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You're going to have to post the content of your registry as requested above for non-working associations, and at least pieces of your INI files if I'm to try to guess what's going on. Both lines you have posted above should work.
I use PFA loads to scan shred, split, list, unlock and who knows what next which means my context menu takes up half my screen on my laptop...
Could you have an option to add associations to a "PFA" menu? Ideally I could choose for each association (not at filetype level though) but a global setting would also be appreciated!
PS: The same for HOST ones would be good sometimes as well...
That requires writing a shell extension (DLL) which gets loaded into Explorer. This would break portability. Sorry, not going to happen.
Hi, is there a way to create submenus?
I would like to group some associations in a sub menu, folders association options as an example, but don't know if this is possible.
Regards
BW thanks again for this 'essential' prog
See the request at the last post on page 2, and my reply 1 post above yours. Short version -> no.
Sorry I missed this one.
Thanks for the answer.
Clean Install,
Nothing in the text files,
I launch PFA,
in the association GUI, i click browse, then choose my text editor, save, and I open to look at the assoc.ini file, here is what pfa put in it :
[Textual]
mode=txt|csv
title=|| Open with Notepad
command='..\TedNPad\TedNPad.exe "%1"'
disabled=4
===============================
When i enable the PFA. There is an error when i click on a txt file :
This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Create an association in the folder options control panel
================================
So what am i doing wrong ?
It doesn't look like you're doing anything wrong, and the INI entry looks good.
Can you give me more info:
OS version, PFA version, what is shown in a TXT file right-click menu (do you see your new entry?), and anything else you think is relevant. Do you have admin rights on this user account?
OS Version is Windows XP SP2 Pro Corp with french keyboard (no english) (maybe something there ???)
PFA is latest 2.1.1.5 (before the url change)
i have admin rights.
when I right click, the entry is shown
How about everyone starts to share his PFA ini file to see just how far we can go with this software ?
Main stuff I have been able to do with PFA is :
Double click .bat files edit them, right click and run to run.
Being able to run any file with LOW priority
Able to go from any folder or file to command prompt at the appropriate location of the folder.
Convert images to JPG with NCONVERT
Double click to open
Right click to edit any file
Mount ISO Images with double click using winmount (portable virtual image mounter
here is mine (PasteBin) :
http://tinypaste.com/4d5d960
Or
http://pastebin.com/f3262f9f7
What exactly does it do? The discription is rather vague.
-adude159753, adude1597535, thorn, essentiel
--whomever you choose to remember me by in the previous and current games I have and am playing.
-Word to the wise: Only with hard work can you do; only with persistance can you achieve.
You know how, when you double-click on a file, it opens the associated application needed to use that file?
Like, if you open a PDF file, it automatically launches a PDF reader?
Or a TXT file will automatically open notepad?
That's because the file types (PDF, TXT) have been Associated with their applications.
In the non-portable Windows world, that information is stored in the registry.
But what if you want your file types to be associated with your Portable Apps?
You can't do it the regular way - writing things directly to the registry is not portable.
So, if you use the Portable File Associator, you can take your file associations along with your portable apps.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
That clears thing up. Thanks. That was a good explaination. You should put this into the description.
-adude159753, adude1597535, thorn, essentiel
--whomever you choose to remember me by in the previous and current games I have and am playing.
-Word to the wise: Only with hard work can you do; only with persistance can you achieve.
Please update your version of PFA. I have changed file hosting, and as such the internal version check URL of PFA has changed. The new version updates this internal URL. If you would like to continue being able to check for new versions, please update soon! The old link will continue to work for a few weeks so users can be notified about the new version.
Updated the Standalone Icon Rebuilder to 1.0.3.3, with compatibility for Win7 (fixed OS version check).
this is bugging me a lot.
When I run the latest version
I merely change (using the GUI) the txt association from notepad to a program i have called tednpad.
then I click associate, double click and i get the error message.
when i right click, it is displaying the text inside the gui at the association window.
what's wrong ?????
