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Portable Apps menu help?

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Nathan Booms
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Portable Apps menu help?

I decided to install the Portable Apps Menu (base version) and moved my Portable Apps and some other apps that aren't from this site, but are still considered portable. The problem is that some of these have two or more .exe files in their main folder, which means that PAM shows all those .exe files. Any way to get it to only show one?

John T. Haller
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Nope

Not yet. That feature is coming in about 3 weeks.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Nathan Booms
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OK

OK, thanks for the info then. Looks great anyways.

tigreseis
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Target date

John,

Great job with your work on PortableApps. You said three weeks here. I downloaded the base and added the apps, but portable apps like Spybot are still showing up multiple exe's in the menu. I downloaded the base on 2/9/07. Any idea when the fix is coming out?

jlaj1989@gmail.com
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Problem

I also have a problem with the menu. When i launch one app, and it fades away, and when i click it again, it will not let me click on anything, all the mouse overs and stuff works but it will not launch anything. Also i have an idea for a feature. Maybe subfolders, like a folder u can click in the menu. Like pstart kinda, so it wouldnt take 6 slots with openoffice.

John T. Haller
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Does it start?

What app are you starting where it then won't let you click anything else? What operating system? Etc?

As mentioned elsewhere, I'm working on something similar to folders. And an option so you can just show OpenOffice Portable rather than the individual apps.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

jlaj1989@gmail.com
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Any app. If i click on my

Any app. If i click on my document or anything, it will load the program then fade away the menu then i click on the menu in system tray and it fades in the menu again, but this time it will not let me choose anything, the mouse over and downs work but it will not launch anything, it will also not let me close out of it i have to ctrl-alt-delte it to get it to close. I am using xp home. I dont know if it has to be on a actual flash drive or not but i have it running on my desktop.

John T. Haller
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Do the buttons click?

Do the buttons click when you try and launch an app after it freezes? By click, I mean do they press in? (When you click, say, the Explore icon, for instance, the word Explore moves down a couple pixels and the border of the button inverts) What else is running on your system at the time? How about if you close the app it started, does the menu work after that?

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

jlaj1989@gmail.com
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Yes that is what im talking

Yes that is what im talking about, the mouse overs. xfire, trillian, norton, etc...(windows stuff) No when i launch the menu, then click on the desktop or some thing it does the same thing. If thats what you were talking about.

jlaj1989@gmail.com
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I found problem, im also

I found problem, im also running stardock objectbar. Is there anyway to make them compatible, cause i really don't want to close objectbar to be able to run menu.

John T. Haller
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System Tray

Like anything else that runs from the system tray... you need a system tray for it to work. Actually, this could be the whole thing causing your problem. And, unfortunately, I don't have a copy of it (nor do I want to buy one) so I can't really test around it.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

jlaj1989@gmail.com
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No it doesn't work with

No it doesn't work with object bar but it does with regular taskbar. The object bar does have a system tray though so i don't know why it doesn't work. I also just found it will not launch anything but if i click the icon in system tray it will show and hide it. Yes there is a border over the icon but it will not click, or launch. Also i have another idea, being able to add other programs besides backup to right side, or folder, 7-zip is another useful one.

John T. Haller
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Not mouseover, click

Nope, not the mouseovers. There are two effects... a mouseover and a click. On the mouseover, the button raises (a border appears). On a click, the text moves down 1 pixel and right 1 pixel and the border inverts. Launch it the first time and see what I mean. Then tell me if the click state is working the second time or only the mouseover state.

Also, try restarting the menu. Click Documents. Close the documents window that comes up. Then can you click... or same?

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

reticuli
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Same Issue

I have the same issue. And yes I'm using ObjectDock too so I'll do a little analysis for you. Incidentally StarDock.com also produce a free, but cut down version though I've not tried to see if it has the same problem, but it might be useful if you're tempted to look into this further.

I've only just installed the PortableApps Standard Suite. Nothing more, so you can take this as the reference point regarding what's installed - the contents of that suite are the only PortableApps I have.

Anyway, the first app will run fine. On trying to load a second nothing. When you hover over a menu-item you get the mouseover but there's no click or click-effect. Once again, the only way to get rid of the PortableApps menu is to kill it via the task manager.

It doesn't matter what you click. In fact I'll try some right now just to confirm for you. Documents: run's first time -> fails second -> kill menu. Music: run's first time -> fails second -> kill menu. Sudoku: Same again. Thunderbird: Same again.

