iPhone apps in your Start menu

[Brandon Live Veteran]

This weekend a new version of Start++ was released. What's new? Have a look...

Start++ Home

Keep in mind that Start++ is still in beta. If you have problems, please report them on the forum!

[Trong]

Whoa. :o

[shockz]

Facebook's iphone page would be pretty cool in there/

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Facebook's iphone page would be pretty cool in there/

Yeah... Sadly it doesn't really like IE =/

It's a plug-in "gadget" architecture though, so someone can certainly make Facebook support work.

[Slimy]

Why does the site say 0.7.2 and the title says 0.7 Beta?

Also, why can't I see the changelog without creating an account?

Edited August 19, 2007 by Slimy

[ThePitt]

interesting but vista only :(

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Why does the site say 0.7.2 and the title says 0.7 Beta?

Also, why can't I see the changelog without creating an account?

0.7 was released yesterday, .1 and .2 were minor updates. 0.7 is what introduced the functionality shown above.

Edit: The changelist link was the wrong link, that's why it asked you to sign in. Should be fixed now (the changelists are just public news posts).

Edited August 19, 2007 by Brandon Live

[Slimy]

Cheers for the fix :)

[Allan]

hmmmm... what is the point really, when you have a SIDEBAR to do that?

[.stan]

Does not seem to work on my german vista :( (gadgets)

[Brandon Live Veteran]

hmmmm... what is the point really, when you have a SIDEBAR to do that?

Seriously? I don't see how the sidebar is comparable at all... I think they complement each other well, but don't see the sidebar as a good place to do searches or work with interactive content. It's certainly not as keyboard-friendly. Whereas the sidebar will run out of space pretty quickly, these Start++ gadgets are only shown when you need them. And they're only a keypress away.

Of course, this is still early work... it'll get even more valuable when it can interact better with your desktop apps, and be more context-sensitive than it is now.

[Simon Veteran]

Maybe you should look into using Webkit for the start menu area, since that's what the iPhone uses.

Or make it an optional download. Webkit doesn't necessarily mean Safari ;)

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Thought about that. IE was the easiest to get going, and I've used it before. I wanted to get something working beyond what 0.6 had before I leave for a big trip this week (and won't have computers / internet access where I'm going). When I get back in September I'll do more with it.

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

Posted this in your forums, but thought posting here wouldnt do any harm either :)

I downloaded and installed the latest version 0.7.2 and the youtube addin as well as the weather one.

When I type weather in the startbar I dont get what you describe and show in your post above. Links to show what I mean are given here ...

Start Menu

Command Startlet Options

Start Gadgets Options

Search Startlets Options

Licence - to show latest version installed :)

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Looks like you deleted the Weather gadget (installed with the app), since it's not in your gadget list.

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

Nope, installed and then ran the MSN weather (it got an icon after installing Start++) it did take a while before the prompt came up asking if wanted to allow it.

I have uninstalled start++ and reinstalled to check if that was why the weather wasnt working?

Failing that how do I get it back?

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Oooh, the MSN Weather "command" is different from the included "gadget" (i know, the terminology needs work).

The iPhone weather gadget is included by default, and should show up in the Gadgets tab instead of the Commands tab. One way to get it back would be to delete the StartGadgets.xml file in the %user%\AppData\Local\Start++ directory. That should restore it to the default settings. You might also want to delete the MSN Weather entry first... although that shouldn't strictly be necessary since Gadgets take precedence.

The only problem might be that the iPhone weather gadget is designed for US zip codes, not sure how it works for someone in the UK. It might be something you can tweak though, or find a different weather provider and build a gadget around that (I would, but I'm swamped with stuff to do right now preparing for a big trip).

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

Right, that fixed it. It IS the iphone one that shows in the starmenu, dont know what the MSN one is for?

Anyhoo, now that it is working how can I make it default to Liverpool, UK? As mentioned the code is ukxx0083 which works when I type in "weather ukxx0083"

BTW, forgot to mention, love the app (Y)

[gigapixels Veteran]

When you go into the settings for the Weather gadget, add "?zip=ukxx0083" to the end of the URL already in the OnActivate variable (without the quotes).

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

Awesome, that worked. Thanks gigapixels :)

[gigapixels Veteran]

Awesome, that worked. Thanks gigapixels :)

NP.

BTW, Brandon, awesome app (Y)

[soumyasch]

Awesome stuff. Now just get the console (and PowerShell) in there.

[Linkinfamous]

Awesome stuff. Now just get the console (and PowerShell) in there.

That would actually be pretty cool, having it host powershell....Like, type PSH and it enters a console mode.

It might not be wide enough, though.

[soumyasch]

That would actually be pretty cool, having it host powershell....Like, type PSH and it enters a console mode.

It might not be wide enough, though.

But handy enough for running just a command or two.

[Quillz]

Looks like an interesting program. How does it work? Does it just patch the files that make up the Start menu, or does this require some additional services to run on startup?