If I right click, then choose the open command...
it works
why ? shouldn't it be the default double click ??
this is a clean install of XP
Are you comfortable in the registry? With PFA enabled, I need you to export some keys for me and paste the contents here.
From a command prompt you can do:
You might as well paste the contents of all your INI files as well.
I got it fixed !
It seems that I had to choose another option which is the "default" in PFA. So that when I double click it uses that.
In the Files Types window, if the window is empty, then the double click misses. I have to choose the correct category.
Which makes this a hell to use because I have to choose a default for EVERY file type so it's gonna take forever.
I still don't understand why file types is the dominant now, it used to be the software that ran the file types.
Also, Can we have a hotkey manager ? like in Asuite ? PFA sets the association but also sets the Hotkeys used in windows so I can launch my applications using relativ paths using my hotkeys.
What should I do with this command ?
[Low Priority]
mode=files
title=Run File With Low Priority
command=cmd.exe /c start "Your Low Priority File" /belownormal "%1"
default=4
I used to be able to start any file with a belownormal priority (my processing files mainly)
How can I set this to be NON default in the new version ?
I can set a default for file extensions and other right click ones.
How can I do that for files ? so that When i double click, it doesn't send it to belownormal priority.
thanks in advance for all your work
I don't believe that 'files' (HKCR\*)will ever be the default unless there is nothing else associated with the file type. In other words, if a filetype is unassociated, like 'randomfile.blahcrapface', if you have an action associated to 'files' the unassociated files will open with that.
Regarding your fix, when '(no default)' is chosen, then it is up to the OS to choose the association to use. This is how it works on every system I've tested. If it's not working that way on yours, I can't start to guess why. Perhaps if you'd provided the information I asked for... but either way I'm glad you got it working.
The new dominance of file types is the way it always should have been. It removes the uncertainty of what used to happen when more than one association referenced the same file type. It's staying that way. Setup may take longer, but is far more flexible.
3 hours of work !!!!!!!!
I finally switched to the new version.
I'm loving the Send-To menu. It helps when you need to batch process images with NCONVERT.
The batch commands are not exactly like a command line.
the %1 in a command line doesn't pass multiple files select.
Here is my two questions :
-Are we able to EDIT the parameters in the Send To menu without having to delete and recreate it ?
-Can we reproduce the behavior of WINRAR without it registering ? I would like to be able to command line rar.exe. I multiple select all the .rar files or archive files and I extract each one of them to a different folder (that's typical winrar behaviour when you associate it with the context menu).
Is it possible to "spy" on contect menus command lines ? some programs do that, they add their selves to the context menu, would be useful to know what command they are parsing so that we can reproduce it with pfa.
This is the Command Prompt Here Formula :
cmd /k "cd /d %L 2>nul"
The question is, how in the hell did you manage to find it ? You gave it to me a year ago, remember ?
At present you can't edit the SendTo shortcuts once they've been created, unless you do it manually in the '_sendto.ini'. I'll consider that a feature request.
Without knowing what WinRar's command line is, I can't say for sure. Their feature is built into a shell extension, so they have a lot more flexibility in what they can do.
As far a spying on command lines, if you run Process Explorer from Sysinternals and click on a running process, one of the bits under the Image tab is the command line used to launch that process. For Cmd Prompt Here, I found that in the registry. Here is Win7's, tied to the 'HKCR\Directory' key:
You can also try a simpler command line that seems to work for me for both directories and files:
Yep
that's all it takes.
Hey man, still me.
do you think we can have the sendto shortcuts displayed UNDER the usual PFA file associations under the right click ?
Example: right click : open image, run image, and SENDTO : resize
instead of going through the send to menu and being lost in there.
thanks for the cmd.exe and the spy thingy
Also, can we have a hotkey setting ?
where we link our hotkeys to any app we want ?
like ASuite actually. That way, PFA can become the master software
I'll consider hotkeys.
