07/05/2012 Topic: Bug with 1.16 and mouse gestures. Gianluca Administrator	Infact the default mouse button for the SyMenu gesture is the right one not the left one. I think that your problem could be caused by the interaction between SyMenu and your Logitech software. You can change the right mouse button with the center one but NOT with the left one. Left one is evil for mouse gesture for several reasons. I can't add a mouse hotkey function in SyMenu because Windows API manages only mouse with three buttons (left, right and middle) and the wheel. Any other function is due to third parts software. If any other user experiments some issue on mouse gesture please let me know here or privately. In this case your feedback is very important because mouse gesture is an experimental feature and I need to know if it works well or not.
07/05/2012 Topic: Expand/Collapse All Gianluca Administrator	Do you really have thousand items in SyMenu???? I would be very curious in reading your list... I thought that thousand programs neither exist in the world Anyway... good suggestion. I'll add it my TODO list.
08/05/2012 Topic: Feature Request - Hide Menu Items Gianluca Administrator	Hi ineedh3lp. It will be a good idea if I understand its usefulness. If an item is hided it won't be shown in the contextual menu... so it is like a deleted item. For which reason you should like to preserve some items that you don't reach in any way? Maybe for backup purpose? In this case I can create a particular SyFolder (named Trash) where the items could be thrown and eventually recovered but they don't pop up into the menu list anymore.
09/05/2012 Topic: Feature Request - Hide Menu Items Gianluca Administrator	Naturally the search filter inside the configuration menu has to return the hided items too, differently than the contextual menu search and the menu list itself. It's a complex implementation but it starts to sound well. I would like to know if other users think that could be a good feature because it is really time spending and I have to move other implementation in the future.
16/05/2012 Topic: Features for next SyMenu version 1.17 Gianluca Administrator	Here in Italy the 17 is well known as an unlucky number but since I'm not superstitious I decided to work on a great version with several features the same Infact in these last weeks a lot of suggestions have been post in the forum and I've tried to do my best to accomplish the most part of their. I would like to share the roadmap and the new feature list with you. When a Windows shortcut is dragged to SyMenu, it'll preserve its real name The description field is now available for SyContainers too It is possible to clone items with a drag and drop operation (pressing the CRTL key). The cloning function only works for single elements (not for SyContainer) New feature "move an item among two elements" during drag and drop The search works optionally for the text inside item names and not only in "start with" mode It is possible to name a SySeparator element to allow predictable ordering inside a SyContainer F2 key on a SyNode in configuration form allows to rename it New command to expand and compress all folder in configuration form (shortcut F11, F12) It is now possible to hide elements (shortcut F3). An hided item become invisible in contextual menu and in the search but exists and is visible in configuration form A new file report is available in menu Options - System. It contains the full list of SyMenu items with their main attributes The program realease could be scheduled for the end of June. If you would like to share your comment you are welcome.
16/05/2012 Topic: 'One Instance Only' behavior Gianluca Administrator	It is a really difficult thing. Consider that every application starts at least one process and this makes possible to check if it is already started, but only some application works with an active window. Think about to SyMenu for example. During its activity SyMenu sleeps on your task bar and pop up when you call it. In case similar to this I should call the application to try to put in foreground its main windows but what if I can't find one... And this is only an problem but there are others. SyMenu to accomplish "the one instance only" feature currently works checking the process list and trying to find a process originated from the executable file your are trying to launch. Consider that this method is not 100% safe because there are some programs that uses an executable file to launch another one (some portable programs for example). In this case SyMenu can't check the existence of the process and relaunches the program again.
21/05/2012 Topic: Features for next SyMenu version 1.17 Gianluca Administrator	Hi PoWi. The hide item feature is available, as the others, in the configuration form not in the contextual menu. In this context every command is available through the menu "Item Manager". Here you can find the command name and a little note of the shortcut key to directly apply it, if available. For hiding/unhiding the current element, the shortcut key will be F3. I can't understand your question about the search start. Do you intend the "natural" order you explicitly configured for your items? If it so, what should be the utility of the feature you request? I think that search is a fast way to execute an item not to find it inside the contextual menu. I used a different approach for the search tool inside the configuration form where actually the search has a positional purpose. But here if you click on the found item you'll find it immediately because SyMenu positions its focus on the item itself.
