This page lists posts that exist in the database but are currently marked as unpublished (Not Pages.Published). It's useful for finding drafts and scheduled items before they go live.

Dental Implants

By: Paul S Cilwa	Occurred: 8/1/2025	Unpublished	Page Views: 17
Hashtags: #Autobiography
My latest entry in Aging Gratefully.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (22 words)

I am missing upper teeth 1-7 and 9. I'd love to have dental implants so I can play Santa next year.

NamtiraExplorer

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 6/22/2021	Unpublished	Page Views: 3
Hashtags: #Namtira #NamtiraExplorer #VBNET #DesktopShell #FileManager
"A multi-desktop file manager that organizes desktop icons, app shortcuts, " &
Estimated reading time: 2 minute(s) (306 words)

In computing, a shell is a computer program which exposes an operating system's services to a human user or other program. In general, operating system shells use either a command-line interface or graphical user interface, depending on a computer's role and particular operation. It is named a shell because it is the outermost layer around the operating system.

Settings

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 4
Hashtags: #Namtira #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #NamtiraLib #Settings #INIFile #Configuration
An INI-style settings reader/writer with change tracking, nested sections, and deterministic persistence.
Estimated reading time: 9 minute(s) (2058 words)

Whether you call them .INI files, PrivateProfiles, or Settings, they have been around since the earliest days of Windows and they are still everywhere. The Settings class reads and writes INI-style files with change tracking, so the file only gets rewritten when something actually changed. It implements IDisposable for deterministic persistence and handles special file attributes for desktop.ini files.

SystemRegistry

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 4
Hashtags: #Namtira #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #NamtiraLib #SystemRegistry #Registry #Windows #Settings
A simple wrapper for reading and writing application settings in the Windows Registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
Estimated reading time: 2 minute(s) (465 words)

Visual Basic used to provide simple methods for reading and writing the Windows Registry, but those were removed in .NET Core. The SystemRegistry class replaces them with a lightweight wrapper around Microsoft.Win32.Registry, scoped to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software—the only hive that does not require administrator permissions. It implements IDisposable to properly close registry handles.

CommandLineArgs

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 100
Hashtags: #Namtira #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #NamtiraLib #CommandLineArgs #CommandLine #Arguments #Parser
A command-line argument parser that maps positional files and named parameters into a case-insensitive dictionary.
Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s) (1044 words)

Every command-line tool needs to turn that messy array of strings into something useful, and CommandLineArgs does exactly that. It parses positional file paths, named parameters, and boolean flags into a single case-insensitive dictionary--so your tool can focus on its actual job instead of string-splitting.

File System

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 4
Hashtags: #Namtira #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #NamtiraLib #FileCrawler #FolderStroller #ShellIcon
Classes for recursively traversing files and folders, plus shell icon support.
Estimated reading time: 4 minute(s) (855 words)

The file-system tier of NamtiraLib provides classes for recursively walking directory trees—processing every file or every subfolder with a callback delegate, or collecting them into a list. A companion ShellIcon class wraps the Windows shell API for extracting system icons.

ColorWheel

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 3
Hashtags: #Namtira #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #NamtiraLib #ColorWheel #ColorHarmony #HSV #UserControl #WinForms
A WinForms UserControl for selecting mathematically harmonious color schemes via an interactive HSV color wheel.
Estimated reading time: 12 minute(s) (2821 words)

ColorWheel is a Windows Forms UserControl that lets you pick colors by clicking or dragging a marker on an HSV color wheel—with optional harmony modes (complementary, triadic, tetradic, adjacent, monochromatic, and freestyle) that automatically produce a coordinated palette. This is perfect for building theming tools where you want fast, visual color selection and consistent derived colors without hand-calculating offsets or relying on your innate good taste.

FolderTreeView

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 4
Hashtags: #Namtira #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #NamtiraLib #FolderTreeView #TreeView #Folder #FileSync
A TreeView control that displays a folder hierarchy, with folder comparison and synchronization features.
Estimated reading time: 8 minute(s) (1719 words)

The FolderTreeView control inherits from the standard WinForms TreeView and automatically populates itself with the contents of a folder. Set the StartFolderPath property and the tree fills in. A companion FolderTreeItemList class supports comparing two folder trees by date and synchronizing newer files between them.

FontListbox

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 4
Hashtags: #Namtira #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #NamtiraLib #FontListbox #CustomControls #WinForms #Fonts
An owner-drawn ListBox control that displays installed fonts, each previewed in its own typeface.
Estimated reading time: 4 minute(s) (762 words)

FontListbox is a composite UserControl that wraps an owner-drawn ListBox. Each row shows the font’s display name in a standard UI typeface followed by a sample string rendered in the font itself, so the user can visually browse every loaded font. It works with the FontFileInfo and FontFileList classes from the NamtiraFonts module and supports drag-and-drop as well as a FontSelected event.