The first request: nope. Windows doesn't work that way. Anything in the context menu behaves as you have seen - on instance of the application per selected file. Incidentally, Win7 will only let you select 15 files/folders before it disables the context menus!! Only the SendTo menu works in bulk, and it cannot be moved.
Does PFA support file protocols like mailto, http, https and ftp? If not, do you intend to implement this? Please please please do!!! I cannot get my FFP to work as my default browser, even after I choose Tools->Options yadayadayada and make it my default. Some links still open in the local Firefox and sometimes even IE (yea IE...ewwww :sick )
An even better option, or rather just another suggestion for a feature would be to include the file associations in the package (like all documents extensions, spreadsheets, media and what not), and allow up to just choose which ones we want to associate, and to which program. This would be a lot easier as many of us want to replace our entire local system with open source, portable alternatives (so we can sync to our flash drives), and to find all file extensions associated with a named program is such strenuous task.
PFA does not and will not support file protocols. Protocols are handled by the windows shell and cannot be modified. You'd have to do make your desired browser the system default to cause the protocol handlers to use it instead of the normal system default browser. Currently PFA does not support that. You can search around for 'Default My Firefox Portable', but I believe the developer has stopped work on it due to its complicated and potentially dangerous nature (in the hands of those who don't know what they're doing).
However you can associate the htm/html filetypes.
Templates are an interesting idea as well. I might be able to provide some INI file templates that contain basic associations with the commands left blank. It will still require some setup on the user end, but it would be something. I can't go too far with this though, since everyone's system is different, and trying to make something so generic is going to have undesired results.
Hello, I use PFA all the time and I love it. Thanks wraithdu for all of your work on it.
I too wanted to be able to set my default browser to a portable app or any other browser (Firefox, Chrome, etc) so I made a little app in AutoIt that does just that. It's just a matter of altering a few registry keys. It sets the handling of http,https, and ftp, and sets your chosen browser as the default in the start menu.
Currently setting the browser works great, but there are issues with the UI and adding/editing browsers. Also, it doesn't yet do what PFA does in terms of turning absolute paths into relative paths.
I would have kept this to myself and slowly worked on it over time, but I'm posting it because I thought this might be useful code for you if you wanted to add this feature to PFA. I'm not sure what you mean when you say it's "potentially dangerous", but I think this would be a natural addition to what PFA already does.
Here is the address where you can get my app (including the AutoIt source):
http://www.csun.edu/~jas75018/SetBrowser.zip
If you have any questions let me know.
Jeff
Thanks, I will definitely check this out!
I said 'potentially dangerous' because the other app was a one way street, it didn't back anything up. And it didn't handle the potential usage of DDE either. I'll have to look into both of those things (at least) to make this a safe and reversible process.
Here's another option even though it's only for XP. It may be worth looking at because apparently it's really easy to use. Hopefully you could talk to the author about the way he implemented it.
Hey jeff, this is great !
Does your software change the default browser inside apps too ?
Let me explain :
There are 4 browser softwares out there that I know off.
The 2 first ones set your default browser when you double click files or urls. But not inside Windows Live Messenger.
The last 2 do just that (when you click inside applications like windows live messenger and what not), they open it. BUT the big problem with those two last apps is that the url opens but an error is displayed (cannot run xxx file). You have to click ok, it disappears and the url loads in the background.
To remove this error, You should go inside the "File Types" options in windows and disable/reset the DDE setting. Then it works everywhere.
the application name is setbrows (works everywhere but with errors until you reset the DDE in file types options in windows).
Does your app tackle that problem ?
cheers
Hey Jeff...
Here are some of my suggestions.
Why do you want to include a browser name ? Since they will get changed and updated.
Why not "Default Portable Browser" and just a browse button for the .exe and then everything is set from that point.
Another suggestion is to change your app name to something more specific, that way you can have a lot of more hits.
Your app is the only one that actually works correctly.
