Help Desk Geek – Help Desk Tips For IT Pros

Appetizer is a portable, free application launcher, or dock, for Windows that can be used either on a USB flash drive or on your computer. It allows you to organize and launch your favorite applications and other shortcuts from a convenient dock with one click.

There are skins available to change the look of the launcher and plugins available to extend the functionality. Appetizer is also fully customizable.

Additionally, Appetizer supports the PortableApps.com suite. So if you use Appetizer on a removable drive with the PortableApps.com suite installed, Appetizer will detect it and automatically import all your applications along with the Documents, Videos, Music and Pictures folders that the PortableApps.com suite installs.

See our posts, Install a Suite of Portable Apps on Your USB Flash Drive – Part I and Install a Suite of Portable Applications on Your USB Flash Drive – Part II, for more information about the PortableApps.com suite of applications.

Download Appetizer from http://app.etizer.org/download.

Install Appetizer

Because Appetizer is a portable application launcher, it does not need to be installed. Unzip the .zip file you downloaded to the root of the PortableApps.com USB flash drive or to a directory on your computer, depending on where you want to use it. For our example, we placed Appetizer on our PortableApps.com USB flash drive.

Import Shortcuts

The first time you start Appetizer, the Import shortcuts dialog box automatically displays. You can import shortcuts automatically from several different places. If you want to add applications manually to Appetizer, click the Cancel button to open Appetizer with no shortcuts added.

You can also manually select shortcuts to be imported using the Let me select a different location check box. Since we put Appetizer on our PortableApps.com USB flash drive, we selected the PortableApps.com applications check box. Click Start once you make your selection.

The Import shortcuts dialog box displays the message Importing shortcuts… Please wait. at the bottom of the dialog box.

Resize the Dock

When the importing is finished, the Appetizer dock displays with your imported shortcuts. You will notice that only the first row of shortcuts is available. You can resize your dock by moving the cursor over the lower, right corner of the dock. A two-way arrow displays.

Click and drag the corner of the dock until you reach the desired size.

Show and Hide the Dock

To hide the dock, click the X in the upper, right corner of the dock.

A dialog box displays informing you that the dock is available in the system tray. If you don’t want this dialog box to display again when you minimize the dock, select the Don’t show this message again check box. Click OK.

To show the dock again, right-click the Appetizer icon in the system tray and select Show from the pop-up menu. You can also left-click on the icon.

Add a Shortcut Manually

To add a shortcut to the dock manually, right-click anywhere on the dock (not on any shortcuts) and select New shortcut from the pop-up menu.

You can also click the New shortcut button (the plus sign) on the Options panel.

The Shortcut Properties dialog box displays. If you want the shortcut to access a website, enter the URL of the website in the Location edit box and enter a name for the website in the Name edit box.

If the shortcut you are adding is for a file or a folder, click the … button to the right of the Location edit box to select the location of a file or a folder.

NOTE: If you are adding a file or a folder, the name of the file or folder is automatically entered into the Name edit box as a suggested name for the shortcut. You can change it if you want to.

The Select a file or a folder dialog box displays. Navigate to the file or folder you want to add, select it, and click OK.

The Location and Name edit boxes are populated. If there are any special parameters you want to pass to the executable file, enter them in the Parameters edit box, which is only applicable for executable files. You can change the icon if desired using the Change icon button. Click Save.

The new shortcut displays on the dock.

Create a Group of Shortcuts

You can add groups or folders to the dock that contain several files, folders, or URLs. To do this, right-click on an empty area of the dock and select New group from the pop-up menu.

Enter a name for the group in the Name edit box and click Save.

The group or folder is added to the dock.

To add shortcuts to the new group, right-click on the group icon and select Organize group shortcuts from the pop-up menu.

The Organize shortcuts dialog box displays. To add a shortcut to a group or folder, click and drag the shortcut to the group until the group name is highlighted. Let up on the mouse button to complete the move.

You will see the moved shortcuts listed under the new group in tree format. You can also drag and drop shortcuts in the list to other locations in the list if you want the shortcuts in a different order on the dock. Click Close when you are finished to close the Organize shortcuts dialog box and return to the dock.

Click the new group on the dock to display the shortcuts that were moved into the group. To open one of the programs in the group, select the option from the menu that pops up. To access the Organize shortcuts dialog box again to rearrange shortcuts, select Organize shortcuts from the pop-up menu.

Add a Special Item

Appetizer provides special items that can be added to the dock quickly and easily, such as the Show Desktop link, the Recycle Bin, and Windows Explorer. To add a special item, right-click anywhere on the empty space on the dock and select Add special item from the pop-up menu. A submenu displays with all the available special items listed. Select one to add it to the dock.

We added Show Desktop to our dock.

Change the Properties of a Shortcut

You can change the properties of any shortcut by right-clicking on the shortcut and selecting Properties from the pop-up menu. You can then change the Location of the file, folder, or URL and the Name of the shortcut on the Shortcut Properties dialog box as mentioned earlier in this post.

Remove a Shortcut From the Dock

To remove a shortcut or group from the dock, right-click on the shortcut or group and select Remove from the pop-up menu.

A dialog box displays to make sure you want to remove the icon (shortcut) from the dock. Click Yes if you still want to remove the shortcut.

NOTE: Removing the icon does not remove the file or folder to which the shortcut is linked.

Wrap Up

This was the first post in a two-part series about the free, portable application launcher Appetizer which provides a convenient one-click method of starting programs on a USB flash drive or on your computer.

In this post we covered installing Appetizer and initially importing shortcuts, resizing and showing and hiding the dock, manually adding shortcuts, creating shortcut groups, adding special items, changing the properties of a shortcut and removing a shortcut.

Stay tuned for the next post where we will cover manually importing shortcuts, launching multiple shortcuts at once, configuring Appetizer’s general, appearance, and operation settings, excluding files from the automatic import of shortcuts, extending Appetizer’s functionality with plugins, and applying skins to Appetizer.

by Lori Kaufman