SyMenu Forum

Gianluca

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23/07/2018 Topic: SyMenu PAF Program Suite Gianluca Administrator	Dear ClintBarton, Since you linked that previous post, you already know that the PAF plugin is only a simple front end piece for automate the PortableApps program indexing. Do you want the plugin source code? OK I can give it away but you need to re-create all the server side logic by scratch and it's not so easy. And no, I haven't the source code for the server side anymore. Anyway I have some questions for you. SyMenu currently comes with 1288 freeware programs (go to Get new apps to find them all). All this comes thanks to the SyMenu publishing system which is called SPS. It's a native system, constantly updated, and the resulting suite is always growing. Some of those programs are packed exactly from the PortableApps guys. Then what are the lacking programs from PortableApps you need so much? Do you know that you can add to the SyMenu suite whatever program you need thanks to the SPS system? And eventually share it to the world enriching this already great suite? In other words instead of becoming a developer for an old plugin, why don't you become an editor for a certain number of SPS programs? If you want you could even add all the lacking programs from PortableApps web site.
25/07/2018 Topic: Automated Script Versions Gianluca Administrator	Nope. The SPS system relies only in itself. So if you download a new package and update an app without outside the SyMenu domain, the SPS system won't be notified about the new version and it will want to download the program again. Anyway if you are sure about the version you've downloaded and installed, you can create a script that updates all the v.x.y.sps.version files that you find in every SPS program root. It's the native way the SPS system uses to keep track of the downloaded version. BTW I suggest you not rely to much on the version button because the main executable file version could be different from the program version (think about a launcher file and the related main executable file... all the PAF programs suffer of this imbalance). In some occasions you can find programs that don't carry the version number in the right way, right according the Windows recommendations (for example SUMO, TOR and many others). More, you can find programs that assert to have a certain version (for example 5.31) and carry a different one (5.3.1.0). Jason it's a real mess, my advise, leave the SPS system in charge and you'll save yourself a bad headache.
01/08/2018 Topic: Automated Script Versions Gianluca Administrator	It's a good solution. It's easy to implement, it preserves the updating logic currently available, it leaves room for the advanced users to decide what's the best update strategy for them. But we have some drawbacks: 1) the first time you activate the forced update on a 0.00 program, SyMenu will have to update that program because it finds nothing inside the version file. Anyway I think it's tolerable. The alerting system doesn't like me so much. It will be very difficult to explain to the users and it requires a user intervention. I don't like it; 2) probably the option (BTW I like this name: "Override the build in update") should be available for every 0.00 program and not globally. This grants a more granular control over the update process but it's very difficult to implement it because I don't have a DB for the installed applications so I don't know where to store these preferences. I fear my only choice will be to implement the global option. Well it's true that the file version could be used as a DB. Writing the version inside it, is already a sort of DB, but I'm not so happy about this approach. Anyway this issue is real and I have to solve it in one way or another, but I have to think about the possible solution a little more because better solutions always exist. For example a different approach will be to leave all as it is today and implement a little local DB for the SPS. This will make obsolete all the file version system. This approach, that is for sure more demanding and complex, will solve a lot of other problems too so what's the best one? Anyway this is not the priority today. If you follow this forum you already know the two things I'm working on in this period. The first one is the complete program redraw that allows me to make it compatible with high resolution monitors. How is this task going? Well, very well, I've just started it and it'll be a long activity, but I've already found the right way and I can ensure that it will be available with the next version. The second one is the automatic closing for every program opened by SyMenu when SyMenu close. Naturally it'll be an optional feature.
17/09/2018 Topic: How To Have Programs in a Side-By-Side Gianluca Administrator	Nope. It's been asked for a long time but I always find some better features to implement. In this period I've been working on SyMenu graphics but not for this particular feature. Maybe in future.
26/09/2018 Topic: Suggest new features Gianluca Administrator	Hello Apex23, You are the first one giving me a feedback on the separate launcher feature and I'm very happy to see that it's useful for someone. Your ideas are very good but very demanding too. I need to know that they are useful for a certain number of users before implementing it. The top most feature instead is very easy to implement so consider it done with the next version. Thank you! P.S. you tooltip on steroids idea is terrific. I really like it. If and when I have time to re-implement it, I'll probably create something reusable for the contextual menu too.