(I tried all of them)
Thanks for the feedback.
I haven't tried it with Messenger, but it works with Outlook. I have to use Outlook at work, so one of my main goals was to make sure I could click a link and it would open in the right browser. It works (but you have to restart outlook after changing the browser). If you could test it with Messenger that would be great.
The reason I include a browser name is so that you can have several browsers listed. I like to experiment with different ones all the time, like Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, Iron, Firefox Alphas and Betas, etc. so I want to be able to easily decide which one I want to be the default. On the "new" page, if you leave the name blank and browse for the EXE, it will automatically fill in a name for you.
As for changing the app name, you're right about that. I was planning on it, especially since one of the other browser changers is already called Set Browser. Any suggestions? I was thinking "Browser Chooser". I guess I'll make my own thread once I pick a permanent name.
Anyway, I have started working on this again since I see interest. I updated a few things so you can give it a try if you want.
http://www.csun.edu/~jas75018/SetBrowser.zip
There's still a lot of work to do, so use at your own risk. (For example, if you delete all the browsers the program freaks out. I gotta fix that.)
Jeff
Thanks for your reply :
usually, with these sort of apps :
"YASDBA"
Yet Another Set Deefault Browser Application
Having multiple browsers is a good idea.
What's the icon thing ? Is it for the application itself or system wide ? Because PFA can already play with the icons of html shtml and htm system wide.
THE OLD version worked with messenger, the new version you put online doesn't. And I don't know why. Not only it doesn't work, but it creates a portable firefox .exe process (ghost) with 855k of memmory consumed each time i click on it.
The old version rocked !
Also, the Start Menu thing should be left alone, as 1) Everyone has his own portable launcher. 2) Sometimes I need internet explorer for windows update.
Thanks for putting the old version back up !
Maybe some sort of change log ?
cheers !
=======================
I did some testing :
Using your software, it works in email,other programs,and rss feed programs but not inside Windows live Messenger. If I revert back to microsoft (ADD/Remove software), it reverts.
Using this software : It is similar to your program. But it displays an error when i click the link in email programs and other win programs (cannot find link). So yours is better. www.pc-tools.net (setbrowser). I canr evert with windows too.
Using this software : http://windowsxp.mvps.org/defaultbrowser.htm It works nicely in all programs except the RSS Feed program. BUT reverting to original can't be done from windows (ADD/REMOVE programs, reset defaults), it has to be done using the same program using the reset button(Defaultbrowser). Otherwise it won't revert and it will stay on your portable device.
So a perfect combo would be yours and the one in defaultbrowser
Maybe a bug, but when you click twice on 'set default', some .reg files are created inside the program folder. 4 to be exact with some information about your pf (jeff)
Cheers and hope it helps.
@ShalowUser, We need to stop cluttering up wraithdu's thread. I don't want to start a new one in the Beta forum, since I wouldn't consider this to be beta quality yet. But I made a new version with a lot of improvements and fixes. It's on my page http://www.csun.edu/~jas75018/index.html
I also created a thread in the "Off-Topic" forum: https://portableapps.com/node/20998
See you there...
Jeff
I have been working with PFA daily for over a year and a half. I think I got all the different file types rounded up.
If you want to use my template, go ahead :
http://tinypaste.com/11771
Concerning the Default browser thing, I can someone can make a command line that you can enable by pressing a hotkey and poof, the default browser is replaced in windows.
another hotkey, and the opposite command line executes.
==========================================
Thanks for considering the hotkeys wraith !
Hello, I am curently usind PFA to send Files to a rename application.
The rename application also does Folder renaming.
I would love to send the folders to it to, but I dunno the command to take the folder paths.
%1 is for files. But what If I want to multiple select folders and use the send to menu ?
Thanks for your help !
I am having set another problem with the Send-To Menu. Whenever I have a lot of files, windows give me a "unable to locate file" error. When I choose only a few, it works.
please help !
