Start++ first release

[Brandon Live Veteran]

I'm on my way out the door, but I thought I'd post a link to this :)

http://brandonlive.com/2007/02/22/new-tool...or-vista-start/

Little app I made that I find incredibly useful. It lets you add "aliases" to the Vista start menu, similar to the Deskbar Shortcuts from the WDS Deskbar on XP.

Feedback appreciated.

[Shane Pitman]

Looks interesting, I'm going to play around with it. Thanks Brandon.

[skase]

Brandon.. this is the most amazing program I've come across!!

I'll put it this way, if a friend came over, and asked me to demonstrate vista. Out of all the features, the first thing I would show is "play %artist%".

Excellent work! Cheers.

[Island Dog]

Interesting. I will check it out.

:)

[tony-inpo]

This looks good, I'll have a play

[+Kyle Subscriber¹]

Woah, nice one Brandon. Thanks.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Glad you guys like it! I have some ideas for stuff I'm going to add over the weekend. So post any suggestions or bugs at my blog :)

[brenex]

Excellent program, I am quite the avid supporter of Vista and this makes me feel more resolute in my choice to upgrade. One question, what does the play search query to find its information? I know it's not just the filename but, for instance, I type "play wyclef" and it leaves out a track by Wyclef jean but includes the Wyclef cd I have on my computer. Also if i type "play 50 cent" only about 5 of the 50 cent tracks (of which I have 2 cds) comes up. Thanks!

[AndreasV]

Nice one; really usefull.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Excellent program, I am quite the avid supporter of Vista and this makes me feel more resolute in my choice to upgrade. One question, what does the play search query to find its information? I know it's not just the filename but, for instance, I type "play wyclef" and it leaves out a track by Wyclef jean but includes the Wyclef cd I have on my computer. Also if i type "play 50 cent" only about 5 of the 50 cent tracks (of which I have 2 cds) comes up. Thanks!

The Search Action verbs will query the Windows Search indexer. So it won't find files that aren't in your indexed locations (default is anything under your user profile, but you can change it in Control Panel). Another issue you might find is that if some of your music has the artist labelled as "50 cent" and some has it as "Fifty Cent" - it's not always going to match. On my system, I organize my music by folders, so all of my Switchfoot music is under a folder called Switchfoot, so it works especially well as it doesn't have to match against the Artist column specifically.

Using the configuration UI, you can customize the query that is sent. By default it's something like "kind:music store:file %*" - but you could make it query against just the Folder column by making it "kind:music store:file folder:"%*"" or something like that, and make it tailored to your organizational structure and usage patterns.

In the future I'll look into ways to make some of that more powerful functionality exposed more easily. Maybe with a query builder, etc.

[NienorGT]

look really interesting. I'm not in Vista but I will take a look once I get Vista sometime.

Finally, the start menu will be really more useful in Vista now :)

A++ for the idea!

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Version 0.3 is now out :)

Download Page

[azz0r_wugg]

Definitely worth an install.

[brenex]

Thank you for the reply, I just tried it now again and it correctly finds all the files. Strange! I love it, now that I organized all my media in WMP 11 it even brings back songs that have the singer as a feat artist even if not in album artist(using the tag labelling in WMP 11: artist 1; artist2.) Great work

[brenex]

I get an error while trying to install the newest version (0.3.2) It says The cabinet file _66A57762595D5EE92DB2512F8889841 required for this installation is corrupt.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Hmm, that sounds like a download error... have you tried downloading again? Maybe clearing your browser cache or something?

[brenex]

Yea clearing my cache fixed it. I did try redownloading it before and got the error but after clearing the temp folder got it. I did not know clearing the temporary files would affect a "Save to disk" operation. I thought that just worked for "open file" executions. Thanks Bradon.

[Discotheque]

Does anyone know the search syntax for Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky"?

Cheers

[Discotheque]

Got it, http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Fe...+Lucky&q=%+ :)

[riahc3]

You already posted this in software news...

I personally dont like it. I thought it made direct aliases for programs. Example:

When I type Winamp in Windows Search it comes up with Uninstall Winamp. It would be nice if it automatically made when I type Winamp to launch Winamp instead of the uninstaller.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

You already posted this in software news...

I personally dont like it. I thought it made direct aliases for programs. Example:

When I type Winamp in Windows Search it comes up with Uninstall Winamp. It would be nice if it automatically made when I type Winamp to launch Winamp instead of the uninstaller.

Umm actually I only posted it here, and then someone from the Neowin staff picked it up in software news.

And you actually could do what you describe. Just create and alias for the word "winamp" or even something shorter like "amp" or "wa" to point to "winamp.exe" - not too hard.

Or heck, why not just delete the Uninstall Winamp link from you start menu? I'm sure you can still get to it in the Uninstall Programs control panel.

[Discotheque]

Brandon, do you think there is a way to have the "play" function search either WMP's library, or a specific location - as my music is stored on my file server it doesn't seem to pick it up.

Also, WRT pictures. You could maybe do something similar but not using WMP? ;)

Anyway thanks for the app :)

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Brandon, do you think there is a way to have the "play" function search either WMP's library, or a specific location - as my music is stored on my file server it doesn't seem to pick it up.

Also, WRT pictures. You could maybe do something similar but not using WMP? ;)

Anyway thanks for the app :)

Well right now the search stuff is based on the system index. I'll look into how I could do that with WMP specifically and use their library, that's a pretty good idea.

[Meshuggah]

this is pretty cool, sharing it with some friends :D

[geoken]

You already posted this in software news...

I personally dont like it. I thought it made direct aliases for programs. Example:

When I type Winamp in Windows Search it comes up with Uninstall Winamp. It would be nice if it automatically made when I type Winamp to launch Winamp instead of the uninstaller.

Do you have a winamp shortcut in you start menu? It seems really wierd that 'uninstall winamp' is the first result. I just did a quick test with 4 apps that have the app launcher and uninstaller in the same folder. Every time the app came up before the uninstaller in the search results. Maybe the winamp shortcut has an abbreviated name or something.