19/05/2020 Topic: Request menu navigation Gianluca Administrator	It's exactly what I'm usually doing. I set different shortcuts for every PC (local and remote one) and it works well. At the beginning it's difficult to memorize the different shortcuts but then it works very well.
23/05/2020 Topic: Window soon would have Winget package Gianluca Administrator	MS does not conceive something like program portability because program portability is evil Imagine the IT manager of your office or school who is not able to control what you are executing in his machines... it's a nightmare for him. And MS is still extremely devoted to the businness/school environments needs, even in a period when they are opening their codes, they are supporting open source projects and communities, they are even opening up to Linux.... Even today a project like SyMenu, that is able to create a portable environment regardless the hosting PC policies, is the enemy. And in fact if you check the Windows Package Manager yaml documentation you can read this: InstallerType: string # enumeration of supported installer types (exe, msi, msix)If you don't include zip, rar, 7zip, it means you are sending a clear message to the world. Anyway, since SyMenu has got an exe installer (it's not a true installer, it's a 7zip solid package) we can do an attempt to add a manifest for it and we'll see. The SyMenu exe package doesn't add itself to the Windows Start menu and to the Control Panel Program removal snippet, so I fear it'll be rejected but who cares... I compiled a manifest file that you can find below. I can't assure it's perfect but it can be a good point to start. Is there someone who can take care of it? I have no time to check the MS Code of Conduct, the contributing guidelines, respond to PR and so on. If anyone is willing to help we can try it. Id: UGMFree.SyMenu Name: SyMenu Version: 6.11.7419 Publisher: UGMFree Author: UGMFree License: Copyright UGMFree LicenseUrl: https://www.ugmfree.it/SyMenuManual.aspx#Licence MinOSVersion: 10.0.0.0 Homepage: https://www.ugmfree.it Description: A portable menu launcher and a Start Menu replacer that is even able to automatically index any application installed on the host pc. It's integrated with a large suite of freeware programs. Tags: "SyMenu,freeware,portable,start menu" InstallerType: exe Installers: - Arch: x64, x86 Url: https://www.ugmfree.it/Download/SyMenu/SyMenuPackage.exe Sha256: C7D1B5ADAFD55E096A86CEFA19C7CAB821C864AFC6D463B474DD50105FD8C174 Switches: Silent: -o[destinationPath] -y
31/05/2020 Topic: SyMenu Update freezes at "copying" Gianluca Administrator	It seems to be an AntiVirus lock. The copy process is the moment in which your package is copied from a temporary folder, where it has been prepared, to your SyMenu programs folder. Try to temporarily disable your AV and update Audacity. Another option is that your SyMenu program folder is located in a device that is lacking on space. Try to check if your disk is full. Last workaround. Go to your temp folder (C:\Users[user]\AppData\Local\Temp\) and delete everything. You'll find some locked folders and files but it's not a problem you can leave them where they are. The clean up is only to ease the next actions. Start the Audacity updated from SyMenu. When SyMenu suspends, kill it (poor SyMenu......!!) Now inside your temp folder, you can easily find a new folder called "Audacity-and-something-else". Take all the files and folders you find inside the Audacity folder and manually copy them all to your target folder that will be in a path similar to this one: X:\SyMenu\programfiles\spssuite\symenusuite\Audacity_sps\ This way you are exactly reproducing the process SyMenu uses to update your Audacity and you will probably find the same problems SyMenu faces on. Thanks to this attempt you can give me some more information to solve the problem. BTW thanks for asking about my condition. I'm well, my family is well, and finally our country started the normalization process. But guys, it has been very hard for us! I hope you and all the SyMenu users are well now. And I hope the situation is going to improve even in UK, USA and Brazil that seems to be the most affected countries right now.