When using Send To, you do not use any %1 type tokens. Just specify the path to the file and any parameters. Windows handles the rest. If you are getting errors, make sure you've removed the %1. Beyond that, it's a problem with Windows and not something I can control. Files and folders are handled the same, no special changes required.
Likely the error is a path length limitation. When using Send To, all the file/folder paths and passed to the application on the command line. Here's a quick rundown of path length limits. It can also depend on what application you are targeting with your Send To shortcut.
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/12/10/56028.aspx
PS - please move your further discussion of the Default Browser stuff to a new topic so it doesn't get lost here, then post a link to it so I can follow along.
Yeah, I think it's a OS limitation.
It really bugs me that you can't go around this...
Guess I'll always have to load the software then drag and drop the files in it for processing as there isn't any way to come around this... Bummer.
Hey wraithdu, you can't delete an association while it is disabled (with the two asterisks **). You have to un-disable it, then delete it.
Jeff
Thanks. Found and fixed for next version.
Small suggestion: Could you make it possible to associate files with no extension? I was able to make it work by setting my Notepad++ filetypes to "txt|ini|inf||etc|etc" with the two pipes in a row creating the "no extension" entry.
But it wasn't possible to edit this file type in the "File Types" editor.
I had to manually edit the ini to get this:
[]
icon=..\..\Documents\Icons\Text.ico
hide=4
copyhost=4
hostoverride=4
default=Notepad++
Thanks,
Jeff
Actually, that's something I should actively prevent. Windows doesn't have support for a filetype that doesn't have an extension. Essentially it is *not* a filetype. What you have working is lucky at best, and potentially dangerous. Doing that is writing registry keys in very wrong places. If you need to associate to files with no extension, then use the 'files' association which will associate to all files.
Ok makes sense. I was using it to view Chromium preferences files but I guess I can go back to the "files" setting instead.
Thanks
There is a bug where PFA doesn't remove the sendto menu.
the .ini file is empty, the window setting is empty, but the send-to stuff are still there.
what to do ?
You've been around long enough and discussed enough in this thread to know that a comment like that is basically useless.
I need to know how to reproduce the problem.
BTW, you can always manually delete the send-to shortcuts from the folder on your disk.
I know...I know...
It was late... sorry.
So...
Win XP SP3 CORP PRO.
Latest PFA Version
As you already know, there is no way to edit a sendto menu in PFA, so I basically remove associations and go into the ini file to change the name and what not.
until now, it worked, so i guessed that pfa takes the info from the ini and pass it to the send to menu.
So when I was done testing, I removed association, deleted everything in the ini file and then added association again.
The sendto items where still there.
(Yup, I know I can remove them manualy.
hehehe)
By the way, can we have a UI Edit function where you can edit the name + parameters ?
cheers and thanks for your software !
I use the Sendto to organize my files quickly.
Do you have any idea on how to add a always move Overwrite command to a specific folder ?
adding a folder sometimes copies the file, not move
SendTo UI editing will come in an update.
Regarding your problem, yes PFA takes the INI info to create and delete the shortcuts. If you modify the INI while the shortcuts are installed you will break this process and have results like you've described. If you want to hand edit the INI, make sure you remove the shortcuts first.
Can you include two options? A "Add File Association Automatically" and "Minimize to System Tray" feature during start-up? It's frustrating to always have to click on the "Add File Association" manually.
You obviously did not read the readme...
In that case, I will go read the readme. Lol
Edit:
Okay, here is my feedback.
o1. The readme is hard to understand for the average user. Nevertheless, thanks wraithdu for making me aware that the feature was already somewhat integrated.
o2. I still hope that the next version will make those options viewable in the main gui or tray icon, instead of having to use the commandline.
o3. For anyone who has the same concern as I did, here's my solution.
Copy the info below, and paste the info into notepad. Then save it as a .bat file.
