This is probably the most used and most popular type of Krento Stones because many PC users feel that an Application launcher is the most essential Application missing from a standard desktop. Application launcher can save our desktop space and assist us in boosting our productivity. The purpose of this Stone is to give fast access to frequently used applications, documents or websites.
When you create a new Application Ring, all Stones in the Ring are defined as Application Launchers. You can change the type of the Stone, if you want it to perform another action. You can also change any other type of the Stone to Application Launcher by selecting "File or web site launcher" as a new stone's type.
Before using this stone you have to assign a target for it. The target is an application that will be executed or a file (folder, web address)that will be opened. What can be assigned as a target for this stone?
The easiest way to assign the target is to drag and drop the file from Windows Explorer or URL from a web browser and drop it to the Stone.
When you have dropped your file to the Stone, the logo, description an command line to execute your file will be assigned by Krento automatically. Now if you click on this stone then Notepad application starts.
Note: Krento does not remove, replace or backup any of the items you drag to the Launcher Stone. You should never delete the original files or shortcuts. Krento Stones are not the same as Windows desktop shortcuts and cannot be dragged back onto the desktop or anywhere else to recreate the original file. When you change the destination target it can't be undone. If you want to return the previous target you have to assign it again.
If you want to add a web site address as a Stone target, you can drag a site URL from the browser address bar or directly from the web page.
Later on you can customize your stone and assign the new image, description or even select a different target. For doing this open the Stone settings dialog. You can also assign the target to the stone directly by calling settings dialog, without actually dragging something to the stone in advance.
If the target application does not include the high resolution icon, the image which represents the application on the Krento Stone can be blurred. You can assign another image, preferably using PNG or GIF image files. If you select the animated GIF image file, the icon on the stone will be animated when the Application Ring is visible.
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Select desired Stone and call it context menu by pressing the right mouse button when the mouse cursor is pointed to the stone. Select the "Configure this stone" menu item from the Stone context menu or use the Alt + O keyboard shortcut to call the Stone settings dialog. |
Target is an application, file name or web site address that will be executed (opened) when you execute the Stone. It is better to specify the full file name, including path (hard drive and folder name). You can press the "Browse..." button to select a file on your hard disk as a new target or the "Select..." button to select a folder on your hard disk. You can also type the name of the file manually if you know it by heart.
Environment variables can be used when specifying the target name.
For example you can specify file name as
%SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe or
%QTDIR%\bin\designer.exe.
Note for Krento Portable edition:
The portable edition of Krento introduces the special
environment variable %KRENTO_PORTABLE% that points to
the Krento Data Folder. This environment variable is defined by Krento
itself during the startup and is undefined when you close Krento.
Usually Krento Portable runs from a USB drive and the drive letter can be
different on different PCs, you can use the KRENTO_PORTABLE variable to
specify icons, stones and other resources location relative to the current
Krento path. This variable is self adjusted every time you run the
portable edition of Krento.
Description is a text that Stones Manager displays when the stone is selected. Do not make the description too long so it can fit the size of the Stones Manager window.
It is not necessary to provide the complete URL or file name in the target edit box. You can use special character sequence ## as a template. This part you can fill in later during the stone execution.
Argument description is an optional parameter that is used, when you have specified a ## sequence as part of the target name. When stone is executed, the special prompt window is opened to ask you what is the value of the argument using "Argument description" as a question. Consider the following example:
You specified Target value as the following URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=##&go=Go
As you can see URL contains special symbols sequence ## . Argument description value is "Enter search term".
When you execute the Stone the prompt window appears:
Enter search word, for example "Belgium" and press the "OK" button. Your default web browser opens the URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=Belgium&go=Go
When the stone was executed it asked for the argument value and replaced ## by the provided value. In our case ## was replaced by the word "Belgium". Here is one more example how to use ## with a search engine:
There is no need to fill in the value of the argument manually all the time. To avoid it you can use the next trick: using the mouse select a word or phrase in the webpage. Now drag your selection to the Google stone that we have just configured. There will be no prompt window shown, but the browser starts and navigates to the Google search page with your selected text as a search phrase.
When you keep the Shift button pressed while dragging the file to the Stone, the file does not replace the existing target, but acting as a command line parameter for the stone's target application. For example, if you configured your Stone to launch Notepad and drag a file named "readme.txt" to it keeping the Shift button pressed, Notepad starts and opens "readme.txt" file for editing.
When your Stone is already configured to launch some application, Notepad, for example, and you drag a PNG image to it, the target application will not start, but the Stone's logo will be replaced by the dropped image.
After dropping an image to the Stone, the target application stays the same, but Stone's logo changes.