Chrome Desktop Shortcuts for Web Pages Problem

[Hysteris]

Hi!

There is no way to iconize the Chrome Desktop Shortcuts for Web Pages sucessfully and automatocally with your app (but it can be done by manually editing vbs files)

So the problem is following: when adding icons to Chrome Desktop Shortcuts for Web Pages with your app, only the last icon added in your app appeares on all chrome tiles (including chrome itself). It rewrites the icons added before. First it worked (so I added icons to all shortcuts I had...), but after reboot i had 10 slides with the Facebook icon :-D

I tried to do for each Chrome Desktop Shortcut a TileIconifier custom shotcut – and to use them in tiles. That worked perfect for the icons!! But... All the tiles link to the chrome browser with no shortcut. The reason: the target Arguments won't copy from the Chrome Desktop Shortcuts when TileIconifier custom shotcut is created (the field stays empty in the vbs file).

So i added manually the target Arguments from the Chrome Desktop Shortcuts for Web Pages to the vbs files of the TileIconifier custom shotcuts via Notepad =) Now it works fine!! )))) Thank you! )

But i assume it would be better if it would work automatically :)

[Jonno12345]

Aha... Okay. Understood.

Yes, just trying to make icons for the Chrome built shortcuts wouldn't work as they simply all point to chrome.exe, so all will be using the same icon. When you iconify an item it just refreshes that one icon, hence why it appears to work until a reboot.

Fixing the quick build custom shortcut should be easier though, I'll take a look. Thanks for letting me know..!

[mychalme]

Hi Histeris, could you please give me an easy guide on the workaround you applied? I think Tileconifier is great but most of apps I have pinned are chrome apps ... (all with the same tile!). Thanks, Myles

[mychalme]

So I found a workaround:

1. Create custom shortcut from utilities menu
2. Select 'create new shortcut'
3. Select 'chrome apps' tab
4. scroll down the list and choose the chrome app you wish to tile
5. Hit 'generate shortcut'
6. hit x to close the dialogue window and return to the list of custom shortcuts
7. select the custom shortcut you just created
8. select 'go to custom shortcut'

after this you can add a tile, go to windows start apps list and look for 'tileiconify' to find the app you created a custom shortcut for - right click to pin to start. Done.

I'm sure there is an easier way!

Not complaining, this is a free app and I appreciate it. I can now have start looking exactly the way I want it.

[Hysteris]

@mychalme unfortunatelly this is only the half way. You probably didn't check out the custom shortcut you created. It opens just a normal chrome window with a new tab. That`s because for now TileIconifier does not copy the target arguments from the chrome app, only the link to chrome itself. I downloaded the last version (v2.2.6776.40900) to check out that Jonno12345 for now didn't fix that. But that can be fixed manually for each tile – see below.

Now i will give the workaround, from the beginning, so everybody has the full solution.

1. In TileIconifier choouse the Chrome app you want to add to the tiles. 2. Click the Quick Build Custom Shortcut button.

3. Choose that Custom Shortcut in the list (All Custom Shortcuts have the Check mark in the "Is Custom" column. 4. Add the image, you want for that Tile.

5. Go to the start menu, click on any of the Chrome apps with the right button, click on "Extras" / "More" (I don't know, how it's called in the English version of windows), Than click on "Go to file location" (or similar)

6. Now click with the right button on the Chrome app you need, open the Properties. Go to the Object field and copy the whole part of the string after this first part: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" In my case it's --profile-directory=Default --app-id=cbfmjmiilnkchmhgmhhlglidaifnnnec (for each Chrome app it will be a different string)

7. Open the folder C:\ProgramData\TileIconify\
Go into the subfolder you need (In my case – Amazon) Right click on the .vbs file (in my case Amazon.vbs) and choose open with -> Notepad

8. Find in the text the following: targetArguments = "" Paste into it the string you copied before. In my case it will now look like: targetArguments = "--profile-directory=Default --app-id=cbfmjmiilnkchmhgmhhlglidaifnnnec"

9. Choose "Save As" and add at the end of the file name 2.vbs (In my case the full file name will be Amazon2.vbs)

10. Now delete the original vbs file (in my case Amazon) and rename the new vbs file, deleting the "2" from it, so it will have the same name as the original file before (Amazon). Why not rewriting the original file by Save as in the Notepad? You can try it out, for me it didn't work out, windows said the file is in use. So i did it this way with saving it with another name and than deleting the original vbs file and renaming my file.

