Slightly off topic, but I came up with a way to do without ropes, assuming it's not windy. Bought a SupePeg foot for each pole and screw attached them to the poles. Hammer a peg through them and no ropes required. We have four poles running along the annexe, so if there's a bit of wind, we rope the end poles. More wind, the usual rope on every pole. Seems to work really well and not having the damn ropes out the front is great.
They can't go up because they're pegged in.
They cant go out because of the horizontal poles (up the top) that attach to the tent.
The entire awning can go left - right though in wind though, hence wind == ropes on the end poles.
Oh, and the awning can't come off the top of the poles because of the little orange pole toppers (TentWorld have them).