Include all Programs

[alanrroberts]

Very neat app, thanks. This is a feature request rather than an issue. I'd love the list to include programs from the installed programs list at a lower priority that open windows. This way if Excel is running I can switch to it but if it isn't I can launch it (rather than having to take the extra step of dropping into Windows search). Maybe even add a text file of custom entries I can add to the list (display name and path to executable sort of thing?

[christianrondeau]

Hi!

For this purpose I use Launchy. This would be a great feature and I did look into it, but finding out pertinent executables from shortcuts in the Windows launch menu and other paths is harder than I thought :)

I'm all for that feature, but that's not something I'd personally have time to implement. If you (or anyone) would like to invest time in this, I can certainly give pointers on how I would do it!

[alanrroberts]

Hi Christian

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I’ll take a look at launch as I haven’t come across that one. I appreciate your lack of time and I’m in pretty much the same boat at the moment but might pester you for a few pointers if I get some free time 😊

Thanks again

Alan

From: Christian Rondeau [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 13 November 2017 11:43 To: christianrondeau/GoToWindow [email protected] Cc: Alan Roberts [email protected]; Author [email protected] Subject: Re: [christianrondeau/GoToWindow] Include all Programs (#54)

Hi!

For this purpose I use Launchyhttps://sourceforge.net/projects/launchy/. This would be a great feature and I did look into it, but finding out pertinent executables from shortcuts in the Windows launch menu and other paths is harder than I thought :)

I'm all for that feature, but that's not something I'd personally have time to implement. If you (or anyone) would like to invest time in this, I can certainly give pointers on how I would do it!

— You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/christianrondeau/GoToWindow/issues/54#issuecomment-343894810, or mute the threadhttps://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AIR2JTxW7fH0NxeOdC5aVlhMnlWLg4mGks5s2Cs9gaJpZM4QbcEr.

[christianrondeau]

The way I'd do it would be something like:

• Setup a file watcher on the Start Menu to keep the list up to date
• Read all .lnk files and build a list: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2566008/154480
• Implement some kind of priority to avoid having these show up
• Implement a different visual look to make it obvious it'll launch another app
• Get the icon from the executable referenced by the lnk file
• Get the title from the .lnk file... or from the executable itself?
• Think about how to launch the app, e.g. if GoToWindows runs in admin mode, we don't want the app to run in admin mode too
• Potentially offer the ability to configure other paths to scan, and in that case, also find exe files.

Anyway, I'm sure there's more to think about, but that should give an idea if someone wants to try themselves at this :) It's not really "complicated", but we're not in the "simple" range either :)