Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

I’ve made a ton of improvements to ZenCASH, including, most importantly, the ability to search Backpage.com and Daype.com, as well as Craigslist.org and Kijiji.com. There are also lots of minor updates (audio prompts, keyboard shortcuts, pop-up menus) and cosmetic and interface improvements as well. Assuming no major bugs have crept in, I’m quite happy with the current state of the program and feel like it’s becoming quite a mature application. Here’s the full list of changes in this version:

• Optional audio prompts added on search/scan complete, and on selected fail messages.
• Full support of searching Backpage.com and Daype.com has been added.
• City/section selector page now handles anywhere between 1 and 4 sites.
• Added a pair of labels next to the “clear all” buttons that indicates what site the treeview that the mouse is over is for.
• Clear All / Select All buttons now collapse/expand treeviews as makes sense, and handle the personals section in Backpage correctly
• Internal search load/save file format (.zen files) have been updated to be more adapable and easy to update in the future (old format was difficult to keep backward compatible).
• Embedded proper Microsoft-approved version code and file info via resource file.
• If program is being run for the first time, it offers to properly install it, and then creates and shells embedded install tool.
• Optimized internal string handling for speed.
• When searching Daype, it can be done sitewise via RSS, or normally on a per-section basis via their HTML interface.
• When resizing the dialog, if you come within 150 pixels on each dimension, it will automatically maximize.
• Minimize and maximize buttons added and enabled, and context-help button has been moved down slightly (to accommodate Windows “rules”).
• If software settings changes are cancelled by leaving the tab, a message box informs the user.
• About page now displays lifetime bytes downloaded, searches performed, and search results found (as of this version of course; not retroactive).
• Program now keeps track of recent searches, and if you right click on the “load” button, it offers them up on a “quick-load” pop-up menu.
• Progress bar along bottom has been replaced with a status bar (which includes a progress bar and other information.
• Statusbar displays the file URL being downloaded in its left info pane.
• Added “NEW” search button which is basically just the clear button combined with entering a new name.
• Deep scans of Daype extract the correct date from the entry (otherwise the search uses today’s date for Daype results).
• Added abort search button to the diagnostics page for convenience.
• Total time spent searching and total running time of program are now recorded (and display in the “About” dialog).
• Double clicking on the results list on blank lines no longer tries to view anything.
• Redrew the diagnostic icons to be less garish and match the look of the “help” icon/button.
• Added a few keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+L = Load, Ctrl+S = Save, Ctrl+N = New, Ctrl+G = Go! (and Ctrl+Enter), Ctrl+H = Help, Ctrl+D = Diagnostics Tab, “ESC” keyboard shortcut to close most dialogs.
• Added a pretty radar scope ZenCASH icon animation on the About dialog.
• Added an “author photo” easter egg if you click my name in the About dialog, or press the letter ‘S’.
• Fixed bug where “New Search” dialog was not properly modal.
• If dialog is tall enough and there is room for them, the scan URLs become simultaneously visible rather than simply selectable.

As always, https://zentastic.me/blog/zencash/ has the download link and online help.