SyMenu Forum

Gianluca

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16/09/2015 Topic: X-Software Gianluca Administrator	I emailed to the Winpenpack chief for the licensing problem and to know something about the updating for X-Calibre. I let you know something ASAP. I perfectly agree with you regarding Calibre. If you crash on a too long file path it's up to you to shorten it... Well try to contact the program author and convince him about this new and sane approach.... when I tried by myself I had to give up http://www.mobileread.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-262613.html edited by Gianluca on 16/09/2015
16/09/2015 Topic: .paf Gianluca Administrator	I haven't added CherryTree yet because the program has a little bug when you first start it on Windows 10. I've already reported the issue to the author. For a different reason I won't add dotNETInspector.... well a 12MB program to know if .NET framework is installed is insane!! And the source code weight only 163Kb!!!! The programmer should be a strange person In its place I added .NET Version Detector that does the same thing (a few more things indeed) and weights only 387Kb. About the PAF programs I'm not completely foreclosed to them. If the PAF format is the only valid alternative for a program we can add it. The only cons is that you can't test it in SPS Builder but you can do it in SPS Manager. Create your SPS for the PAF and put it in the _CacheCustom folder of your SyMenu. Then test it with the SPS Manager. What I won't surely do is to add all the PAF programs inside the SPS because alternatives are almost always available. What about the PAF plugin? Well... is there anyone out there that wants to maintain it?
19/09/2015 Topic: .paf Gianluca Administrator	sl23 wrote: Hmmm... I didn't notice the startup bug in Cherrytree, I'm on Win10, upgraded from Win8.1, does that make a difference? EDIT: I just reinstalled Cherrytree and I see where the problem is. It's because the config.ini is empty. Previously, on testing I added my existing file before first start which obviously works fine. This is an instance where SPS Builder needs the ability to add text when creating a file. Unless you leave this to the user? But would need a warning note to state what is necessary. The CherryTree bugs are two and you can reproduce them only if you run it in portable mode and under certain circumstances. This is the bug thread: https://github.com/giuspen/cherrytree/issues/64 Anyway waiting for the next version I put a note on the SPS and published it. sl23 wrote: Not quite sure why you say it can't be tested in SPS Builder? In what way? I setup a few .paf apps and they download, install and run fine. Unless you mean the $PLUGINSDIR folder that's left behind? Exactly. SPS Builder is less accurate in unpacking the paf files. The unmanaged $PLUGINSDIR folder is one example. Indeed the SPS Builder doesn't need to be as accurate as the SPS Manager because you don't need to work with programs managed from the first application, but from the second one. SPS Builder unpacks files only to test the unpacking process. sl23 wrote: .paf plugin - Is it really necessary? I mean, I have simply installed the PA platform into SyMenu/ProgramFiles/PA.c/ and then use it as an auto updater rather than a menu! You are an advanced user, others are not so clever Serious mode now. You are right, the importance of the paf plugin is decreasing more and more as the SPS collection grows. I'll throw it away sooner or later. And this is the reason for which I'm not developing anymore on it. sl23 wrote: [...]not sure if you really want the PA Platform as an SPS? Probably not the way to go, but it's useful until SyMenu covers all the bases Not at all, but you are free to publish a thread in this forum to teach to the other users how to configure the PA Platform. sl23 wrote: One app I'm curious about, 7zip. You only have the 32bit version, is there a reason you don't have the 64bit version? Would it be worth adding the paf version instead so as to have both in one? The 64bit version isn't published because I completely forgot to publish it In this case we have the portable version available natively so I'll publish those one and not the paf version.
19/09/2015 Topic: Necessary folder structure? Gianluca Administrator	I could shorten the SPS folder but not too much. As you propose I could put it inside the SyMenu/ProgramFiles folder instead of SyMenu/ProgramFiles/SPSSuite folder... not a great improvement. On the other hand this change could negatively affect the user's configurations... think about all your SPS programs configured to open certain extensions, or think about the time SyMenu would take to move tons of apps from a folder to another. I'm not worried about the depth of the SPS folder because: 1) actually it is not so deeply located 2) the problem to shorten the path has been already submitted and solved here http://www.ugmfree.it/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=334 thanks to the NTFS symbolic links.