19/06/2012 Topic: Features for next SyMenu version 1.17 Gianluca Administrator	Hello ineedh3lp. Thank you for this long review to the new features of SyMenu. I'll try to reply to all your questions. Shortcuts improvement Well your idea is very good but I need to know how many people really need these features... Linking a shortcut is an unnatural operation for SyMenu because it means that you are statically linking a resource on a certain host PC while SyMenu should be able to execute that resource on any PC. It means that you are using SyMenu as a start menu replacement in a single PC. I'm very interested in knowing how many people use SyMenu in that way. If a lot of people regularly use SyMenu in that way... well... I should need to rethink to several features. URL field As we already agreed this is a good feature. I can provide a URL property to any SyItem not only to the SyContainers. It's in my TODO list. Cloning items When I implemented this feature I thought that it was useless at least for me. Well since that day I've cloned ton of SyItems. Thank to the user that suggested this feature, even if I can't remember who he was :-) Move item among two elements I know that the separator should be useful during this operation but it is really hard to implement it. I'll try again in the future. Ordering SySeparator Well I'm not able to reproduce this bug. Have you tried to create the separators by scratch, without reuse the old ones? Maybe the problem could be that. Refocus on rename I have to think to this feature well. Should it be available only if you have pressed F2 before? I think it could be misleading. Should it be always available? I think it is better, but should it be available on any field or only in the Name's one? CSV report Well the report is created in CSV format exactly to be readable by every program. I've formatted it to be opened well by MS Excel but I open it with LibreOffice Calc without any problem. My Calc settings are: Separator options - Semicolon with Text delimiter equal to quotation mark (uncheck space separator) Other options - Quoted field as text Number of items execution It's already in my TODO list but it always slip to the next release :-) Wow it is more complex to reply to your questions that make another version of SyMenu
20/06/2012 Topic: Features for next SyMenu version 1.17 Gianluca Administrator	Hi PoWi. I'm very glad that the online help should be useful for someone. It is very difficult to keep the manual updated for every release but I'm convinced that a good program must be joined to a good help. And this is true above all for complex programs. Well I think that SyMenu it's become a very complex program. Now the replies. When you change anything in configuration dialog, you have to save before exiting otherwise you lost every changes. It's a gold rule of SyMenu. I can't change this behavior only for the case in which someone press a certain key after having pressed another one. I'm trying to maintain SyMenu coherent and intuitive even if it is a really complex program. Ok I understand the proposal for the counter of execution. I will try to implement it in this release... this is a pending feature since 2009... I guarantee nothing You are right I haven't implemented the required shortcut to directly open the search and another one to directly open the menu. I will try in the next version. In the end a little observation. In my replies I repeated a lot of time the topic of the complexity. Me, you, ineedh3lp and other users are power users. We love complexity and new features because with many features SyMenu works how we like. But... there are a lot of other users that could be disoriented in front of such complexity. The challenge is certainly to propose always new features but even to propose simplifications and uniformity. So I would like that our little community tries to work on this topic suggesting even some proposals in this direction!
21/06/2012 Topic: Is SyMenu too complex? Gianluca Administrator	PoWi suggested to open a new topic to discuss this subject. SyMenu is getting more and more complex due to the new features I add on every new version. It could be confusing for newbies even if it is a paradise for the power-users (like me ) I surely won't change this approach of enriching SyMenu more and more because it has to become the best program on its category. But I would like to offer a simpler user experience to the new users. When you first start SyMenu a little wizard popup. SyMenu asks to choose some basic options such as your language, if you want to check for a new version on startup, if you want to enable shorcuts and gestures, if you want to backup configuration files. Well... I don't know if these could be some really basic options... backup configuration files??? I would like to ask you, in your opinion, which kind of options could be considered really basic and could be included in this initial wizard. The second question regards the right way to simplify the options menu (above all) and the entire program too. For the option menu I could offer a checkbox to enable the expert mode (disabled by default). But in this case too I have to indentify which kind of option are really the basic ones and which ones are not. Every suggestion is really welcome.
