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Categorizer - A cheat to get "grouping" support out of PA

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maggotb0y
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Categorizer - A cheat to get "grouping" support out of PA

I've written an application that can be run within the context of the PortableApps menu to display a dropdown list of applications installed in a subdirectory under PA. This will allow those of us who are impatient for the next version of PA to have some category support for now.

Here's a screen shot (read the full post for a link to the software).

USAGE

Browse to your "PortableApps" folder and create a new folder for your grouped applications (e.g. Games). Move any of the folders in your "PortableApps" folder that you want to appear within the category into the new folder you've created. Also copy in one of the executables included in this zip to the folder (the icon for that executable will be the icon you see). If you want the Category to be named something other than the name of the .exe, you can simply rename the .exe to whatever you want the group to be named (If you name the exe "My really super nifty group.exe" your group will be called "My really super nifty group"

Now when you click on one of those groups, a drop down will appear with the applications moved into that folder. If you change your mind about running one of them, you can click at the bottom to close out the menu.

Also, if you are really fast with your mouse after clicking on the category, the drop down will appear by your mouse rather than by the category.

WARNING

This is likely to mess up your backups if you do anything other than a "full" backup of your portableApps drive.

Aug 7th- I've made a small update to take the taskbar into consideration when calculating screen size.

Aug 10th- Updated to properly handle the 1.1 Beta Menu (as well as 1.0)

That being said, here's a link to the app with Delphi source included.

Jacob Mastel
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Great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It will be nice when PAM does this on it's own but this is wonderful for now.
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Jacob Mastel

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BuddhaChu
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Cool hack!

Cool hack!

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alanbcohen
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Works well. One question (I

Works well. One question (I guess I could experiment), can you use the same exe in multiple folders, renamed in each? You only provided a limited number of categories, I'd like more, if possible. I'm not really source-capable to figure it out like some.

maggotb0y
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Just rename it

No need to touch the source

You can add it to as many subfolders as you like and simply rename any of the provided .exe files. It will display as whatever you have named it. I simply recompiled it a bunch of different times with different icons.

It would even be possible to change the icon without touching the source or recompiling- you can XNResourceEditor PE to change the icon of the renamed .exe.

Jacob Mastel
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Resource Hacker

You don't need any training to use it, and it's free. As said above just rename the .exe and that will change the name that appears on the menu. Resource Hacker has the ability to change icons. I think this will work. I don't know the URL, just search google using the keywords Resource Hacker. That's how I found it. Wink
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Jacob Mastel

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OliverK
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Only if . . .

only if the .exe's aren't compressed. Also, it has a tendency to mess up portable apps.
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maggotb0y
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RE: Only if . . .

Well, if they are UPX compressed, you can generally run upx -d filename.exe to decompress it, make the change, and upx the file again to recompress

OliverK
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Resource hacker messes these

Resource hacker messes these up, I'm assuming because its compressed, I'll try the other resource hacker.

There are 10 types of people in the world.

Those who understand Binary
and Those who don't

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

OliverK
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I'm a gonna

Do you mind if I post a decompressed version of this on my site?
I'll put it here .

If you do, let me know and I'll take it down.

Thanks.
There are 10 types of people in the world.

Those who understand Binary
and Those who don't

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

LittleUnkn0wn
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Awsome

Just what I needed to de-clutter my menu. Thanks a ton!
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maggotb0y
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Updated zip file

There was a bug in the positioning of the popup if the icon was too close to the taskbar- I've corrected that- the link above now points to that newer version

OliverK
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Loading time

I've got about 55 apps on my drive. I'm curious if this would take a longer or shorter amount of time then without the mod.

Just curious because my mneu takes about 15 sec to load.

There are 10 types of people in the world.

Those who understand Binary
and Those who don't

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

maggotb0y
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RE: Loading time

Well, it would most likely shorten your initial loading time, as PA would just find each category app & icon.

However, you'd really be offsetting that load time to when you click on a category- if there are a lot of apps in a category on a slower thumbdrive, this may take a while. However, if you leave your most used apps on the menu and only categorize the stuff you use once in a while, I imagine you'd get an overall performance gain in terms of daily lag time.

Obviously there are a lot of variables involved, but I'd be curious to hear what the results are. Should you try it, let us know.

OliverK
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The test results are in!

computer details:
1. some odd mgh processor
windows xp servicepack one
USB 1.1

PAM Menu Details:
PAM 1.1 Beta 4
Personal Theme: Samuria Panda and True Theme Zune Icons

Unmodified:
53 apps give or take
load time: 32.09

Modified:
with games grouping- removes 7 from main menu
load time: 24.55

Modified:
Open Office
Placed: Open Office Suite (7)
Removes Total of 13 apps
load time: 22.28
Glitch Found: Minimizes Menu, displays pop-up for OpenOffice
Glitch Fixed by Using Different Catagorizer

Modified:
Games, OpenOffice, and Internet Utilities
Placed: Mozilla FireFox, Kampoozer, KeePass, and Miranda Portable
Removes Total of 17 apps.
load time: 20.81
Glitch with Open Office Not Present for this Grouping

Modified:
Development
Placed: Calipers, Icon Sushi, NotePad ++, Reg Shot, and Resource Hacker
Removes a Total of 22 apps
loadtime: 18.00

Modified:
Media
Placed: CamStudio (5 different Prgorams), Audactiy, Virtual Dub, and VLC Portable (8)
Removes a total of 30 apps
loadtime: 16.00

Modifi

There are 10 types of people in the world.

Those who understand Binary
and Those who don't

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

maggotb0y
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Joined: 2007-06-06 09:13
Updated for 1.1 Beta Menu

There were problems with running categorizer under the new beta menu, the zip has now been updated to correctly handle the new menu.

Also, the sub menu now will disappear if you click on the Portable Apps Menu.

Rand
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Could you make this menu skinable ?

I have been using rocketdock made portable with categorizer to lauch portableApps
( Rocketdock with Stacks Docklet is really good!!!)

I have it in PortableApps launcher -but the launcher is to slow with the large number of apps I have - It's quicker to have button for each group on Rocketdock

this the kind of skin I had in mind - http://rocketdock.com/images/screenshots/img_24_01.gif

I hope you will consider this , thanks

maggotb0y
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Sorry

Sorry, but this is pretty much abandon-ware at this point. I stopped doing anything with this when I started working on geek.menu.

rainbow.umbrella
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icon change

is there any way to change the icon? great launcher!

iLike Mac's

wk
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please read the whole post

there´s an uncompressed version linked by OliverK

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bbianco
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Fantastic

Sure cleared up my never ending menu! This was so badly needed!
The difference in the loading time of PA with this installed is unreal!
It use to take a couple of mins for my menu to load, now it's seconds!
Thanks so much!!!

argondos
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Problem solved

Former message erased

Thanks a lot for this very usefull add-on

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