Adding Applications
Now that DCoT Menu is installed, you need to add applications. Open up the AppList.ini file with a text editor such as Notepad.
You should now see the default template for adding an application to the DCoT Menu. It should look like this:
[Application Name]
Executable=\Folder\Executable.exe
Parameters=CommandLine Parameters
WorkingDirectory=\WorkingDirectory
Author=Author's Name
Website=http://www.website.com
Let’s edit this information so that it will display a proper application. We are going to configure DCoT Menu so that it displays Charred Dirt. The program is installed on my USB drive in a folder called CharredDirt and the executable file is called cdirt.exe. Charred Dirt is written by Sean White and Jesse Davis and its website is http://www.charreddirt.com/. It uses CharredDirt as its working directory and it has a /QuickStart command line parameter.
The revised contents of AppList.ini should look like this:
[Charred Dirt]
Executable=\CharredDirt\cdirt.exe
Parameters=/QuickStart
WorkingDirectory=\CharredDirt
Author=Sean White and Jesse Davis
Website=http://www.charreddirt.com/
If you want to add more applications, all you need to do is add a new section with the correct information. You can create as many sections as you would like and, thus, have as many application as you like.
Notes
- The Author and Website portions are optional and can be left out. Do not leave them blank. Rather, delete these lines all together. So,Good:
[Application Name]Bad:
Executable=\Folder\Executable.exe
[Application Name]
Executable=\Folder\Executable.exe
Parameters=
WorkingDirectory=
Author=
Website= - Applications are loaded from the top to the bottom. You can order them in your menu by changing their order in the AppList.ini file.
- If you make a change to the AppList.ini file, you need to exit out of DCoT Menu and restart it so that the new settings take effect.
- Parameters and WorkingDirectory are only available for version 1.1.0.4.
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December 21st, 2006 at 2:43 pm
This is GREAT!!! Thanks a lot for this one!!!
December 21st, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Perhaps you could explain why your menu system is better than PStart. I use PStart and think it’s fantastic. Your screen shots don’t tell me anything and I’m not the least bit compelled to even download your widget without more info. What do you mean by, “something a bit more customized”? Is it that you just have to have your coffee bean icon in the system tray? Please elaborate.
December 21st, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Curious,
I’m not saying that this is a better solution that PStart. PStart is a great application and if it suits people better than my application, they should definitely use it.
I just wanted the ability to control as much of how the menu system worked and there is no greater amount of customization control than creating your own menu system from scratch.
Also, one thing that I did not need was the note taking function of PStart. This is a really useful part of PStart which many people love but it was not something that I needed for the projects that I am working on.
I also wanted to learn what it would take to generate a system tray based menu system. I find that I learn the most by actually diving into a project and I really have come away with some great new skills.
If people want to use PStart over my program, that is perfectly fine by me. I am not trying to steal people away from PStart. I just created this program and thought that if people would liek to use it, they can. If they don’t want to use it, they don’t have to.
I hope that answers your question, Curious.
Tim
December 22nd, 2006 at 1:02 am
Hey! Nice
This is gonna be perfect for that shortcut system that i requested on the drive contest, haha
Keep up the good work
December 22nd, 2006 at 9:33 am
The 32 MB USB drive contest was one of the motivators to create this menu system!
Tim
December 22nd, 2006 at 5:33 pm
Any way you would be interested in sharing the Source. I have some ideas on enhancements, etc.
December 22nd, 2006 at 7:55 pm
Brent,
At the moment I’m going to keep it as freeware but not open source. But, I would be interested to hear your ideas for improvements so that I could potentially do the work for you and share these enhancements with others.
Let me know.
Tim
December 28th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
Awesome program, much more streamlined than the other USB launchers. One question though is it possible to run VBS, BAT, and REG files from the program. Each time I try I can’t get them to work. I have no problems with EXEs (which I imagine the program was only designed for). Could this be a possible future feature?
January 1st, 2007 at 6:37 pm
It’s a great program, and I got it to work once, but now I get this error:
[AutoIt Error]
Line 0 (File “F:\DCoTMenu.exe”):
Run($Executable,$WorkingDirectory)
Error: Unable to execute the external program.
The system cannot find the file specified.
Any insight?
Thanks!
January 1st, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Ah-ha! I figured it out. I had one of the application names misspelled. Thanks!
January 2nd, 2007 at 10:29 am
This looks pretty cool. One of the main apps I carry around on my USB thumb drive is a wiki. It is a self contained html file. Seems I can’t just launch the html file via your menu system. I guess I could put portable firefox or something like that on there and then run the html file as a command line argument but that seems more overhead because most of the time I’m at machines with Firefox installed as default anyway.
Ideas?
January 11th, 2007 at 7:42 am
First of all this is an excellent app. Its the first menu system I’ve used which is properly USB aware and it makes a huge difference. Two changes i think would be great are.
