|
Gianluca Administrator Posts: 1274
16/05/2012
|
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.
|
|
|
link
|
|
PoWi Posts: 90
17/05/2012
|
Hi Gianluca,
that's really nice that you share your roadmap with us! Thank you very much!
There are really good things on the list. I like the new search and also the F2-key for renaming is good.
How will I flag an item to be hidden?
---
A question to the search feature: The elements are sorted by alphabetic order, right?
What about a counter of the starts of each menu item?
And if serached the search order could be alphabetic or by starts.
|
|
|
link
|
|
Gianluca Administrator Posts: 1274
21/05/2012
|
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.
|
|
|
link
|
|
nicedreams Posts: 14
17/06/2012
|
Love the new search features. Now I can stop using another text launch program and stick with SyMenu.
|
|
|
link
|
|
ineedh3lp Posts: 25
18/06/2012
|
Wow, Gianluca, what a great pack of features in this update. I see a lot of my suggestions on that list- I am grateful for the hard work you've put into SyMenu to accomplish those. I've updated today and did a quick run of the latest version to check the new features:
;~ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When a Windows shortcut is dragged to SyMenu, it'll preserve its real name
- This works well, a dragged shortcut preserves its name. I believe that the next step to improving this feature would be to also read the shortcut's custom icon location and its arguments (because not all shortcuts use the icon of the executable they are pointing to and also a lot of shortcuts already contain program arguments) and automatically fill the Icon Path field with the icon the shortcut is actually using (which could be a custom icon) and the Program Arguments field with the parameters specified in the shortcut. That will surely increase the value of SyMenu's drag-and-drop shortcut feature.
;~ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The description field is now available for SyContainers too
- Thank you for adding this. I hope that in a future version you will also implement a URL field to accompany the description field of a container with a Visit web site button like the program item has.
;~ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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)
- Cloning a single item is a very good start for better items management. I've tested it and it seems to work good.
;~ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New feature "move an item among two elements" during drag and drop
- Excellent! Now containers can be repositioned without having to use the "Movie item up level" option. New users may not be able to make the difference because there's no separator or guide line to show that an item can be placed between two other items, but it's easy to figure out how it works.
;~ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The search works optionally for the text inside item names and not only in "start with" mode
- Remarkable! This was one of the things I wished most in SyMenu and now it is here and it's working great. The search results list gets populated very fast even when searching for a single letter.
;~ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is possible to name a SySeparator element to allow predictable ordering inside a SyContainer
- Okay, I specifically asked for this feature and I am glad you implemented it, but there is a little problem with it. It seems that although the separator can now be renamed, it still gets positioned to the bottom of the list when sorting items in alphabetical order. No matter what name I give it, it always goes at the bottom of the list after a sorting operation, so this could be a small bug.
;~ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
F2 key on a SyNode in configuration form allows to rename it
- This is good. It may be useful to automatically re-focus the item list after a user renames a node and presses enter so the user can continue navigating the list with the arrow keys, but that's just a small suggestion.
;~ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New command to expand and compress all folder in configuration form (shortcut F11, F12)
- I absolutely like this feature. Now no more manual expansion needed to have a general overview of the items tree.
;~ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
-  Yet another feature I specifically asked for. Thank you! Now I can use SyMenu to organize applications in the configuration panel without actually crowding the popup-menu. Hidden item is italic and greyed out- just excellent!
;~ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A new file report is available in menu Options - System. It contains the full list of SyMenu items with their main attributes
- I have exported a file report and opened it in OpenOffice Calc, but I guess it is meant to be opened with MS Office's Excell, and I do not have that available at the moment, so I can not say much about it.
;~ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All in all, this SyMenu update brings a lot of new and useful feature (at least for me) and I thank you for it.
;~ ==========================================================
I can't understand your question about the search start. Do you intend the "natural" order you explicitly configured for your items?
- I believe that PoWi was wondering if it is possible to have two different ways of sorting searched items: alphabetical sort and popularity sorting. When he said "counter of the starts of each menu item", I think he was referring to a counter that would keep track of the number of each item launch, so when the user searches for items, the list displays first the result with most launches and not an alphabetical list of the results. This implementation would be useful indeed if a search result returns multiple items and the user wants to quickly access the item that was launched the most by pressing the down arrow a few times. This feature would go well with the new ability to search in item names.
|
|
|
link
|
|
Gianluca Administrator Posts: 1274
19/06/2012
|
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 
|
|
|
link
|
|
PoWi Posts: 90
20/06/2012
|
Hi Gianluca,
sorry about answering so late. Here is much work - good and bad ;-)
The new version is really great. Many good new features! For me SyMenu is the best poratble menu ever - and now more and more features improve this. That's fantastic.