01/06/2020 Topic: Easier SyMenuItem.xml access Gianluca Administrator	Hi Dawid, It's an old issue and I thought it was forgotten... Anyway today it's not possible to have the configuration files in plain text. When we talked about this topic, I had a different opinion than today. Today I'm thinking to abandon the configuration on physical files and move them to SQLite. We already have the SyMenu logs stored on SQLite and it works quite well. No data corruption (until today), really fast reading and writing, quite compact file. So why not moving the old configuration zipped files on a special SQLite database? You will need a SQLite editor to change the configuration, but I think the direct configuration it's an advanced task and the advanced user should be able to modify a data even if it stored on a DB. What do you think about it?
02/06/2020 Topic: Easier SyMenuItem.xml access Gianluca Administrator	The behavior you are experiencing is really weird. When Windows is shutting down, it alerts all the opened programs and services to shut down too and it can have various behaviors as a response. Think about a text editor with an opened document not yet saved. The editor refuses to close and alerts back Windows that the user must take an action before shutting down. It's when Windows tells you that some programs are not closing and ask you if you it has to come back to the system or force the closing. SyMenu doesn't need this kind of user intervention. When it receive the shutting down alert, it saves its configuration files and close itself. Windows is patient and should wait for all the programs replies so the disk speed is nor important here... it's not a race. In your case it seems that some part of this process doesn't work as it should but I fear it's on the OS side. Probably some settings changed this behavior or you are normally shutting down the system with the force parameter, instead of leaving it gently take its time... I can't help you more because it's the first time I'm reported with this problem related to SyMenu. Try to search on the Internet and if you find the solution, please report it here too. For the SQLite solution is still in my mind and there's not a real plan to implement it for now. I have to understand if it's a real useful solution for a real problem or it's only an exercise in style...
02/06/2020 Topic: Easier SyMenuItem.xml access Gianluca Administrator	You are right. Technically switch between the zip file and xml file would be a trivial implementation but sincerely I can't see a real usefulness in this. After a period in which I implemented tons of options, I realized that SyMenu has become too complex. There are literally dozens of options that nobody uses and that contribute to over complicate the program ease of use and the program source code. My feeling today is similar to someone who is walking on eggs because every time I implement/change something in SyMenu, I risk to break something else. For example is there anyone out there using the desktop shortcuts? https://www.ugmfree.it/SyMenuManual.aspx#DesktopShortcut Or the command line switches? https://www.ugmfree.it/SyMenuManual.aspx#CommandLine Or the extension manager? https://www.ugmfree.it/SyMenuManual.aspx#Extension_Manager I fear there are not enough users to justify these kind of features. My future plan is to simplify SyMenu to grant an easier experience even to newbie users. This is the reason because I don't like the idea to implement a double management for the configuration files.
03/06/2020 Topic: SyMenu Update freezes at "copying" Gianluca Administrator	Well done. I hope that other users will be helped by your research. And I hope that the Acronis guys fix their software
15/06/2020 Topic: Can't seem to launch vscode elevated... Gianluca Administrator	The reason is quite complex. In the past I did a lot of researches about the program execution in elevated mode and I discovered this strange Windows behavior. When I execute a program I use a C# object called ProcessStartInfo. ProcessStartInfo has a property called UseShellExecute that allows the execution in elevated mode (true -> elevated|false -> normal). Well you need to set another property along with UseShellExecute but we don't care now. But ProcessStartInfo is the same object I use to manipulate the environment variables for that single execution. In fact I can't modify the environment variable system wide but I sometimes I need to change them only for the program in execution. The ProcessStartInfo property for this magic is called EnvironmentVariables. The two properties can't be manipulated at the same time. So if you need an elevated execution you have to leave the EnvVar unchanged or vice versa. VS Code is subject to a manipulation of its EnvVar. In fact if you go to SyMenu program configuration form and find out VS Code, you'll see that the "Enable advanced parameters" is checked and an EnvVar is redefined (APPDATA=.\). What's the point for this variable? It's useful to tell VS Code to save its configuration/last opened tab/last opened project/backup/add in/ and a ton of other settings, in a folder called Code inside the program root and not in your C:\Users[user]\AppData\Roaming\ folder. The workaround for you is really easy: remove the check from "Enable advanced parameters" and your VS Code will run in elevated mode when you need it. But remember that your settings folder will be saved in the real AppData\Roaming folder from then on.
