chrome shortcut apps

1.) The shortcuts that are created don't launch GoogleChromePortable.exe, they launch the actual exe, and hence don't work.

2.) This question has been asked before (use the search bar provided to you on the top right corner of the website

3.) The menu only shows executables, not shortcuts.

4.) I (had) an idea of what to do, but I think you would have to edit Google Chrome itself in order for it to create executables instead of .inks (shortcuts)

I use portable Chrome to access the cloud (Google calendar, Zoho docs, etc) and like the clean screen of the -apps shortcuts. Here's what I did...

I use Qsel as my portable menu and launcher instead of PortableApps menu (sorry). In the config window of Qsel I put the path to ChromePortable exe as the "target" and paste the path to the app desktop shortcut in the "parameters". To get the path for the app shortcut just create a desktop app shortcut from within Chrome. Once it's created on your desktop right click on it and view its properties. Copy the target to QSel's parameter line, delete the desktop shortcut, and you're done. Works great.

Chrome shortcut apps can work if you change the Windows shortcut so the EXE points to the launcher. Keep the --app parameter... it should work though I haven't tested it.

Unfortunately Windows shortcuts are not portable. There are ways around this using other shortcut formats... IE if you know how to do batch files and relative paths then it's a piece of cake... the problem is batch files are legacy and require knowledge of a lot of legacy MS-DOS concepts most people don't know about anymore.

A quick look indicates it seems to put the icon that it uses in your profile folder so that part should be OK.

To add links to the PortableAppsMenu, try the following. Note that this is untested and I dunno if PAM supports it... we could pester John to make it possible though

Open App\appinfo\appinfo.ini. Find the section at the bottom:

[Control]
Icons=1
Start=GoogleChromePortable.exe

First we need to alter it slightly to allow for more icons:

[Control]
Icons=1
Start=GoogleChromePortable.exe
Name1=Google Chrome Portable
Start1=GoogleChromePortable.exe

Now you will want to add the following for each app:

Name2=NAME
Start2=GoogleChromePortable.exe --app="URL"

For each remember to change the number "2". So your first shortcut would be Name2 and Start2, next Name3 and Start3, etc. Now set Icons=1 to the new number of shortcuts... if you add two shortcuts, plus the original GCP, that makes 3.

Save and try in PAM. PAM might not support arguments in there... if it doesn't then we're out of luck, maybe I or someone can make a dedicated App Launcher or something... anyways if it does work we can also fix up the icons.

Check the shortcut you made on the desktop and go to Properties > Change Icon, and check the icon path... open it in Explorer and you will find the icon. Copy it to App\appinfo and name it appinfo2.ico (or whatever the "right" number is). You may also have to convert it to PNG, not sure, experiment. Here's the reference for the icons PAM expects to find: https://portableapps.com/development/portableapps.com_format#appinfo