Just something additional I tried now. I double-clicked StartPortableApps.exe and it came up fine but instead of clicking on anything I clicked on the desktop instead, to make the menu disappear. When I then reselect the PortableApps menu from the ObjectDock taskbar I get the same symptom.

Next idea: You can keep the standard Windows taskbar while using ObjectDock - though this defeats the point of having a taskbar replacement. Even so, when you use the genuine button in the Windows system tray - even with ObjectDock still running - the Menu suddenly works fine. This might suggest ObjectDock is at fault and not replacing part of the system tray functionality properly rather than PortableApps doing anything wrong - though I should point out this is the first application I've had problems with accessing this way.

Further, if at any point you try to access the PortableApps menu via ObjectDocks system tray, rather than the Windows one then it will then cease to functions via the Windows one without killing and restarting.

Back to ObjectDock - disabling various features doesn't seem to make any difference. Same symptoms.

Anyway, this should hopefully be enough testing to give you an idea of what might be going wrong. My bet right now is on a fault in ObjectDock not handling the system tray right, i.e. not properly handing control over, but since I don't program Windows at this kind of level this really is nothing more than a guess.

Hopefully it helps anyway - even if it only confirms the problem isn't in PortableApps.

John T. Haller
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About what I thought

That's about what I thought with Object Dock as it does some non-standard stuff as compared to Windows' system tray. I think I know a way to work around the issue and should be able to post a test package tomorrow for you to try if you're willing to assist in testing it.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

reticuli
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Testing

Sure, no problem. If it's something simple you can counteract in PortableApps I'd be more than happy to test it out and give feedback on.

dragonmage
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Stardock

All the Stardock apps use a program sdmcp.exe to put the systray into different configurations. Some people have problems with it. I'll bring this issue up in the forums over there and see if I can get someone to look into it.

dragonmage
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Response

This is quoted from the wincustomize forums...

Hi dragonmage, fyi SDMCP is going byebye in the not so distant future. The tray handling has been completly rewritten to not use a separate exe, and so that it can hook in and look at current icons so that it never misses any.

Hopefully this helps work around the issue that they're seeing with the program. And hopefully also the PAM developer will fix their stuff too so its not doing anything funny if it is, and everything will be good

-Jeff Bargmann
ObjectDock Developer

cool1two
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Start Portableapps Menu from U3

Anyone now how i can start this great app from U3, i would like keep Portableapps.com apps on this new startmenu and all my u3 apps on the other. but as Portableapps menu runs from root and i don't want to move it to the U3 system folder i cant seem to find a way to start it via U3.

Any ideas ???

computechx
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Use My Shortcut Creator

You can use my shortcut creator to add a shortcut to the LaunchPad Menu, then tell Launchpad to start it automatically if you want it to.
https://portableapps.com/node/3764

cool1two
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That is so sweet....

it worked perfect Thanks...

arcasaey
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PA Menu & Win2K SP4

The menu will not run on my Win2k installation. All I ever get is "Portable apps etc. has generated errors etc." Don't know where this log file is so remain in the dark. Works fine on my WinXP SP2 laptop. Is this to be expected? I thought Win2k SP4 was supposed to be OK.
Great little suite though otherwise. I am retired 7yrs. Wish I'd had it back then!

John T. Haller
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Patch right on the page

There's a patch right on the Suite download page that covers this.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

arcasaey
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Oh So Dumb.

Didn't see it. Thanks.

arcasaey
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I Must Be REALLY Dumb

I've installed that patch to the root and pretty near every other folder that could conceivably be involved and my Win2K machine is still generating errors and log files to burn! The menu don't open though.

John T. Haller
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You're missing something

The patch needs to be installed to the *exact* directory you installed the suite to. This is usually the root of your drive. You, of course, need to have everything closed at the time. After applying it, the file PortableAppsMenu.exe within your PortableApps\PortableAppsMenu directory should show a version number of 1.0.1.0. If not, you didn't apply it right.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

cellpunxer
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How to have PortableAppsMenu.exe Automatically run

I was wondering how to have PortableAppsMenu.exe Automatically run when i insert my flash drive? When i insert it it just shows all the folders/files on my drive.I have
right clicked on my drive ( G: ) through "My Computer" and picked Autoplay selected start PortableAppsMenu.exe which opens the menu but when i unplug it and plug it back in it wont Auto start the menu regardless if Portable Apps menu icon is in my taskbar or not. Please help!! Thanks!

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