[Important Note: The location of my PortableFileAssociator.exe is located at D:\PortableApps\PortableFileAssociator\PortableFileAssociator.exe so you'll need to change the 3rd and 4th line; if your location is different.]
-----start:-copy-below-but-don't-include-this-line----
@ECHO OFF
d:
cd \PortableApps\PortableFileAssociator\
start /min PortableFileAssociator.exe add_gu
-----end:-don't-include-this-line-either--------------
o4. This is a sweet addition to the portableapps!
Glad you got it working.
Depending on where you keep your BAT file, using the %~dp0 type syntax is more portable that using a static drive letter. In this case %~dp0 expands to the drive and path where the BAT is located, including the trailing backslash. %~f0 or %~dpnx0 expand to the full path of the BAT file.
See http://www.ss64.com/ for a great reference site.
Thanks for the info wraithdu. And thanks for sharing such an efficient little application. This will make installing and running applications a lot easier for me as well as many others. In fact, I believe this should be a "must have" application integrated into the PortableApps Menu.
Also I would like to inform anyone who is interested in having their PortableFileAssociator.exe to automatically associate files at startup, and automatically minimizes the gui to system tray at startup to freely download this vbscript http://depositfiles.com/files/c8tr77p6o and extract the files to:
...\PortableApps\PortableFileAssociator\
|_ App
|_ Data
|_ Other
|_ help.html
|_ PortableFileAssociator.exe
|_ PortableFileAssociator.vbs
The previous batch file was annoying since the cmd window kept opening. This is cleaner, and you don't have to edit anything. Remember to refresh your menu or reload PortableAppsMenu.
@ShadowUser
Thanks for sharing your template. Saved me a lot of time. Lol
I have a couple of gripes with the way this works.
1. It pops up the main window when you first start it. This is annoying. I would prefer that, since this is something you'd want to start up with the Platform, it should just show the tray icon, not pop up a dialog box straight away.
2. I don't like that I have to hit "Add File Associations" every time I start it. There should at least be an option to make this automatic.
3. There are two separate dialogs for "Associations" and "File Types". This is confusing--the two dialogs are very closely related and should be combined into one.
4. File type descriptions are apparently hardcoded to be "PFA_[ext]". There should be an option to change the description, just like you can change the icon.
Otherwise, this is a great app; I think I prefer it over eXpresso/Cafe.
1 & 2) See the readme for commandline switches to use when launching PFA. You can have it automatically add the associations and minimize to tray with 'add_gui'.
3) My thinking on this is that an association for multiple extensions can now be configured in one place, while still allowing individual customizations for each extension, such as its icon and whether the host computer's associations are copied or not. If it is all configured in one place, then every extension for an association would have the same icon and same host settings.
In fact I had one dialog in an old old version, and there was no way to specify which icon an extension that had more than one association would end up getting. Also if you had more than one association for an extension, there was no way to specify which shoud be the default double click action. With this approach, you can do both. It's a bit more work, but much more flexible, IMO.
4) That's an asthetic opinion. It's easier to do it this way so PFA can keep track of things.
I can live with the separate Associations and File Types dialogs. However, #4 still bugs me. Looking into the registry revealed that the regkeys are PortableFileAssoc_[ext]. Why does the description have to be hardcoded to be able to keep track of things? I was sure the description was only for display, you use the name of the reg key itself to manage stuff...
Edit: So how do you pass command-line parameters to PFA without resorting to using a .vbs file? Is there an .ini file I can put in the same directory as PortableFileAssociator.exe to do this? Because you can't set a default commandline in the PortableApps menu...
Some of the menu mods (and I think the upcoming platform) will allow you specify a commandline. Otherwise... I guess you'll have to use a BAT file, or a quick and dirty NSIS launcher for now... I can add this to my todo list as an INI setting or something.
can you just tack it on to the appinfo.ini?
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
An option to use the host icon, if one exists. I currently have .ico files associated with IcoFX Portable, but now it always shows the IcoFX icon rather than the icon itself...