19/09/2015 Topic: right Moseclick very slow when using Gesturemanage Gianluca Administrator	Who haven't had some troubles under Windows 10??? I don't think that the problem could be the SyMenu gesture manager but I had your same right click issue, and with us a lot of other people. The real offender in my case was the NVIDIA CPL Context Menu Extension. The resolution is easy. Here is a complete video about that http://forums.windowscentral.com/ask-question/372470-right-click-desktop-windows-10-very-slow-what-solution.html#post3191000
19/09/2015 Topic: SyMenu Metro App Manager Gianluca Administrator	Yes I know. ASAP I hope to have some time to work on the plugin and include the Windows 10 apps too. It is a really complex task because no documentation exists at the moment but my target is a complete inclusion of Windows apps inside SyMenu. With "inclusion" I mean to have the apps indexed and searchable directly inside SyMenu. Until that moment please consider this plugin as a sort of experiment
19/09/2015 Topic: The SyMenu Portable Suite Gianluca Administrator	Welcome cristov. It depends. There are some editors that are trusted editors. In this case the publication of their SPS files could take a few hours to 24h most. A trusted editor is a person that has written a lot of SPS and whose intention is to take care of his SPS files for long. When an editor shows to be expert in writing SPS, I promote him as trusted and he becomes independent in publishing new and updated SPS. If an editor is not trusted, I have to manually check his SPS to report to him any problem, error or whatever related to his file. ASAP I'll get in touch with you to analyze you first SPS.
20/09/2015 Topic: SyMenu submenus on second monitor Gianluca Administrator	Yes I know that. It's in my TODO list since a long time but it has a very low priority. Sooner or later I'll try to fix it.
20/09/2015 Topic: Auto starting apps... Gianluca Administrator	Yes it's true. Auto start an app is usually a really simple operation but not in SyMenu, because SyMenu is portable. If all you need is simply to execute an application regardless the execution context, you have to configure the item checking Autoexec on Start and activate the Autoexec on Start at the SyMenu highest level (Advanced - Options). But if you start to use SyMenu in portable mode, probably you'll start to have other needs, for example to auto execute an item only in certain machines, or to temporarily avoid the autoexecution. The SyMenu portability carries other features but clearly if you use it in a not portable mode you can't see their usefulness. And starting from the next version you'll have another feature: you can start an app in normal or elevated mode.
22/09/2015 Topic: right Moseclick very slow when using Gesturemanage Gianluca Administrator	Not at all. I have the same configuration but no problem here. How many gestures are configured in you machine? Does the problem solve if you decrease the number of gestures? Have you got the same problem if you replace the right mouse button with the middle mouse button?
13/10/2015 Topic: AppData Gianluca Administrator	Yes the environment variables are not expanded into the fields AppData, HomePath, UserProfile, ProgramFiles. I have to enable this fields too with the SyMenu envronment variable converter. Since without an example I can't help you so much, doesn't a simple . (dot) work inside the AppData field instead of the %WORKING DIRECTORY% environmente variable? Can you try that and report?
13/10/2015 Topic: WinCommand issues Gianluca Administrator	I have a different idea. The SyMenu cmd-like window will become optional in one of the next version because it creates more errors and strange behaviours than I ever imagine. So you have a check to enable the cmd output and another radio button to choose among the standard cmd window or the cmd-like SyMenu window. I know that this sentence doesn't reply to your question but I'm simply saying that in future any bug on the SyMenu cmd windows could be solve using the Windows standard one.
13/10/2015 Topic: Inconsistent current directory Gianluca Administrator	It seems to me that the "strange" behaviour is instead quite normal. If you use a normal program item (SyProgram) you have a starting folder. Any relative paths must start from there. If you use a Windows Command you could have no program, think about a dir command for example. In this case I decided to start it in the SyMenu root folder instead of the natural folder for the cmd.exe (C:\Windows\System32). If you use a normal console program with a SyItem such as a Windows Command element, IMHO, you are forcing the Windows Command element in a strange direction. Use a normal SyProgram in this case. You are talking about portability among SyProgram and Windows Command but it is a not consistent scenario. I surely can describe better the two root paths.
13/10/2015 Topic: Command line option for hot-key Gianluca Administrator	It should be a nice idea. I have to think about a solution to apply that.
