App Dashboard Help

Version 1.0

• About
• Usage
• Future Plans
• Contact

About (top)

Use this app to launch your other apps. I found myself with too many shortcuts on my desktop, so I made this app so that I only needed one shortcut. Then I decided that I might like groups of apps to show on the dashboard so I added the ability so load and save files describing app groups of your choosing.

Each app group can have up to 20 apps. I use the term "app" loosely, because it can really be anything with a path -- in other words, almost anything that you could launch by typing something into the Start -> Run... dialog. For example, a batch file, a Word document, a URL, etc. It does not currently support running apps with command line parameters.

Usage (top)

For now, the instructions will just be some simple bullet points since the app is really pretty basic:

• Create a new app group by clicking on the New icon.
• App Dashboard will reload the app group in use in your last session.
• Right click on a button and choose Configure Button to change the app that button will launch.
• Right click on a button and choose Clear Button to remove the settings for that button.
• Click the Open icon to open a saved app group.
• Click the Save icon to save an app group.
• Click the drop down arrow on the Save icon to choose Save As... This allows you to easily copy an app group if desired.
• Click a button to launch the app associated with it.
• Optional: Running install.bat will associate .adsh files with App Dashboard.
• Optional: Running uninstall.bat will disassociate .adsh files from App Dashboard.
• Optional: The *.adsh files are simple XML files, so you can edit them with any text editor if you are comfortable with that.

Future Plans (top)

Here are some possible future plans.

• Support for items with command line parameters
• Support for paths like %SystemRoot%\system32\notepad.exe
• Embedded icon for adsh files instead of external .ico file
• System tray support
• Recent app group history menu
• Drag and drop support
• Other features that I should have written down, but have since forgotten

Contact (top)

This application was written by Scott Isaacs, and you can visit his blog here. Please feel free to send any of your own suggestions by using the contact form the blog.