A few things/ideas:
- In the config dialog: I now use often F2 to edit and then hit "ENTER" -> because I want to save. And then I go to next and make the same. At the end I quit config dialog and nothing saved. So what about using ENTER to save the settings?
- Number of items execution: ineedh3lp you are right! Thanks for explaining what I mean in a clearer way.
The workflow is: I search and I often use the same programs and these should be first - for me. So this feature should be switchable. - What I miss in this version is that there is no hotkey for focusing the search directly: One hotkey for opening the menu and second for search focus. That will improve the usage of SyMenu.
And what I have to say: The help (at the website) is also absolutely excellent!
Cheers
PS: @ineedh3lp: Very good pointed review about the new version! Thanks.
|
|
|
link
|
|
Gianluca Administrator Posts: 1274
20/06/2012
|
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!
|
|
|
link
|
|
PoWi Posts: 90
20/06/2012
|
I know and understand the problem with adding more and more features to programs.
And I also understand that you want to make SyMenu also easy to use for newbies and also no "power-users".
That's very very difficult - puh.
On the one side users want features because they use SyMenu (or any other program) and they NEED this new functionality to work efficiently. On the other hand more features blow up config screens and new users are strike dead what they can adjust.
That's a problem with all software.
I have seen that many programs use 2 config options: 1) new user/simple use and 2) admin/power user.
In 1) there are many options hidden that aren't needed for "normal" use.
In 2) there is all free to edit.
BUT there is still the problem that in 1) the user don't know what he can do in admin-mode. This problem should be solved.
An idea: "The options should be hidden - AND a checkbox should be in the dialog to enable/disable admin-mode. So the user could simply decide to see all options but in the first look all is simple and clear."
But complexity by adding new features is really a problem - I agree. But stopping adding new wonderfull functionality to keep software simple is also not practicable.
What do you suggest? Discuss the config-dialogs and the usecases? Please then start a new subforum for the discussion.
edited by PoWi on 6/20/2012
<em>edited by PoWi on 6/20/2012</em>
|
|
|
link
|
|
ineedh3lp Posts: 25
27/06/2012
|
Hello! Sorry for the late reply...
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. While I never used SyMenu for portability convenience on a USB stick (because I didn't need to), I do use it on 4 of my computers sharing the same SyMenu configuration and it's excellent because most of my applications are using the same installation path or sandbox locations, so SyMenu entries are valid on all LAN computers. I can not tell how many people are using SyMenu as a stationary app launcher, but I can say for sure that at this moment I find it to be the best application launcher solution. I mean, even if I would use it for portability, I see no reason why I wouldn't use it on a single PC as well- it is the most optimized way to organize applications and quickly launch them.
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. Yes, I have deleted all separators and then recreated them- still the same issue. I will do more tests in an attempt to find the cause and will report back if I get any positive/negative results.
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? So, let's say I'm navigating the items tree with the arrow keys and then I want to rename the currently selected item- I press F2 which focuses the name field, I change the name and after I press enter the focus goes back to the items tree so I can continue navigating it with the arrow keys. And yeah, it should be available for any field, but once again, this is just a small detail and it is not that important. I only mentioned it for the sake of completeness : D
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding hotkeys for Search I am using the "Set focus on search bar" option, but yes, I would be great to have a hotkey just for the search-box, this would also fix the current issue I am having with the mouse pointer focusing a folder from the menu when I sometimes want to search for something using the search field.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I designed some small utilities for personal use and I understand how hard it can get to implement new features and make GUI changes, so I think that the problem of adding more and more features doesn't interfere with new or less experienced users, but with the developer's time, resources and ability to optimize the location and appearance of multiple options. As PoWi suggested, there could be an advanced options tab or window for tweaking more delicate settings of SyMenu, so the new user can still enjoy the simplicity, while the advanced user can take advantage of better SyMenu personalization.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I admit I have never donated or invested in this project, mainly because I'm always on the edge with money and have a lot of debts, and I also do not want to insult your work by donating just a couple of euros, but as soon as I get financially back on my feet, I will most certainly contribute to this project properly, and if SyMenu were commercial software, I wouldn't hesitate to buy it after getting used to it all this time. So thank you Gianluca for developing, sharing and supporting this useful tool without charge.
|
|
|
link
|
|
Gianluca Administrator Posts: 1274
27/06/2012
|
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! :-)
|
|
|
link
|
|
PoWi Posts: 90
27/06/2012
|
Gianluca wrote:
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.
Yes these are 2 different ways to the search.
I also support the way with only search field - without the complete menu.
You know, if someone searches he/she only want to open a search result.
|
|
|
link
|