If this feature already exists, just point me to how to use it, because I couldn't figure it out.
Yep, just use %1 as the icon. I thought I documented that somewhere, but I couldn't find it just now.
In these cases, I usually just check out the settings on a working system to see what they should be.
Dammit, I know I've discussed this before, but I can't remember where the information got to...
I like it verry much, thank you.
didnt find bugs, verry fast, handy,...
thanks
1. I have PFA set to start with the Platform (with the switch add_gui), but when it starts it closes the PA.c. Cafe/eXpresso don't do this. Not too big an issue, but gets annoying when I'm about to click something in the menu and then it decides to start PFA and the menu suddenly disappears.
2. This is just a question: Why doesn't "rebuild icon cache" work on Vista and later? I know Vista/7 have an icon cache; I kill Explorer and delete it manually whenever my icons start acting screwy. It's located in %LOCALAPPDATA%, and called IconCache.db. Same as in XP, I believe.
I swore I had a feature request too, but I can't remember what it was now... oh well, guess it wasn't important. By the way, what's this "New Items" menu PFA talks about? I've never seen it... and why can you only get to it via a hotkey, shouldn't it be available in the main GUI too?
1) PFA doesn't do anything directly with the platform or menu. If it closes when launching PFA but not other apps, maybe it has something to do with the additional command line? Either way it's an issue with the menu, not PFA.
2) The functions that rebuild the cache (different than a refresh) do not work on Vista/7. They are the same functions (I think) as TweakUI uses on XP to 'Repair Icons'. Your manual method may work but I'm not having PFA kill explorer for any reason. It's my experience that a full rebuild is not necessary on Vista/7, a refresh is sufficient to fix any goofy icons.
Read the readme file about the new items menu. It emulates explorer's 'New ->' context menu and is activated via hotkey. There is no configuration, just place your templates in the 'New Items' folder (I think that's the name, I'm on my phone now and can't remember the correct folder, but it's in the readme).
I think the Platform closing has to do with the fact that PFA is creating a window on startup whereas Cafe doesn't. When PFA creates its window the menu loses focus for a second and closes, the same way it does when you click off of it. If there were a way for PFA to create its window without stealing focus when "add_gui" is specified (perhaps just create the tray icon and delay creating the window until the first time the icon is clicked), I think that'd be enough to fix it.
I notice the program is written in AutoIt. Would it be possible to compile it with AHK (I remember reading that they're cross-compatible to some extent) or do I absolutely need AutoIt? Either way, I'll look at the script and see if I can't fix it myself.
By the way, don't worry, I didn't expect you to make it kill Explorer, I just used that as an example to point out that Vista/7 do have an icon cache, in case you didn't already know that.
One question though: What exactly is the difference between refreshing the cache and rebuilding it?
All GUI windows are created on startup. There is one that is created off screen and unhidden for the New Items menu context menu to work. This is probably the one you are talking about, but it must be there and it must be unhidden.
AutoIt and AHK are not even close any more and cannot be cross compiled.
Refreshing the icons doesn't have anything to do with the cache really. It calls the SHChangeNotify function to tell explorer that something has changed regarding file associations. This causes explorer to re-check and redraw and file icons to update them in case their association has changed.
Rebuilding the cache is a more thorough process that cleans out any cached icons and then calls the SHChangeNotify function to make explorer update its icons - which also rebuilds the cache. As I said, this is not necessary (or possible in the same way) on Vista/7. Simply calling SHChangeNotify is enough to fix any icons in my experience.
I just remembered what my feature request was! I was going to suggest the ability to associate protocols (http, https, etc.), this way I can set Google Chrome Portable to load websites when I click a website link in another program.
This was requested before in relation to making FF Portable the default browser. I did some work on it, and I think I have code to do it that is mostly reliable. It will make it into an update eventually. I don't work on PFA that often, but a todo list is building...