17/10/2015 Topic: New SyMenu version 4.13 Gianluca Administrator	And finally the new version is out. In this version I focused on implementing the most requested features and in fixing the most annoying bugs. It's a sort of "power to the community" version It has been a really hard work because on the other hand I have to maintain hundreds of SPS... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well talking about the SPS thing, is there anybody out there that want to help with the SPS management? It's an easy task and it is really rewarding (I'm not speaking about money anyway but honor and glory ) and with a little help you can relieve me and give me the opportunity to focus only on the SyMenu development. It means more versions with a more high frequency for your. Think about it! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now the new features. Compatibility for multi monitor environment A mouse right click on the contextual items changes the current action modifier The taskbar icon tooltip is customizable with free text and SyMenu vars UAC elevation on demand on autostart and autoclose for every item Options form reorganization Increased speed for the SyItem search engine Increased speed during start up From a web link you can directly download the favicon If SyMenu runs in elevated mode the UAC icon is visible in the desktop floating icon too If a feature such as autoexec on start/close and extension manager is disabled at the general level, the relative label is italicized in the configuration form Bug fix SPS: the update process for the SPS programs now works correctly Bug fix: Windows shutdown and restart now is managed correctly and SyMenu is able to serialize the current execution counter, recent files and floating button position ... and other tons of bug fixes Well this is the pure and simple 'what's new' but with this post I'd like to critically comment some of these new features. The multi monitor You asked for this literally since months and now you have it. Please report to me any strange behavior because the multi monitor thing is really difficult to manage in Windows so there will surely be some bugs. The taskbar icon tooltip You can create an useful tooltip that will appear on the task icon. Through the SyMenu variables you can customize the message with e.g the computer name, the architecture (x64, x86), your user name and so on. I'm expecting many suggestions for new SyMenu vars to implement in the next versions. Go hard with that And let me know if you like to have the same tooltip on the floating icon too. Increased speed The Windows 10 upgrade has been shattering for the startup SyMenu performances... and I don't know why. From my research it seems that the .NET framework applications requiring an heavy I/O access (guess what? SyMenu belongs exactly to this category: several little files to read at once) has been slowed down by the new Windows system. I literally jump through hoops to regain performances but now you should have a better situation than before. As usual, thanks MS. Update in SPS What a terrible bug... I don't know why but the SPS program update process was terrible and rarely works as it has. Now I fixed everything so, update, update and update. That's all. Have fun! edited by Gianluca on 18/10/2015
17/10/2015 Topic: During update process SyMenu asks for .NET 3.5 Gianluca Administrator	Some Windows 10 users could experience a request for installation of the .NET 3.5 during SyMenu update process. This is a problem that the current SyMenu version (4.13) will solve but if you have the 4.12 or a lower version and want to update SyMenu in a PC without the .NET framework 2.0 (or 3.0/3.5) your alternatives are: Install the required .NET Framework Update SyMenu manually (download the package directly from the web site and unzip it overwriting the old SyMenu. Your configurations will be saved) Sorry for this inconvenience. edited by Gianluca on 17/10/2015
19/10/2015 Topic: Elevate individual applications (as admin) Gianluca Administrator	I implemented the feature to elevate single programs in autostart/autoclose with the current version (4.13).
19/10/2015 Topic: tooltip for SyMenu system tray icon Gianluca Administrator	The custom tooltip feature has been implemented with the current version (4.13).
19/10/2015 Topic: Request - Read only mode change Gianluca Administrator	SyMenu doesn't manage user accounts (for now) so your last proposal is impossible. A read-only placeholder file valid for every PC except for one, is surely possible but the only idea that comes to my mind is a bit tricky. Currently you create the "artificial" read-only status with a placeholder file named "readonly". Changing the file name in something similar to: readonly.[machinename] you could create a read-only status for every machine except [machinename]. What do you think? In my opinion this solution sucks... but it could work. If instead you'd work in a local network you can reach the target simply playing with the permissions on the file system because SyMenu is clearly sujected to those ones. From a machine you can access to the network share with the write enabled credential and from all the others with read-only ones.
19/10/2015 Topic: Request - Read only mode change Gianluca Administrator	What startup option? The autoexec one? This are related to SyItems not to SyMenu. We need something at a lower level than that one.