26/06/2012 Topic: Feature request - more compact menu Gianluca Administrator	Hi Oliver59 I know.... But don't lose faith, sooner or later I'll do that.
27/06/2012 Topic: Is SyMenu too complex? Gianluca Administrator	Hi PoWi. Thank you for your suggestion regarding the initial wizard. I'm awating for the feedback of other users too! The poll is useless... unfortunately simple users don't partecipate in this forum... we are all expert here :-) I think that I'll consider the idea of two different approaches to the options menu: the expert one and the simple one.
27/06/2012 Topic: Features for next SyMenu version 1.17 Gianluca Administrator	Ok ineedh3lp. You idea of importing icon and argument from the shortcuts is in my TODO list. Regarding you separator problem I think I understand the issue. When you add a new separator its name is <separator>. When you rename it you have to choose a name such as dddd and not <dddd> otherwise it will be placed always on top because the char '<'. I will think about the refocusing problem. Hotkey for searching. It seams to me that your idea is a bit different from the previous one. You are proposing to create a shortcut to popup only the search menu without the contextual menu and not simply to create two shortcuts for the search and contextual... interesting. Expert mode and newbie mode. I'm thinking about that and it seems the only practical solution to make SyMenu simpler. Well SyMenu is not a way to earn money for me. So don't worry about the donation and follow to support the project with your ideas! :-)
28/06/2012 Topic: SyMenu Plugin system Gianluca Administrator	Hi to everyone. For the next version (1.18) I will implement a plugin system for SyMenu so that every developer could create, for his purpose and for the community, new features for SyMenu. If someone is interested in being the first SyMenu plugin creator please contact me directly via contact form (http://www.ugmfree.it/ContactMail.aspx) to obtain the documentation and a basic plugin example I created.
05/07/2012 Topic: SyMenu Plugin system Gianluca Administrator	Hi PoWi. For now the plugin system only interacts with the contextual menu. If you put one or more plugins into the right folder (probably will be called "plugin" folder) SyMenu loads them during the start up and includes in the new contextual menu "plugin" element the new entries that allow to launch every single plugin. Practically SyMenu is an host and a launcher for the plugins. This first step doesn't involves a deeper interaction between SyMenu and these third part software because it is a sort of experiment I would like to do. Anyway if good software will be written for SyMenu my idea is to extend the interactivity between the two entities. SyMenu has a lot of good services to offer to third part software such as the multi-language engine (and the best translators worldwide ), the automatic updater, a great number of users and a good number of power users that contribute to the project with their reports and excellent proposals. Well the future will tell us if the direction is right or not.
18/07/2012 Topic: Items Configuration Filter/Search Gianluca Administrator	Hi ineedh3lp. Isn't the search box in the top right of the configuration menu enough? With this feature you can quickly find any item by name or portion of the name and localize it inside the tree by clicking on the item you are interested in.
23/07/2012 Topic: Items Configuration Filter/Search Gianluca Administrator	Don't worry. It is part of the SyMenu magic: you desire and SyMenu executes like a genius in a bottle. :-)
23/07/2012 Topic: Is SyMenu too complex? Gianluca Administrator	It is a really interesting opinion. So you think that SyMenu can't be choosen by newbies in any way not because its complexity but because its approach: no graphical frippery, absence of an already filled program suite, no point and execute feature. If this is the truth SyMenu will never be too complex. The right topic will become how to keep SyMenu consistent and easy to understand even if I continuously add new feature. Well in this case the help of the community is fundamental in choosing the right order of the menus, the right name for the labels, the right place to put options. Eventually I'll open a thread with this topic. Regarding the commercial thing, SyMenu is free and remains free because it represents my personal contribution to the incredible and irreplaceable world of freeware software.
01/08/2012 Topic: SyMenu Plugin system Gianluca Administrator	The plugin stuff and other new features on which I'm working on have convinced me to advance the SyMenu version to 2.00. So that the 1.18 version will never be released.
01/08/2012 Topic: Feature request - more compact menu Gianluca Administrator	We will have a new feature for the next version: compact menu! In the image a nearly definitive design.

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