Its a wonderful app and I love it but i recently encountered the first problem:
installed openoffice and linked it to doc,... files.
double clicked at a doc file but this apeared:this file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action
got the same whit txt files with notepad++.
by changing index to -1 and setting office as default it worked.
most likely it was a stupidity of me but I really want some explanation to avoid this in future.
I really have no idea what you are trying to explain here. You'll have to go into step by step detail to reproduce your problem, preferably as simply as possible.
If you installed OpenOffice, why are you trying to use PFA to associate files that are already associated to it? What do you mean by the same thing with txt files? And the icon index really has nothing to do with the actual association, just the way the file type looks in explorer.
I didn't explained it well, sorry but english isn't my native language and I have trouble explaining things in it.
I installed notepad++ portable and associated it with txt extensions (I did the same with openoffice, associated doc,... with openoffice portable)
I double clicked on a txt file but Instead of opening it gave an error(the same error appeared when opening doc files but not with my other associations).
by setting the default pfa association to notepad++ the error was solved.
I have no other programs on my memorystick associated with .txt files.
I hope it is easier for you to understand it now
Ok, that I understood better. I'll take a look, but I've followed the same procedure while testing many times, and I've never seen that error. But I'll try again.
I dubble checked: the error only appears on my windows xp comp and not on my vista computer.
I think its a problem at my end...
hi dinosoep ,i think i had found the solution. I delect line 2209 in the source and it work well.
There actually is a bug there, but yours is the wrong fix. A better fix would be on line 2197:
I'll fix this properly in the next update.
it's solved for now and next update i am going to test if the problem is dissapeared
thanks for the software
Actually I think this was also the cause of a previously pesky and unsolved bug for ShalowUser (same symptom). It would only happen on XP where no PFA default was selected, host associations were not copied or did not exist, and the ShellNew (New -> menu entry) existed for the file extension. Pretty rare set of circumstances on only one OS... side effect of hacking around windows bugs I guess.
Glad we found it!
EDIT:
I think I might try to get an update out tomorrow with this fix (since it's important) and a few small items from the todo list.
Yup yup ...
A year old bug finaly found and fixed !!!!!!!!
thank you wraith !!
still coming here and using the software.
I had one association problem, another bug with an installation program. The program would not complete the install until i removed all associations. Weird. But i reenabled them after the install, and all went fine.
was curious as to what might have caused the install to hang.
No idea. You didn't even mention what software you are trying to install.
Either way, it would be a very good idea to remove any temporary portable stuff (like PFA) before doing any permanent system changes like installing something.
See first post for details.
I don't know the exact section heading and keys to use in the INI, could you include a sample INI (in Other\Source) in the next release?
You could try the readme file... hint, it's in the section about command line parameters
That... wasn't the way I was expecting it to work. I was thinking I had to make a PortableFileAssociatior.ini in the same directory as the launcher--you know, like every other PAF app in existence.
Anyway, thanks for the tip.
I've got enough INIs laying around, figured I'd use one that already existed. And since PFA is launcher free, it's not *exactly* the same thing. This is an application setting, not a launcher setting. Plus I like the fact it stays in the Data\Settings directory where it really should be anyway.
*snip*
n/m
downloaded and installed.
have to go now but I will test if it happens wen I come across another xp computer
Setting "Start automatically" in the platform doesn't work with the stock release. I did some experimenting and found out that if I change the Start= line at the end of appinfo.ini to read "Start=PortableFileAssociatior.exe" (you just have "PortableFileAssociator", without an extension), "Start Automatically" works properly again.
Not including the .exe extension is a security hole anyway--it turns out that if I put a PortableFileAssociator.vbs in the same directory as PortableFileAssociator.exe, the script is preferred over the .exe when the extension is not present in appinfo.ini.
PFA hasn't been updated for Format 1.0 yet. Suppose I should add that to the list...
Huh? I've never seen a PAF app in any version of the spec that didn't include an .exe extension on the Start= line...
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