XrX Portable Apps Info

Rumors of my demise have been grossly exaggerated.

I got snowed under at work, between people on holidays and people off sick (myself included) it’s been a crazy 5 weeks.

September is always fun, most the clients are all back from holidays, all of a sudden machines that have been ignored over the summer need to be running properly (the kids are back in school) so we are hopping, this is a good thing, but the hours can be a killer.

I hope to actually do some work on the menu this coming weekend, I’ll be taking a look at the latest PAM and going to go through a number of suggestions I’ve gotten as well as a couple bugs found by a local user (she’s good at discovering obscure bugs, how she does it I don’t know but when her email points out that if you click such and such 7 times then try to exit such and such happens it makes you wonder)

Slow progress to be sure, but progress just the same.

I haven’t given up on the mod, but have been run off my feet at work with new programs, people on holidays, new clients, designing a new logo, and clients starting to arrive back from holidays, it’s been a bit nuts.   (Whats a holiday?)

I’m working on a properties dialog where you can

• Change the icon for an app
• Change the popup hint for an app
• Change the same stuff you can now (autorun, hide, caption)
• Set exec on close advanced options
  • Run an alternate exe on close
  • Provide command line arguments to close program
  • Only run the exec on close exe IF the menu item has been run this session
• Add miscellaneous notes about an app

I’m also looking at adding the following features

• Run As… Right click option
• Run All Option for a Category (I have a category with apps that are just for working with client sites, and all of them are usually up at the same time so I could just right click on the ‘Client’ category and select Run All

And then there are some items I’m experimenting with just for fits and giggles

• More themable menu buttons.
• A no theme option (I hate to say it but I’d really prefer if the thing looked just like a regular window)
• Syncing
• Profiles (ie: one menu for work and one for play, just pick the profile under options and the menu changes)
• Remote app, I’d like to load a data file off my home server from wherever I am using ssh before running an app, and save it back when I’m done, this is for two reasons, first syncing the data, and second the data isn’t on the USB key if it’s lost, I suppose I could use truecrypt to the same end, but it’s an experiment. This isn’t really a menu item, just something I’ve been playing with in conjunction with the menu.

Just bug fixes (That why it’s put out there for testing )

Bug Fixes:

• Edit Category Dialog Not Linked to Buttons Fixed
• Adding an App, or Changing a Category Icon Cause categories to not reload properly on menu refresh, Fixed.
• Catgeory changes were lost if the menu was refreshed before exiting, Fixed
• Renaming a category did not resort if the current sort order is not manual.

Download Here: Portable Apps Menu Mod R30 (Version History)

Another release, when looking at a bug in the last version having to do with moving items, I noticed it was a pain to move an app more than two or three positions, so I’ve added a Move Using Keyboard option.

• Apps can now be moved using the keyboard or mouse scroll wheel
• When a new external app or category is added then view will shift so the added item is visible
• If an app is moved to a category, the view will be shifted, and the category opened if necessary so the item is visible.
• Hopefully transparent to the user are some changes to the internal structure, I’m trying to get the AppObject cleaned up as I may be using some ideas from the code when I start helping with the original menu, so test away.

Download Here: Portable Apps Menu Mod R29 (Version History)

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Don’t you just hate designing logos, I spent a good part of the day working on an update of my companies logo
(The real job, I own the company which really means nothing, I end up working more hours than anyone else there)

Anyway the logo hasn’t been updated in almost 20 years years so I figured it was about time, I may end up going to an outside design house but figured I would play with it first. The old logo featured a 3 1/2 inch floppy which was state of the art at the time, I’m thinking a CD or DVD would be a good replacement, but have been having trouble getting it to look like a CD in black and white (for faxing etc.)

I know this has nothing to do with the menu, but the menu isn’t the only thing going on.