There is a bug with the pinned PortableApps Icon and Menu (it may or may not be confined to Windows 8 but I believe not)/
I find I need to click the icon in the Notification Area (formerly SysTray) to bring the Menu to the front and over the top of foreground windows as double-clicking on my Start.exe link pinned to QuickLaunch fails to do so.
It is a single instance application but what seems to be happening is the additional instances (before they exit) don't do something like the following (on the running instance) example code I use below for WPF to bring the existing instance Menu/Window fully to the front:
///
/// Bring a Window to Front.
///
/// The Window.
public static void ActivateWindow(Window window)
{
if (window != null)
{
if (!window.IsVisible)
{
window.Show();
}
window.WindowState = WindowState.Normal;
window.Activate();
window.Topmost = true;
window.Topmost = false;
window.Focus();
}
}
This is the code I am using that works for me in my WPF code (admittedly not single instanced) and the equivalent needs to run on the existing instance whenever a new instance is started to bring the Menu/Window to front.
Point me to the code and I can make and test such a change myself: the location in the code where something like this must be already performed but incompletely shouldn't be too hard to find.
I would like to see an option to make or allow the PortablleApps Menu to grow as large as the whole screen height much like the original (and alternative) Window Start Menus (for Window 8.X).
Another very easy fix no doubt.
I try to use as many Portable Apps as possible these days and these are the only obvious and annoying limitations to the very Wonderful PortableApps Start.exe Menu for me!
Kind Regards,
Matthew.
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Be nice if I could attach a screenshot of my TaskBar. Start.exe Shortcut in Quick Launch Folder or Pinned to the TaskBar should have the same not quite coming to foreground properly effect (My PortableApps Start.exe is next to my StarDock Start8 Menu). Try it and see what I mean!
You can pin PortableAppsPlatform.exe to get around the Z-order issue as that will pin the actual app and not try to re-run it every time you click it.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I will try that out and see how it behaves. That said though I would have preferred to keep and launch a second instance from Quick Launch. Behaviour should really be the same upon launch of a second instance (since the PortableApps Launcher does handle single instancing but someone seemingly forgot to reassert the topmost Z-ordering.) The code I posted is reputed to work.
Any pointers on where to go to access and modify the PortableApps Platform code would be appreciated both for this and to expand the menu size or number of entries (which could be made a command-line or other option).
Regards,
Matthew.
If you pin PortableAppsPlatform.exe on 7 or later, it'll do what you want. Quick Launch is basically dead and pointless now anyway.
The code is linked on the download page in the details section just as all other apps.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
The 12.1 version of the PA.c Platform always comes to the front whether run from Start.exe or another instance of PortableAppsPlatform.exe in my testing under Windows 8 now.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!