ListBuilder

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 3
Hashtags: #Namtira #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #NamtiraLib #ListBuilder #DualListBox #CustomControls #WinForms #UserControl
A dual-listbox UserControl for selecting, ordering, and customizing items from a supply pool—the classic Available/Chosen pattern with drag-and-drop, reorder, and custom-add.
Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s) (993 words)

ListBuilder is a composite UserControl that implements the classic dual-listbox pattern: a pool of available items on the left, a list of chosen items on the right, with buttons and drag-and-drop to transfer and reorder between them. A bottom row lets the user type in a custom item that does not appear in the original pool. This is the same interaction model used in Outlook's column chooser and many rules/wizard dialogs throughout Windows.

OrientationGrid

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 4
Hashtags: #Namtira #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #NamtiraLib #OrientationGrid #Orientation #Alignment #CustomControls #WinForms #UserControl
A compact 3x3 grid of buttons for selecting a position or alignment—useful for crop alignment, watermark placement, and similar orientation pickers.
Estimated reading time: 2 minute(s) (385 words)

OrientationGrid is a tiny UserControl that arranges nine flat buttons in a 3×3 grid, each representing a position: TopLeft, TopCenter, TopRight, MiddleLeft, Center, MiddleRight, BottomLeft, BottomCenter, and BottomRight. Click a button and the control highlights it using ForeColor, sets the Orientation property, and raises OrientationChanged. It is ideal for crop-alignment pickers, watermark placement selectors, and any UI that needs a quick spatial position choice.

ShadowLabel

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 4
Hashtags: #Namtira #VisualBasic #VBNET #ClassLibrary #NamtiraLib #ShadowLabel #CustomControls #WinForms #Label
A Label control that paints its text with a configurable drop shadow, adding depth to WinForms headers and captions.
Estimated reading time: 4 minute(s) (833 words)

ShadowLabel inherits from the standard WinForms Label and overrides OnPaint to draw the text twice—once offset in a shadow color, then again at the normal position in the foreground color. The result is a label that casts its own drop shadow, perfect for headers or any text that needs to stand out against a busy background.

Namtira: SqueezeBox control

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 3
Hashtags: #Namtira #NamtiraExplorer #UserControl #PostFilterProperties
Creating the basic SqueezeBox user control.
Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s) (1174 words)

Visual Basic comes with a number of splitable panel-type containers. However, in my initial experiments, I found they had three major problems with regard to this project.

Namtira: SqueezePanel control

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 4
Hashtags: #Namtira #NamtiraExplorer #UserControl
Creating the basic SqueezePanel user control and tying it into the SqueezeBox container.
Estimated reading time: 9 minute(s) (2020 words)

Now that we have the basic SqueezeBox control working (and no, we aren't done with it, yet), we are going to create a minimal, special control to reside within it. This control, called the SqueezePanel, is not a general-purpose control--That is, because of its specialization, there's truly no reason why anyone would ever want to use it in a stand-alone fashion. And, therefore, we don't want it to show up in the Toolbox--in fact, we'll want the SqueezeBox to create these panels automatically, when the SqueezeBox itself is deposited onto a form (or another container control). And the easiest way to make this happen, is to create the new control as a class member of SqueezeBox!.

Namtira: 'another' control

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 10
Hashtags: #Namtira #NamtiraExplorer #UserControl
Creating the basic 'another user control.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (3 words)

Waiting for text...

Namtira: 'another' control

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 10
Hashtags: #Namtira #NamtiraExplorer #UserControl
Creating the basic 'another user control.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (3 words)

Waiting for text...

Namtira: 'another' control

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 10
Hashtags: #Namtira #NamtiraExplorer #UserControl
Creating the basic 'another user control.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (3 words)

Waiting for text...

Namtira: 'another' control

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 10
Hashtags: #Namtira #NamtiraExplorer #UserControl
Creating the basic 'another user control.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (3 words)

Waiting for text...

Namtira: 'another' control

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 10
Hashtags: #Namtira #NamtiraExplorer #UserControl
Creating the basic 'another user control.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (3 words)

Waiting for text...

Namtira: 'another' control

By: Paul S Cilwa	Posted: 5/1/2020	Unpublished	Page Views: 10
Hashtags: #Namtira #NamtiraExplorer #UserControl
Creating the basic 'another user control.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s) (3 words)

Waiting for text...

Unpublished

Drafts and scheduled posts that are not yet published.

This page lists posts that exist in the database but are currently marked as unpublished (Not Pages.Published). It's useful for finding drafts and scheduled items before they go live.