Start++ 0.4 released
I just uploaded Start++ 0.4. The music gadget that I showed before isn’t in there yet, but the picture gadget is. The focus of this release is to get some testing on the new start menu hooking mechanism – so I’d appreciate your feedback on how that works!
What’s new in 0.4
- Start++ now runs in the system tray to provide better Start Menu hooking, including custom Start Menu UI (“Start Gadgets”).
- Picture Gadget is the first built-in Start Gadget. Eventually this will be extensible.
- New Options tab with three options
- Disable running in the background (provides the same functionality as previous versions).
- Disable command line integration (feature request)
- Disable Start Menu commands for when Start++ isn’t running
- Bug fixes, including a fix for users with spaces in their user names.
21 Comments
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“Bug fixes, including a fix for users with spaces in their user names”
“The MAZZTer” is pleased. 🙂
Great updates…but what does Picture Gadget indexes?
Can’t find the pics on my d:\
Does it use the Start Menu index? If so then how can I expand the Start Menu index?
Why does the Picture Gadget only find a max of 50 pictures? Also, can you include a higher res icon, so that when it’s blown up in the start menu, it still looks good? Awesome program otherwise.
Tran – The search functions work against the Windows Search index. You can configure which paths are indexed in the Control Panel (go to Control Panel and type “search” or “index” to find it quickly).
I seem to be having a problem with Start++. Overall, it is a fantastic addition to Vista and has greatly improved my productivity.
I use Firefox as my default browser. I have it set so that it has all its defaults, yet when using Start++, to search Wikipedia for example, I get a message stating:
The system cannot find the file specified
If I click the okay button, Firefox opens at the correct Wikipedia page. This only happens if Firefox is not currently running. If it is running, there are no problems. If I set IE to be my default browser, I do not have this issue.
Any ideas?
Thanks for creating such a simple, yet wonderfully useful program.
Brian –
Sounds like a Firefox bug, but I’ll look into it tonight and see if there’s a workaround I can find. I wonder if other Firefox users are hitting that? I assume you’re running FF 2.0?
Hi Brandon,
Yep, running 2.0.0.2
I think it may be a problem with setting my default browser, rather than with start++. I’ve recently noticed that when I click on a link in an Outlook 2007 email, I get the following message:
General failure. The URL was:
http://www.x.com…”. The system cannot find the file specified.
Again, if I click “okay” FF starts and goes to the correct page. Used to work properly. This is something recent.
thanks again,
Brian
Hi Brendon,
I love the program, just a quick question please. I have my Music stored on another hard drive. When trying to play music using Start++, it seems not to find the files. Is this because it looks in the default folder? Is there a way to look at another folder instead?
Regards,
Andrew
Brandon,
Thanks for the baddass program.
However, I expected Start++ to add the following functionality to the Start Menu Search bar.
type ThisIsATest
hit Enter and a Windows Vista search is run.
hit Ctl+Enter and the browser is opened to http:\\www.ThisIsATest.com
hit Shift+Enter and the brower opens with a search in the defualt search engine for ThisIsATest.
It doesn’t work like this for me. Should it?
I really miss the efficiency this functionality provided in Windows XP with WDS.
Hi again Brandon,
I think I figured out the issue I was having using Start++ with Firefox as the default browser. As I mentioned above, I didn’t think the problem has anything to do with Start++, but that it had something to do with selecting the default browser.
After a COMPLETE uninstall and reinstall of Firefox, the problem went away. After a few days though, it came back. I searched through my registry to see if any keys relating to Firefox had been changed. I found that the majority of keys that were changed/added were things relating to Google Toolbar, which I then remembered I had installed the night before.
I deleted the Google Toolbar add-in from within FF and the problem disappeared. I then reinstalled the toolbar and, low and behold, the problem returned. Anyway, it looks like it has something to do with how Google Toolbar installs itself in Vista.
No more Google Toolbar for me, at least until they fix it!
Brian
Great Tool, really like it!
I tried to include the search engine from this site: http://dict.leo.org/
but i don’t get it working, can someone help?
(sorry 4 my bad english)
Hi Brandon,
Thanks for the awesome tool. One thing I was wondering is if it is possible to include quotes in the parameter in future versions. Right now, when you do a search using a phrase in quotes, the quotes get lost when the actual search is performed. That would be a much appreciated addition.
I did try to add a %22 to my query to see if that would work (i.e. g %22homer simpson%22), but it looks like the app replaced the %2 with the second parameter and everything got funky. Maybe you could ignore the %x codes that are typed into the start bar since they shouldn’t be representing parameters?
In case it’s not completely clear, I typed the following:
g %22homer simpson%22
And the result was a google search on simpson”2homer simpsonsimpson”2
Any solution to the General failure bug? I find it very annoying and would love to make it stop.
Bryan:
Removing Google toolbar from Firefox fixed this for me (see post # 10).
Hm… I don’t have google toolbar installed and I still get the same problem as Bryan (#13).
FF is my default browser tho’ and I read something about vista not enjoying that.
I also have recently started having this General Failure Pop-up in Firefox. I am running Windows XP. It is just a pain. The URL always opens anyway. I just need to close the box everytime.
The issue with “the system cannot find the file…” IS related to google toolbar’s latest build. I am going to try tracking down a solution, but I found that disabling it resolved the problem as well.
I’m getting the same error, running firefox as default browser. Is there a workaround for this yet?
Bryan and Brian, the following may help you, I ran into those General Failure errors myself in Outlook with the latest Firefox and recognized them from back when I was on Windows XP. After a little digging, it looks like the same fix that worked there works here, but on a different registry key. I posted about it here:
http://www.figarocastle.org/blog/archives/2007/06/firefox_vista_o.html
Doh, looks like mozilla already had a knowledge base article up here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Windows_error_opening_Internet_shortcut_or_local_HTML_file_-_Firefox
Hi Brandon,
I have the same problem like Andrew
“I love the program, just a quick question please. I have my Music stored on another hard drive. When trying to play music using Start++, it seems not to find the files. Is this because it looks in the default folder? Is there a way to look at another folder instead?”
Best Regards
yogifreak from Freiburg Germany