03/10/2018 Topic: Suggest new features Gianluca Administrator	Absolutely you are not bothering me. BTW the floating button change is a feature already available. Read here https://www.ugmfree.it/SyMenuManual.aspx#Customization
04/10/2018 Topic: AdwCleaner and other utils unable to download Gianluca Administrator	Hello Frustrated, I hope your nick is not due to these little problems with SyMenu. I've just updated the download links for Mozilla Firefox and HWiNFO. I think the reasons for which the links were broken are not so interesting, so refresh your file definitions and try to download them again please. This time everything will work well. For AdwCleaner and GPU-Z I'm not the right person to solve because they are property of a different editor, but I can suggest you a fast workaround: put the web site http://dpcdn-s13x.pl in your AV whitelist. Infact, according to VirusTotal, the only AV that thinks that that web site is dangerous is BitDefender https://www.virustotal.com/#/url/a7b9d6fe19affd1ddf45f2f8ceb3590181fe5d7d6741aa7eec1cf13dbcff27ff/detection BitDefender can be the best AV around, but when you are alone telling something and all the others think differently... you should ask yourself some questions
05/10/2018 Topic: AdwCleaner and other utils unable to download Gianluca Administrator	I forced a re-analyzation and now we have one report and one suspicios, but ESET tell us it's all OK. https://www.virustotal.com/#/url/a7b9d6fe19affd1ddf45f2f8ceb3590181fe5d7d6741aa7eec1cf13dbcff27ff/detection Well I don't know how to help you for that. I'm not responsible neither ESET nor for the web site Regarding the SyMenu CPU high consume is a news for me. SyMenu is very demanding for disk resources because, at start up, it read a lot of its information from the disk and it searches programs all over your PC, but CPU... Surely the way you built your menu (a single level for all the programs) doesn't help, neither you nor the system. SyMenu makes a large use of the memory, if you have an endless first level the memory occupation can be so huge that your system decides to page some of it on disk, and each time you try to open the menu, the system needs to read the lacking memory information forth. Try to split your SyMenu configuration in subfolders maintaining a first level with 10/15 elements and probably this helps a lot.
15/10/2018 Topic: New SyMenu alpha version 6.06 Gianluca Administrator	Ta-dah!!! And after almost three months of hard work and pain I finally have something to publish. Why this new version has been so difficult to create? And what will the new features be? Well in this version I've implemented absolutely nothing new but I have rewritten completely the UI application (again). So you'll have a new fantastic graphics in SyMenu, won't you? Nope. I've completely rewritten the program graphics to make it compatible with the hi-res screen monitors. The hi-res monitors (full HD or UHD or greater) are becoming more and more common in desktop and notebook PCs. With these monitors Windows allows you to zoom everything to avoid too smaller fonts or graphical objects. If the host program is able to manage the different zooming setting, Windows grants a good up-scaling of every objects. The current SyMenu version solved this problem telling Windows to zoom its forms as they are images. That means an ugly blur effect of everything. If you every seen SyMenu in a UHD monitor you know what I intend. Now SyMenu is able to draw every component and above all to relocate every component, accordingly with the system dpi zoom, granting you a real new experience with the program. So why do I release an alpha and not the usual beta? Because I need your feedback. I tested the program at various resolutions and with several dpi zoom settings but the real world is more complex than my test environment and so difficult to master. So if you use a system dpi zoom greater than 100%, please download this version and test it. If you discover a graphical glitch or an error, I strongly prefer a direct message than a feedback here in the forum, because I surely need to send you a fix to try to solve the problem. This kind of dynamics are not suitable for a public area. Anyway if you consider your remarks worth, please post it here. Conversely if you use a system dpi zoom of 100%, you won't have any reason to test it. SyMenu 6.06 alpha version https://www.ugmfree.it/public/symenubeta/SyMenu.6.06.6862.alpha.zip
20/10/2018 Topic: HWinfo unable to download Gianluca Administrator	It works now. I updated the program version.
29/10/2018 Topic: New SyMenu alpha version 6.06 Gianluca Administrator	k3tonan wrote: I have noticed that with the Configuration menu I am unable to adjust the left side column to expand it to show full names of applications. In my opinion here we have two issues. 1) The left area has never been resizable but in this new version I reduced it too much. I can extend it with the same proportion that it has before. 2) In your image the horizontal scrolling is lacking. Have you cut your image perhaps? Or is it hidden by the program? BTW to post a perfect bug report, please tell me your current screen resolution and the custom dpi zoom.
31/10/2018 Topic: Performance of SyMenu Gianluca Administrator	How many items do you have at the root level?
01/11/2018 Topic: Performance of SyMenu Gianluca Administrator	That is the problem. When you locate too much items on the root you need a very powerful PC. My advise is to entirely delete the two suites and download them again with a different "items locator" setting. For example choose the second or fourth option. Read here for further information about the items locator https://www.ugmfree.it/SyMenuManual.aspx#SPSItemLocators And please report if the solution works.
05/11/2018 Topic: SyMenu shortcuts don't work if active app Elevated Gianluca Administrator	BTW the real problem is that SyMenu is not able to subscribe a shortcut, system wide, that can be called regardless the program elevation. Other software are able to do that so it's only a problem in my code but, until now, I haven't found the trick to solve this issue. Your workaround is a bit too complex, I agree with your idea to make the floating button appears again (https://www.ugmfree.it/SyMenuManual.aspx#Advanced_menu_Options_General). If it is too big for you, you can change the image with one more appropriate (https://www.ugmfree.it/SyMenuManual.aspx#Customization).