02/07/2020 Topic: Opening a Folder – Sometimes it doesn’t work! Gianluca Administrator	Hi Chuck and welcome to the SyMenu community. First of all, please remove the action modifiers because it's the old way to activate the alternative click behavior. You can customize the menu with the Options - Structure tab. Today for every items, SyMenu grants the right click/right cursor key modifiers. Either options open a new sub menu where you can choose your modifier and, among the other, the open folder one. I have to remove the old action modifiers before or after...
04/07/2020 Topic: Deeply Nested Folder Structure Gianluca Administrator	You are right. The programs folder is located too deeply if we think that an OS like Windows has serious problem in managing paths longer that 260 characters. This limitation has never been really solved because of the retro compatibility Windows needs to maintain but there are some techniques to overcome it. Unfortunately SyMenu is a launcher and the programs it launches could be affected by this limitation so it's senseless to solve it in SyMenu alone. The Windows 260 characters limitation is the only reason for which I agree with you because, IMHO, if the OS limitation doesn't exist the programs path would be perfectly logic. Anyway you are asking for a workaround and not for a reason. Junctions could be a perfect solution but it makes SyMenu no longer portable. So if you want to use junctions, you need to do it by yourself. BTW the junctions perfectly fits with a not portable installation of SyMenu so do it without any fear. However my suggestion is quite different and can preserve the portability. SyMenu supports a command line switch that change the base path for program files. It's the -fp{folderPath} https://www.ugmfree.it/SyMenuManual.aspx#CommandLine The suite folder will be located deeply the same because you always have <redefinedPath>\SPSSuite\SyMenuSuite but it could be a good solution to cut the base path.
06/07/2020 Topic: Deeply Nested Folder Structure Gianluca Administrator	It's a good idea. I'll introduce the command line to redefine the SyMenu suite base folder. Naturally I have to understand what happens if you redefine the program file base folder and the SyMenu suite base folder... The next version is already in beta testing so you have to wait for the 6.13. Anyway if your main problem is not the 260 chars limitation but the annoyance to navigate to the programs folders, you can use the open folder feature (see https://www.ugmfree.it/SyMenuManual.aspx#Extended_Menu). This way SyMenu can take you automatically to the destination. I use this feature extensively during my daily work in junction with the plugin Open folder (https://www.ugmfree.it/Forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=85) that is very useful just in case you don't use Windows Explorer. Let us know if this can be useful for you.
06/07/2020 Topic: Deeply Nested Folder Structure Gianluca Administrator	To make it clearer. I don't use SyMenu to navigate the FS. I use SyMenu to make my preferred navigator landing on the right folder in one click. In my case I use the SyMenu plugin to open the folder with Unreal Commander, best FS navigator after Total Commander IMHO
13/07/2020 Topic: Can i disable the BACKUPS of the apps ? Gianluca Administrator	Indeed the trash folder is not a only backup, but it play an important role in the update process. SyMenu uses the trash to restore configuration files in case of a clean update so the trash is unavoidable. Anyway, seeing your picture I noted you don't clean up the folder at every update (different trashing date). Probably the solution is to clean it up more often to avoid the disk filling. And you don't need to phisically go to the folder to manually empty it because you have a special button to do that. See here: https://www.ugmfree.it/SyMenuManual.aspx#SPSFolderStructure
16/07/2020 Topic: Autoupdate of everything on launch) Gianluca Administrator	Not precisely. When SyMenu starts, it checks for update for the installed apps. If it finds something, you'll be alerted in a not invasive way (the Get new apps entry changes in "Updates available" and becomes green instead of blue). With the next version, that will come soon, the check for definitions will become mandatory and will happen at least once a day. I'm tired of helping people that report an outdated app, or a not available app, or other problems, only to discover that they disabled the definitions check. I'm planning to implement an alert in the task bar notification area too, where the SyMenu icon appears, but it will be in the future. If you click on the "Updates available" entry the SPS manager form opens and shows you the list of updatable programs. Select them all and update. It's the most I can do it. A more driven updating method reminds me the Win10 update system that honestly I don't like very much.