1.) The ability to define categorys and have applications shown in a sub menu. I just recently downloaded the USB repair system and the menu is a little overwhelmed especially since i had a lot of previous apps i just added in.
2.) Automatic addition of new programs similar to the way in which the portableapps.com menu system works, in that, by placing the executable in the root folder, the program is automatically added to the menu.
Thanks again for the great work.
January 20th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
I’d like to get this program to work but I’m really a clutz here. This is what I get:
Autolt Error
Line 0 (file “F:\DCoTMenu.exe”):
Run($Executable,$WorkingDirectory)
Error:Unable to execute the external program.
The system cannot find the file specificed
Files are all in root directory of the USB drive. What am I doig wrong?
Gord
January 20th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
A couple of things to check here:
1) Make sure the files you want to run are in a subdirectory of the root.
2) Make all changes to AppList.ini when DCoTMenu in not loaded.
3) Unplug and replug in the USB drive after each change to AppList.ini
This type of error usually occurs when AppList.ini is changed while DCoTMenu is loaded and the location of the executable is incorrect. Also, make sure that you do not put in the drive letter when specifying the application location.
Tim
January 20th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
OK, I got it. Same issue as Moshe had. Blind and stupid!
G
January 20th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
No sweat. That just tells me that I need to work on a GUI for the AppList.ini file and a better way of handling the errors.
Tim
February 1st, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Excuse my poor english.
First of all thanks for this excellent piede of software.
I post to make a sugerence:
I try to launch a program and their parameters have to be the letter where the program is launched.
example:
my usb drive is k:
program is
/notepad/notepad.exe
parameters
/open k:/notepad/myfile.txt
I like to open a file inside the usb drive, it’s possible to chage the parameters line with something like this?
/open $USBDRIVE$/notepad/myfile.txt
February 1st, 2007 at 8:10 pm
I think I understand what you are looking for. Unfortunately, at this time, I do not have this capability with this program but I will definitely be added to the “to do” list.
Thanks for the great input.
Tim
February 1st, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Just wanted to let you know how handy I have found this program to be and pass on a couple ideas. During the course of the day I jump from computer to computer and use it to troubleshoot network and desktop problems and found it saves me tons of time. I think the best trick I’ve figured out is placing an entry in the applist.ini to actually edit the applist.ini
[* Edit this Menu (Applist.ini) ]
Executable=\prog\notepad++\notepad++.exe
Parameters=Applist.ini
WorkingDirectory=\
Bat files work great as well. Here’s one I use all the time that may come in handy for someone out there:
applist.ini entry:
[IPConfig (cmd) ]
Executable=\bat\ipconfig\ipdisplay.cmd
WorkingDirectory=\bat\ipconfig
— ipdisplay.cmd —
@echo off&color 0b&cls
echo ————————————————–>%cd%\temp.txt
echo IPConfig Query>>%cd%\temp.txt
echo.>>%cd%\temp.txt
echo ————————————————–>>%cd%\temp.txt
echo. >>%cd%\temp.txt
ipconfig /all>>%cd%\temp.txt
notepad %cd%\temp.txt
—
When run you get a nice little txt file in notepad with all your network ip info.
Just an example of how handy this little menu can be. Keep up the good work!
February 2nd, 2007 at 8:03 am
My only complaint with this app is the fact that when something is misspelled/missing/etc it does not tell you which one it can’t find. When you have a list of 30+ things manually checking each one is tedious at best. Otherwise great work.
P.S. Is there any chance of getting the source for this little app?
February 4th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Does the dCot work as an autorun. I know PStart does not.
By autorun, I mean, that the Coffee Bean shows up in the status bar as soon as the machine recognises the USB drive.
February 13th, 2007 at 11:56 am
New to USB applications but need help with project. We need to create a medical alert jump drive for rare disease folks (FMDSA.org). Each patient would load their medical history, personal insurance stuff and xrays etc. We want the drive to load at the hospital/EMT ambulance with splash screen of disease and then menu for Dr. to choose from for current patient info.
SUGGESTIONS??????
Thanks,
Susan
February 27th, 2007 at 3:30 am
I`m new in USB drive modification.
How to make file at USB cannot be ERASE.
February 27th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Love it! *Really* looking forward to seeing some form of cascading sub-menuing functionality being added. Any idea when this could be available??
March 5th, 2007 at 12:40 am
I wish that I could send you back in time, before the invention of sliced bread, so that people would REALLY have something to compare stuff to. I’m a computer tech for a moderately-sized school district and you just shaved a good five minutes off of my total install time with this handy little app. I put all of my installers on the thumb drive, menued them up in the order in which they needed to be run, put a copy of a non-installing game in under the program heading [———] (so I can play on my lunch hour, plus it serves as a menu divider) and then added my tools to the list below it.
