Launch exe with arguments from Catalog?

[JustinF]

I looked through the wiki and did a little searching on the forum but didn't find anything....

Is it possible to launch an executable from the Catalog, supplying parameters/arguments to it? For example, I want to run putty and automagically load one of my saved sessions. In the Catalog destination I type C:\Path\To\putty.exe -load "mySavedSession". But it does nothing. Is there any way to do this currently?

[jacky]

No, it's not supported ATM. Although I agree it would be a nice idea, and could even work with variables that would be used on parameters for currently selected items on List, etc

But I believe this will be available when "scriptability" will be implemented.

[admin]

I looked through the wiki and did a little searching on the forum but didn't find anything....

Is it possible to launch an executable from the Catalog, supplying parameters/arguments to it? For example, I want to run putty and automagically load one of my saved sessions. In the Catalog destination I type C:\Path\To\putty.exe -load "mySavedSession". But it does nothing. Is there any way to do this currently?

Create a shortcut (LNK) featuring that parameters and launch that LNK from Catalog. Should work.

[lukescammell]

Great wrk-around Don - but will it be possible natively?

[JustinF]

Works great, thanks!

A "Command-line arguments:" text box would be a nice addition to the catalog item property page.

[TheQwerty]

I want to re-open this topic as a new wish, because I really think this functionality should be included in XY in the first place.

The current workarounds are far from user friendly and have their own flaws which make them equally useless to most people.


Placing a shortcut in the Catalog may work fine for clicking on it, but you lose the ability to pass files with "open the selected items" or drag and drop, since it's not a supported file type.* Furthermore, shortcuts must have absolute paths, so it is no help when the user is using XY with programs on a portable drive.


Using a batch file works better and allows for relative paths, but means we completely lose the program's icon. If you have a number of programs where you need to do this, all those default batch icons become a bit annoying. You also have to put up with console windows popping up for a split second.


That leaves the last workaround of actually creating a launcher and compiling it into an EXE or COM with the original program's icon.

While that will work perfectly, anyone going this far is going to find it extremely silly that such basic functionality is missing from XY. Meanwhile, the users who aren't programmers are stuck with all the annoyances of the workarounds.


I cannot think of any reason this isn't already part of XY. So I suggest adding fields to the UDC -> Open With and Catalog items that allows the user to enter arguments which will be inserted before the selected item(s).

Please! I'm really getting sick of having to compile all these little launchers.


*This however does work when used with the UDC -> Open With command, but that doesn't really help with the catalog, or the absolute path issue.

[admin]

I want to re-open this topic...

I don't have the time to read your long post because I'm busy implementing launching apps with parameters. For Catalog and UDC...

Funny coincidence that you wish this now. It's almost finished and the power of it is just WOW. You'll get it tomorrow...

[TheQwerty]

I want to re-open this topic...

I don't have the time to read your long post because I'm busy implementing launching apps with parameters. For Catalog and UDC...

Funny coincidence that you wish this now. It's almost finished and the power of it is just WOW. You'll get it tomorrow...

Yay!