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)

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.

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)

• 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)

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.

More bug fixes, mostly to do with Category Icons.

Major:

• Relative Paths now used for all storage, old DB files will be invalid, and a full load will happen on the first run.

Bug Fixes:

• All filename comparisons now done ignoring case, (Another cause of odd icons)
• If only an open icon was defined for a category it wouldn’t load, fixed.
• Changing an icon or hint for a category did not mark the list as modified, fixed.
• Loading from DB marked all apps as External (and therefore removable) fixed.

Download Here: Portable Apps Menu Mod R28 (Version History)

Major:

• Category icons can be customized for each individual category (right click, Category, Edit Category)
• External Apps (Apps on the drive but outside the portableapps tree can be added to the menu)

Minor:

• Last Sort type is remembered and new categories, and apps should be sorted correctly.
• A custom hint can be set for each category.
• Themes now sorted in menu.
• If no changes are made to the apps, the database is not resaved on exit.

Bug Fixes:

• Category Icon issues on theme changes and reloading fixed
• Top scroll button not repositioning correctly fixed.
  (themes\default\theme.ini must be installed along with new menu)
• Applications missorting on reload fixed.

Download Here: Portable Apps Menu Mod R27 (Version History)

• You can now resort the entire list from the Options/Sort Apps Menu
• Ctrl+ and Ctrl- Now Open or Close all SubMenus (I’ll add an option to the Category popup menu to expand or contract the current tree in a future patch)
• Page-Up and Page-Down work in the menu for faster scrolling

And some Bug Fixes (This list includes R25 Bug Fixes)

• Theme loading not using default values if an option isn’t defined
• Default Theme Videos text in the wrong position
• Fonts not loading for some items
• Error if appbutton listsize changed between themes
• Icon Strangeness in Categories (numerous odd things I think I’ve managed to fix)

Download Here: Portable Apps Menu Mod R26 (Version History)

• Custom Caption Buttons Added
• Categories can now be Renamed, Note: that only that caption of the Category changes, in the background it will still have its original name (Which is displayed in the category name dialog).
• Option added to theme to turn off menu shadow (Takes effect on restart)
• Added CustomImageExitClick for a custom button to close the menu then run an app.
• First display was sometimes showing menu shadow before apps were loaded.
• Now saves data before running any ExecOnClose apps
• Large Font size not being kept when scrolling bug fixed
• Category Name prompt incorrect if no locale file
• Restructured Theme loading to get rid of massive amounts of duplicated coding

Download Here: Portable Apps Menu Mod R24 (Version History)

• sbdButton Items (Existing Documents, Music etc.) and the new Custom buttons have a Margin entry which is how far from the left of the button that the text starts, the default is 33 (its what the default buttons had set)
• Custom Buttons (not images) can be added they are the same as the existing Music etc. buttons and as such have no image themselves so you’ll have to add your own custom image if you want it to look the same as the existing ones. The buttons are always on top of any images so they get the mouse click.
• A new CustomImageExitClick function has been added that custom buttons or images can set their OnClick value to, if it used, the menu will close, and the very last thing it will do is run the app specified in the buttons PathToApp field.
• There is a shadow option in the [frmMenu] section of the theme.ini file, it will turn the menu shadow off, one point is that this will NOT take effect untill the menu is restarted with that theme active (no other way around it I’m afraid)

Example:
[CustomButtons]
0=BTN_XrX

[BTN_XrX]
Height=30
Width=120
Left=269
Top=374
Font=Tahoma
Margin=33
ColorR=255
ColorG=255
ColorB=255
Bold=1
Italic=0
Underline=0
StrikeOut=0
Caption=XrX Info
PathToApp=http://portableapps.xrx.ca/
(A custom button can also have an onclick value)

[CustomImages]
0=IMG_XrX
1=IMG_Eject

[IMG_XrX]
Height=24
Width=24
Left=272
Top=377
Path=Theme\XrX.ico

[IMG_Eject]
Height=20
Width=20
Left=350
Top=10
OnCLick=CustomImageExitClick
Path=Theme\Eject.bmp
PathToApp={THEME}\EjectScript.exe

• Scrollbutton display on load fixed.
• Theme offsets and fonts are once again loaded.
• Different Icons for Open and Closed SubMenus. (A step towards custom icons)
• Submenus will completely displayed (if possible) when opened.
• Autoscroll if up or down buttons held down.
• Disable Dragging Option Added.
• Explore Here Option Added.
• Bug where Restore Position snapped to screen fixed.
• Translators acknowledged in help window.

Download Here: Portable Apps Menu Mod R23 (Version History)