Nice, neat, and easy. The way portable apps should be. Great job!
March 29th, 2007 at 3:41 am
Excellent idea.
Just one clarification: On my XP, whenever I plug the drive in I get the “What do you want Windows to do?” dialog, but the “Always do the selected action” is disabled. Is this the standard behavior? Do I need to choose the DCoT option every time, or can I make my PC remember the selection?
Thanks
Yuri
March 29th, 2007 at 5:10 am
Yuri,
Unfortunately, “Always do the selected action” is not enabled for USB devices as a security precaution in XP.
Tim
April 13th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Tim,
Let me add to the “Great Job” Kudo list!
I feel like an idiot now though…
when I choose ccleaner from the menu… nothing happens?
when I choose Rootkit Revealer.. it loads, but when scanning, locks up the system every time.
Any ideas?
April 15th, 2007 at 5:23 am
You can use an autorun.inf just like you would on a CD if you have a “Secure drive”.
Such drives use partitioning for their security, and to be able to do so means they must appear as “Local Drives” rather than “Removable Devices” in MyComputer.
You don’t have to partition anything for this. It just has to be seen as a Local Drive.
I have PStart running immediately on insertion in WinXP and SP1.
SP2 adds a nag, but runs it after I hit OK.
This TechNet article suggests autorun can be enabled for Removable Drives (disabled by default), but it requires making a registry change beforehand.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/regentry/91525.mspx?mfr=true
Additionally, a few ways to automatically eject either kind of stick are discussed on PortableApps.com
http://portableapps.com/node/3160
June 20th, 2007 at 3:36 am
Does anyone else have the problem where DCoTMenu.exe constantly uses 10-17% CPU whilst it is running?
June 23rd, 2007 at 1:56 pm
I´ve the same problem 8% - 15% of the CPU but when I right click in the DCoTMenu in the system tray the processes goes to 0% - 2% of the CPU. Could you fix this problem?
August 11th, 2007 at 1:35 am
Great little tool! Is there a way to tell DCoT Menu to unload itself? Only way I know is killing the process but it leaves the icon in the system tray and there’s no way to refresh the system tray using VB scripting. TIA.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Thank you so much for making this open source. I really do appreciate it as I am creating a portable GIS system and I really wanted every aspect to be opensource. PStart, unfortunately, is not.
So- I have a question to ask and a point to make:
Question: What sort of license are you using for this- do you require that people credit DCoT on the menu, or would you be happy with me just leaving it in the credits?
Point: Adding submenus is actually really easy. In thanks for you releasing this as open source, I would like to contribute my additions to the code but how do you want me to do that?
Please could you contact me at my email address?
Many thanks
Jo
August 14th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Archaeogeek, I would like to know how to add sub-menus, please email me at urd@dodgit.com
August 17th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
@Archaeogeek
There is no license on the code. Do with it what you will. If you want to contribute your code, I will gladly give you credit and distribute it from Daily Cup of Tech.
Tim
August 21st, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Is it possible to change the tray icon without messing with the source code?
August 29th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Does anyone know how to have an option to open a folder on the usb drive?
September 14th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Great little program. Just one suggestion: Have an option to pop open the menu immediately when it loads. After all, if we’re bothering to load the menu, we probably want to select something from it. Why waste a click?
September 24th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
This looks great - I’m installing it purely based on the fact you say it closes itself when the USB stick is removed (a bit like roboform portable does).
Now we just need a program that softly attempts to close apps any apps that were either opened by doctmenu (doctmenu could remember them and their process launch ids) or have are being run from the USB stick (which can be seen in the process/module information for a process).
Anyone?
October 17th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Its good to see more people building USB projects. I have tried lots of Menus: PStart ,Framkey ,yours Tim and Portable Start Menu. I don’t think any are better than any other they all get the job done. I’m crap at writing progs so I’m getting a mate to build a programme, for building the programme for the key I want. Just though I’dd mention as read people having probs with programs not running.I presume that everyone realises you cannot just install a program to a USB key and expect it to work, unless it is a stand alone program or has been built to install as a portable. If you want to to build a standalone I recommend Thinstall(http://www.thinstall.com/products/virtualization_suite.php) and run it on a VM (virtual machine)http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=04d26402-3199-48a3-afa2-2dc0b40a73b6&DisplayLang=en
October 29th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Cool work guys to customize USB menus but what i wanna ask why dun u look for USB encryption methods that secure any USB with a password - This way none can access the USB but the owner of it - In a better way to secure the USB tightly for personal use n so if i lost my USB n someone found it cannot acces it not in any way or else the person who found the USB can access it when he/she formats it this way all the Data will be gone
- We all do like Security 
thx again for Ur great work with USB Menus keep on goin` guys
October 31st, 2007 at 8:18 am
Elie this has been done I have File locker on my portable (http://www.toplang.com/) but you have to pay for this program.Password Generator and USB write Protect are 2 other free good tools (http://www.gaijin.at/) I also have come to realise that people want to be able to get help in making their own solutions.There are many encryption free programs http://www.thefreecountry.com/security/encryption.shtml#other.
