I tried adding mediamonkey to the group and it does not group when placed over the current group. is this a bug with the software? also the moffsoft freecalc has the same issue. known issue or fix in the works? thanks!
I'm just fooling around with the software and looks like there is an issue with adobe acrobat dc as well. I slide it over the current group and doesn't give me the option to drop the window into the current group. thank you.
Which version of Groupy are you using?
With regard to Adobe Acrobat DC, I am afraid that acrobat uses a sandbox for security which does not play well with other applications. As such it cannot be grouped.
using 1.1. ok good to know. any word about mediamonkey or the moffsoft free calc? thanks!
It looks like moffsoft freecalc will group with Groupy 1.12 beta.
This is downloadable via the forums, see pinned posts.
...mediamonkey? thanks. it is the gold 4.2
same thing here.
Sorry. This is a complete no-no for me. Almost all of my groupings are sets of MS Word and Acrobat documents. When will this limitation be removed?
You know, there is other PDF reader that work with groupy, Such as Nuance Power PDF. And its free too.
Thank you basj.
As it happens, I do also have Nuance Power PDF (advanced version). Incidentally, as far as I know, neither the standard version nor the advanced version are free. I use Acrobat DC reader by default but I did subsequently experiment with using Nuance Power PDF Advanced and I can confirm that the Nuance product does work with Groupy.
However in doing so I discovered another problem. I grouped one MS Word document and two Acrobat documents into a named and saved group. I then rebooted my computer and restored the saved group. The MS Word application started up and opened the document correctly but the PDFs did not. One instance of the Nuance Power PDF advanced application started up but no documents were opened. I found the Groupy saved group file and opened it in Notepad. The saved group file is effectively a command file. The MS Word entry shows the application and the target document on an "OwnerProcess" line and a "Target" line respectively. In the case of the PDFs, each of the two instances of the Nuance application has an "OwnerProcess", "WorkingDirectory" and "Target" line (duplicated for each instance), all of which refer only to the Nuance application itself. In neither instance is there a reference to the relevant PDF document. This explains why the PDF documents were not opened but not why the Nuance PDF application and MSWord are handled differently by Groupy. Perhaps it has something to do with multiple documents being opened in a single application? There is obviously another serious problem with Groupy here (in addition to the problem of it not being able to cope with the most commonly used PDF application), which I hope Neil Banfield will pick up and progress.
Yup, I made a mistake... Nuance is not free, mixed up with another PDF reader i used to have.
Regarding the MS Word and Nuance PDF save groupy not open properly, I have let the Support Team know about it. Hope someone, can help you on that. Thanks
Unfortunately the sand box in Acrobat is something that only Adobe can fix. They chose to make their application incompatible with other applications.
There is a setting to disable the sandbox in Acrobat which would have solved it, but we are currently auto excluding ALL copies of Acrobat as we have no way to detect if this is on other than it breaking which is something only the user will see.
Going forward we plan to detect this setting so if you are not using the sandbox option in acrobat then you will be able to group but if you do sandbox then you will not be able to group Acrobat.
Please be aware that there is no standard for an application to expose what file they have open and as such only Excel, Word and Powerpoint will save the filenames to reopen then in a saved group. You are able to manually edit the groupy file to add in the paths, but Groupy itself cannot determine what the right ones are. The previously mentioned Office apps have a way to ask them what file a window is.
There is a small exception in that if the filename was used in the command line (so you double clicked on aaaa.txt), saving that group may well reopen that document. If you loaded up fffd.txt later it would still open aaaa.txt instead though.
Unfortunately the sand box in Acrobat is something that only Adobe can fix. They chose to make their application incompatible with other applications.There is a setting to disable the sandbox in Acrobat which would have solved it, but we are currently auto excluding ALL copies of Acrobat as we have no way to detect if this is on other than it breaking which is something only the user will see.Going forward we plan to detect this setting so if you are not using the sandbox option in acrobat then you will be able to group but if you do sandbox then you will not be able to group Acrobat.Please be aware that there is no standard for an application to expose what file they have open and as such only Excel, Word and Powerpoint will save the filenames to reopen then in a saved group. You are able to manually edit the groupy file to add in the paths, but Groupy itself cannot determine what the right ones are. The previously mentioned Office apps have a way to ask them what file a window is.There is a small exception in that if the filename was used in the command line (so you double clicked on aaaa.txt), saving that group may well reopen that document. If you loaded up fffd.txt later it would still open aaaa.txt instead though.
It is apparent from my earlier query and those of others that there are currently significant restrictions and limitations affecting Groupy functionality, dependent upon the applications being grouped. It would be good if these could be fixed but at least prospective users should be informed of the limitations. The Groupy marketing information should include a statement of its known limitations, e.g. a list of applications that have been tested and are known to work fully, applications that have been tested and work with stated restrictions and applications that have been tested and don't work at all (and by omission those applications that have not been tested and are therefore unknowns). This will help prospective buyers decide whether they wish to purchase Groupy and spend their time experimenting with it.
While I get the reason for the question, to keep a manifest of all apps that would not work would be a monumental task - there are literally millions of apps in the wild.
What I have asked for is an in-app notification, a bubble if you will, if an app has traits that can be noticed by Groupy that would prevent it from being grouped. While this is being considered, for Groupy to be able to preemptively discern that an app cannot be grouped will be a challenge (if possible at all).
In the end, if an application intentionally breaks functionality (and Acrobat does) then that's on that software company by how they designed it.
I can't get the Steam application to group either, don't know if the problem is me or if the two are not compatible.
Did a bit more research and found that this is because Steam does not use the standard Windows title bar. But I played a bit with it and found out you can by switching to "Big Picture Mode" (which I am not all that fond of but oh well) then in Settings/Display/Interface make sure "Start Steam in Big Picture Mode" is checked, then check "Start Big Picture Mode Windowed". Close down Steam and then restart it. Now you have a window that can be grouped with Groupy.
Thank you for reporting that here. I am sure there a lot of Steam users like to know it. We appreciate your effort.
I hope so, I've gotten a lot of help here and am glad when I can contribute.
just installed groupy - what a great utility ! However, immediately ran into a problem as sadly my PDF app (Nitro Pro) doesnt seem to group - which is a shame as it is one the key apps i would need to have grouped.
Regrettably, there is only so much we can do with how certain apps are designed.
so i have seen this behavior in our own application (dev'd in vis studio 2015). we'd like to use groupy as a 'feature'. what do we need to do to make our app groupy friendly? is there some sort of document that explains this?
thanks
Harvey
Hello,I have forwarded your question to the Stardock support team for their review and recommendations. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We really do appreciate your feedback, thanks.
thank you.
To make your application friendly you need a window with an actual titlebar (WS_CAPTION). It should also be a top level window and does not have an owner window. If the owner window is sized 0x0 pixels then it will be ignored and you are ok.
If the window is non sizable (so no WS_THICKFRAME) then it needs to be > 800 pixels wide (before OS scaling)
Ok, good to know. But a little confused about the top level window thing, are you suggesting MDI vs child? Our app has multiple windows, they are unrelated in that sense. Each shows in a mouse over in the task bar or an alt-tab. They have title bars but only close buttons, not min or max buttons. If it turns out that these are child windows by groupy definition, is there an option that can be turned on to have groupy look at any window that fits the mouse over on taskbar, alt-tab criteria?
thanks,
Do they have normal titlebars or toolwindow titlebars? (WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW)
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