13/11/2018 Topic: Update cleared params? Gianluca Administrator	According to the SPS I've done for UltraSearch, there are no program arguments automatically added to the configuration. The SPS system should preserve everything you set as parameter by your own. Anyway the bugs are always there to step on the cake so, if you help me, we can verify the bug. 1) Go to the UltraSearch folder and change the file name "x.y.z.sps.version". You only have to change the file name in something like "w.k.h.sps.version". The important thing is that the suffix ".sps.version" remains. 2) Now your UltraSearch is outdated. So open SyMenu, goes to "Get new apps" and update UltraSearch. 3) When it is updated, check if you program arguments are still there. If they are not, we have a bug for sure.
19/11/2018 Topic: New SyMenu version 6.06 Gianluca Administrator	...And the new version is finally out. These are the news: I've completely rewritten the program graphics to make it compatible with the hi-res screen monitors. The hi-res monitors (full HD or UHD or greater) are becoming more and more common in desktop and notebook PCs. With these monitors Windows allows you to zoom everything to avoid too smaller fonts or graphical objects. If the host program is able to manage the different zooming setting, Windows grants a good up-scaling of every objects. The current SyMenu version solved this problem telling Windows to zoom its forms as they are images. That means an ugly blur effect of everything. If you every seen SyMenu in a UHD monitor you know what I intend. Now SyMenu is able to draw every component and above all to relocate every component, accordingly with the system dpi zoom, granting you a real new experience with the program. This is a copy and paste from the forum message where I published the alpha version but, really, nothing has changed from then, bug fixes apart. A big, really big thanks to all the users that gave me feedback on graphical issues, problems, glitches, suggestions or whatever. If you find any other problem, please let me know but I think that the great ones are finally gone. Enjoy.
20/11/2018 Topic: Show/Hide hidden SyItems Gianluca Administrator	Hi sl23. I don't like very much the idea. An hidden element is an element that, for certain reasons, you don't want to delete but you don't want to see too. I don't care a lot what the users do with this feature, but it seems a good one because it introduces a scale of existence instead of a simple switch. You are suggesting to modify the middle level behavior through an option that makes it effective, hiding the item, or uneffective showing the item as a normal one. A behavior like this is useless and confusing. But let's analyze your scenario. It seems you need instead a system to activate or deactivate certain profiles. Today you have two profiles, the larger one with all the items and the smaller one with the minimal configuration. But we can't exclude you can have more than two, for example according to the PC you are working on, to the day of the week, to the task you are busy with. So why don't imagine a multi profile system? What comes to my mind is a label system. You can assign one or more labels to every items. When you switch on the profile identified with a certain label, you can see only the items with that label. If we consider the possibility to implement a label system, we will find out that the hide attribute is nothing but a simple label (the "hide" label). And the "normal" items we have today are again already implicitly labeled with a certain label too (for example "default"). So we can choose to see only the items labeled with "default", or the items labeled with "hide", or both of them. Naturally it'll be possible to add new labels with univocal names and assign them to any items. The only label we can't modify or delete will be the "default" one. Anyway an item labeled with "default" can receive other labels, or we can remove the "default" from it. The label switcher can be located on the contextual menu, while the label manager will be located on the configuration form. A great improvement and a big really work, but I think it's feasible. What do you think? Can be useful in your case? Can be useful for other scenarios? To implement this feature I need to get positive feedback from the users because my TODO list is so big and full of interesting features that today I'm in trouble in choosing what's next.
22/11/2018 Topic: Show/Hide hidden SyItems Gianluca Administrator	Well I spoke about profiles but my mind was on a completely different concept that will solve all your problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faceted_classification . As Internet users, in our common experience the faceted classification has become very famous because of gmail. The Google mail introduced the labels from the very start and I think that feature was the real game changer that leads gmail to destroy all its competitors. So in our scenario you won't have different profiles but facets (labels) that you can attribute to any custom item. I haven't studied the solution yet but it could be something like this: - you add a new item (item A) and it automatically takes a label called "default"; - the contextual menu, by default, shows only the items tagged with the "default" label. Up to here nothing changes; - now from the item A you can remove the label "default". The item will be unattainable from the context menu (in today concept it becomes hidden); - you add the new label "profile A" to the item A. The context menu still doesn't show it; - you set a new display to the context menu: you choose to include the labels "default" and "profile A". The context menu shows your item A and all the others; - you set a new dispaly to the context menu: you remove the labels "default" and leave checked the label "profile A". The context menu shows only your item A and the built-in elements which are always neutral; - for what it's worth you can remove from the context menu display all the labels and now your menu shows you only the built-in elements and no custom item. Nice huh!
22/11/2018 Topic: Config form enhancements. Gianluca Administrator	"copy the contents of the current index field" I can't understand what's that exactly. Can you explain it better? Thanks!
23/11/2018 Topic: Show/Hide hidden SyItems Gianluca Administrator	It has to. I need to think which kind of UI is more suitable for this purpose. The menu should have a new button or a new item where all the labels are available. The better one is probably a new button on the title like this one When you click it a new window pops up and, through it, you can select all the labels you want to include in your current display. Naturally, the label management will be delegate to the configuration form. Well I don't hide that this feature is a really nice one and I like it very much, but, as I told you, I need to evaluate the program priority because the graphical implementations have taken too many months and the new features development are a bit still.