Filed under: Fun, Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware
Torment (or help) your users with MsgBoxToy's Windows alert boxes
by Lee Mathews Nov 5th 2008
While there are certainly some good ways to put MsgBoxToy to use - say, prompting users to save their work or take a computing break - it's also a lot of fun to create dialog boxes simply to mess with your co-workers.
The program's interface is incredibly simple: choose a title, enter up to four lines of text, and enter button labels. You can also select the type of icon to display: stop, alert, question, or information. Click the make button to preview your work, and then save it to a file.
Running [the path to MsgBoxToy]\msgboxtoy.exe /text.txt launches your message. Make sure to give your message a test run, as Windows' security may ask you to confirm the run command. Just untick the always ask box and that will be the end of that.
Because MsgBox uses a command line switch to display alerts, it plays well with the Windows Task Scheduler. With Vista and Windows 7's support for on event tasks, MsgBoxToy can actually be put to very good use in a workplace setting.
It's a quick, easy way to create Windows message boxes. Whether you use your new software powers for good or evil is entirely up to you.
The program's interface is incredibly simple: choose a title, enter up to four lines of text, and enter button labels. You can also select the type of icon to display: stop, alert, question, or information. Click the make button to preview your work, and then save it to a file.
Running [the path to MsgBoxToy]\msgboxtoy.exe /text.txt launches your message. Make sure to give your message a test run, as Windows' security may ask you to confirm the run command. Just untick the always ask box and that will be the end of that.
Because MsgBox uses a command line switch to display alerts, it plays well with the Windows Task Scheduler. With Vista and Windows 7's support for on event tasks, MsgBoxToy can actually be put to very good use in a workplace setting.
It's a quick, easy way to create Windows message boxes. Whether you use your new software powers for good or evil is entirely up to you.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
BookwormDragon said 1:28PM on 11-05-2008
Ummm, you can already do a simpler version of this in Vista (and probably XP) without any extra software.
Go to task scheduler, create a new task, when you reach the "action" tab, create a new action and choose "Display a Message" instead of "Start A Program" in the drop-down menu. Fill in the message form (for a multi-line message, it's easier to format in Notepad and then Copy and Paste into the message box), Click ok, adjust the rest of the task settings (scheduled time, etc.), and your message is ready to greet the world. No fancy graphics or named buttons, but it gets the job done.
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mouser said 2:58PM on 11-05-2008
Ummm, Dr.Windows is a free program that has a bunch of fun trick windows messages, lets you make your own, can be configured to automatically pop up messages to trick your friends, etc. No windows scheduler needed:
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/DrWindows/index.html
-mouser (Dr. Windows author)
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muchu said 3:22PM on 11-05-2008
How do programs like this get coverage on here.. any idiot with half a year of schooling could make this in an hour.
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lars said 4:12PM on 11-05-2008
Yes, because it's just so hard to create a textfile, rename it to give it a .vbs extension and put this in:
MsgBox "Never gonna give you up"+vbCrLf+"Never gonna let you down"+vbCrLf+"Never gonna run around and desert you", 48, "I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling"
Then just double-clicking it ;P
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