), but normally that means Windows can’t read it, catch 22. But if anyone has a “watertight” solution I’dd love to hear it.
The problem I believe lies in someone obtaining your key and just formating it ,then using it for themselves. A determined person can format anything (including CDFS partion).You can make a HD (or key)unformatable (get a few of them to fix
January 14th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I’ve looked at other programs but none give me the ability to customize like this one.
Thanks this is cool beans!
January 15th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Hey Tim great application I did disassembling of my own and i found out how it was made the thing is I dont have the time to learn that very specific programming language (sort of) wink wink
Uhm i was wondering if you could give me the password so i can decompile it and make it source or maybe share the source I got some ideas for it. It would be a shame to leave it at this stage.
Best regards,
CodeJunkie
January 15th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Reading my post i have a taste (in my mouth) that i was rude, demanding, arrogant or something really bad which Im not and if it sounds like that to you too I do apologize all I wanted to say is: Hey Tim tight app need help?
CodeJunkie
January 27th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
ehhh has anyone heard of mojopac lol
January 27th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
come on folks its 2008 lets be havin you technology is moving fast .usb platform yes taskbar usb ehhh no
January 27th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
this site should be named tecnologly of the past lol or daily cup of tech B.C
January 27th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
theres to name but a few programs ceedo,moka5, and theres lots more virtuality is just about here lets walk towards the light not run away
January 27th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
@kaizersosai,
It looks like you have a lot of great ideas around this topic. Please post a link to your blog so that I can add it to my blogroll.
Tim
February 8th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Does anyone know how to take off the daily cup of tech web link on the tool bar?
February 27th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Adding Folders would help a lot. I’ve tried to do this with no success as of yet. I’m just not script oriented (at least not at this time…)
The difference between those other USB apps and Tim’s is mainly this: Speed & reliability. I’ve tried most of the others and they are either too slow (loading an XML file or such, or they screwup the USB drive [Backup REGULARLY Folks!]). I can deal with the .ini setup, but some others can’t. It’s the folder thing that gets most of us. The menu is fine, but that little extra punch (folders) would help.
I’m not asking you Tim, I know you have your hands full at this moment in time. You get all your “Ducks” in a row and maybe you or someone else can come up with something on this at a later date. I’m still tryin’…
BTW:
Thanks for this little app, it’s a great tool. It’s the only USB menu app I use now.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:28 am
Hi. im just wondering where can we get the documentation of the DcotMenu system. We just want to know how this system works. thanks…
March 26th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
There is no formal documentaion that I’ve seen. It’s in a series of web pages (or blogs) on this website. Follow the “Related links untill you come accross something you can use. Be sure to read the comments at the bottom of each page as these will help you with common problems or give you ideas on how you can customize your own USB Drive Menu.
Do a search via this website. Keywords: USB Drive Menu
Freeware USB Drive Menu System
http://dailycupoftech.com/2006/12/21/freeware-usb-drive-menu-system/
Customizing DCoT Menu
http://dailycupoftech.com/usb-drive-menu-system/3/
DCoT Menu Freeware Updated
http://dailycupoftech.com/2006/12/27/dcot-menu-freeware-updated/
DCoT Menu Now Open Source
http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/05/02/dcot-menu-now-open-source/
This Menu System was created using AutoIt.
AutoIt v3 is a freeware BASIC-like scripting language designed for automating the Windows GUI and general scripting.
http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/
April 24th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Tim,
I’ve been trying to figure this out but not having much luck with it. The only thing I can figure is the source code for version 1.1.0.4 is missing the CmdLine parameter code.
Every time I build a copy of the app, the parameters never work.
Could you, would you, post an amended version of the code?
If I’m wrong, then sorry - I guess I’ll have to go back to the drawing board to get this figured out.
Thx
June 10th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Still having problems with the code. The command line parameters do not work when I build a modified version of Tim’s source code.
Any suggestions anyone, please?
Thx
October 12th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Hey Tim,
Thanks for this neat little app. I have one small problem though.
When your files are in the root directory it works fine. But when I move it to another directory I get a “No App Available” error message. I’ve been trying to tweak the AppList.ini and the Autorun.inf files, but I still get this error message.
Any idea?
Thanks.
October 12th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Oops, nvm. I found the problem. DCoTMenu.exe has to be directly in a parent directory such as:
\DCoTMenu.exe
\myapps\myapp.exe
\myotherapp\myotherapp.exe