16/07/2020 Topic: Autoupdate of everything on launch) Gianluca Administrator	The problem in SyMenu (yes... incredibly SyMenu itself has some problems...) is the proliferation of the options. In this period I'm trying to remove the less used options/features or simplify them because, often, when a user asks me some info on a certain feature, I don't even remember what the feature is, what it does, and how I implemented it Regarding the auto update we have a further, bigger problem. SyMenu is portable so the option to automatically update all the apps could be usually good but can become inappropriate on certain PCs (work, school, public). For this reason I think I won't do it in a completely unattended way. Probably I will offer an easy way to update all with a single click but my intention is leaving the choice to the user, always.
20/07/2020 Topic: 2 minute delay after closing configuration dialog Gianluca Administrator	Let's try to solve your issue on saving the configuration. It's unusual that the saving process take so much time so I have to ask you to make a test for me. SyMenu is able to change the default configuration folder so we can use this ability to test if the issue is tied with that particular Config folder or the interaction with DropBox. For example you can create a C:\SyMenuConfig Please choose the fastest drive in you PC, an area outside the control of DB and possibly put an exception on your Antivirus software for that folder. Now copy everything you have in [SyMenuRoot]\Config folder inside the new one. At this point start SyMenu from the command line with the parameter -fc"C:\SyMenuConfig" SyMenu now reads and writes its configuration files in the new folder. Nothing changes in your menu because the configuration files are the same as before. Now play a bit with the configuration form and take the times. When you have a clear idea of the new situation (it's slower than a turtle, it's the same as before, it's improved, it's a fastest thing you've ever seen), please report your observations. I will start the analysis from there because this way we exclude every external element from the equation.
20/07/2020 Topic: 2 minute delay after closing configuration dialog Gianluca Administrator	Ok. Contact me in private and we'll start the debug process.
27/07/2020 Topic: Deeply Nested Folder Structure Gianluca Administrator	Hi sl23, You will have a sort of it with the 6.13 because I confirm I will implement a command line parameter allowing you to redefine the suite root path. On the other hand it's not possible to redefine it for everyone. I can't break the paths of thousands of users expecting they move the app manually... we are not all experts her and it's too dangerous do it with a wizard since there are users with GB of data inside that folder. In the past I have this kind of need for the configuration files during the migration from xml to zip format. The only way I found at the time was implementing a double management: SyMenu was able to manage two different formats and automatically migrate the old one (xml) to the new one (zip). I kept this double management for two years at least. Think about the same burden for a huge management wizard for the program folders... it's impossible.
27/07/2020 Topic: The adventure of the 1.000 Gianluca Administrator	Nice.. I've just reached 1.000 message in this forum. I can't believe I'm still here with you all, speaking about SyMenu, 12 years after its birth. Thanks for your support, encouragement, and contribution!
27/07/2020 Topic: Deeply Nested Folder Structure Gianluca Administrator	The command line will be documented in the manual as usual. You could operate this way: - quit SyMenu - move the SPSSuite folder wherever you want - run SyMenu with the command line. Something like these: symenu.exe -xx".\NewFolder" symenu.exe -xx".\ProgramFiles" symenu.exe -xx"..\..\NewFolder" symenu.exe -xx"x:\\NewFolder" Unfortunately you have to execute SyMenu with the same command from that moment on because the default SPSSuite folder remains the same. Anyway, if the option will be strongly adopted, I can add a custom option in the configuration to remap the folder without the command line. Regarding your curiosity, all the programs in the SPSSuite have a relative path so the solution should be to change the old relative path (not with a batch but with SyMenu itself naturally). But the problem won't be this one... the real problem will be to physically move GB of data from the SPSSuite folder to the new folder. The process is long, heavy, subject to errors, to interruptions, needs to be resumable... it's too much...

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