the temperature text sent to it by the NAS. Usually this is easy to fix. My gadget stores a tiny crash report in your TEMP folder if you could send it to me I'll be able to make a patch. The windows Temp directory can be found here: "C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Temp" where <UserName> is the name of the user you used to log into Windows. The name of the file is in the format of "RaidarLog<DateTime>.log" where <DateTime> is a number representing the date and time of the crash. If there is no file just let the gadget crash again and it should be there. You can post the full contents here on the forum, send it the trough Personal Message system of the forum (for privacy) or mail me here: garfm (at) hotmail (dot) com
Regards,
TheGarf
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