11. The last step – we add the Tile. We go to Start, find the Tileconifier folder, right click on the necessary Custom shortcut -> add Tile to Start screen

Now we have the perfectly working tile on the Start screen. We even can now make to its design any changes we want to in Tileconifier, nothing will break :-D The changes will be applied immediately

[mychalme]

Hi Hysteris, thanks for your reply.

Actually, they do not open as chrome tabs. They open as Chrome Desktop apps.

[Hysteris]

Ok, than that part of the problem is only in my case. @Jonno12345 – you fixed that? I downloaded the last version, and tried to make another custom shortcut. In my case nothing changed, the targent arguments are missing and the custom shortcut still opens an ordinary chrome window. Strange...

[mychalme]

Hi Hysteris,

I must admit that after trying my own version of the workaround, I was surprised that it worked. So I thought perhaps the developer had already built in the workaround to the last and current version.

With the instructions I put above, I can definitely tile and pin Chrome apps and they open as such.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help, screenshots or anything else. This issue was frustrating me because I don't run a lot of native apps anymore, everything is in the cloud and so I just needed an application to tile these (chrome) cloud apps to my start menu.

I was using a different app I downloaded from XDA which also tiled chrome apps perfectly. However, after I upgraded to 1803, thats where the problem began - every chrome app then had the same tile.

[Hysteris]

@mychalme For me it's fine, because for me it works my way :-D

But of course it would be cool, if the way to do it would be shorter (Last week I didn't add a few tiles because i was too lazy to do it all again :-D). But I will first wait for the answer from @Jonno12345 if he did change something about the target arguments in the custom shortcuts in the last version. Because if not, than i just have a special problem, which you don't have )))

Maybe to help us to be sure that it works correct in your case (and that it's different from my case), you could check, if the string targetArguments = "" in your vbs file of any custom shortcut is empty or not (if not empty it will look something like targetArguments = "--profile-directory=Default --app-id=cbfmjmiilnkchmhgmhhlglidaifnnnec").

Thanks

[mychalme]

@Hysteris

targetPath = """C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe""" targetArguments = "--profile-directory=Default --app-id=jhfllgjomijpgdballldopjgcgdgpahh"

This is from the .vbs file under: programdata > Tileiconify

Even though the process I used is working, it is still pretty lengthy and takes way too much time out of my life just to pin and tile an app. However, I am a perfectionist when it comes to how my OS is visually displayed, I want it to look the way I want it to look.

[nglollol]

@mychalme For me it's fine, because for me it works my way :-D

But of course it would be cool, if the way to do it would be shorter (Last week I didn't add a few tiles because i was too lazy to do it all again :-D). But I will first wait for the answer from @Jonno12345 if he did change something about the target arguments in the custom shortcuts in the last version. Because if not, than i just have a special problem, which you don't have )))

Maybe to help us to be sure that it works correct in your case (and that it's different from my case), you could check, if the string targetArguments = "" in your vbs file of any custom shortcut is empty or not (if not empty it will look something like targetArguments = "--profile-directory=Default --app-id=cbfmjmiilnkchmhgmhhlglidaifnnnec").

Thanks

@Hysteris Hi, I am having a same problem but not for chrome app, it is my elevated shortcut using winaero tweaker. I have created some elevated shortcut and the target path for these shortcuts look like "C:\Windows\system32\schtasks.exe /run /tn "Everything.exe_-2038182098"". Creating custom shortcut for these elevated shortcuts seem to be not working. Do you have any idea how can I edit the vbs file to make it become workable?

[e-t-l]

Yes, just trying to make icons for the Chrome built shortcuts wouldn't work as they simply all point to chrome.exe, so all will be using the same icon.

@Jonno12345 is there any chance the original issue here could be resolved, perhaps by making Tileiconifier differentiate between shortcuts that have different arguments? (Possibly by hashing the shortcut so that each one has a unique identity?)

I try not to use the custom icon because it slows down the launch of the app by about 5 seconds (at least on my computer, which is a few years old). Using a traditional shortcut is much faster and more straightforward, and it would be nice if Tileiconifier could differentiate between shortcuts.

For what it's worth, I tested and confirmed that this is an issue/limitation with Tileiconifier, not with Windows. I have two tiles on my Start menu, one pointing to the default Chrome shortcut, and one pointing to a Chrome app. If I iconify the Chrome app but don't iconify the default Chrome shortcut, then the app's icon is successfully changed while the default shortcut's icon is untouched. The issue only arises when I try to iconify both of them.