Classic Shell: Forum

Hi.

Could anyone tell me how to remove the orange color shown in the program menu?

I even don't know if that means recently installed programs.....

Anyway, I really don't want that highlighted ones..... very annoying.... Any help?

Thanks in advance.... : )

Yes they are newly installed programs and once you launch them, the highlight will go away.

To turn the feature off, right click the Start button -> Settings. In the search box of the Settings dialog, type: highlight and uncheck the option "Highlight newly installed programs". Then click OK.

_________________
Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

As a matter of fact, I really liked the feature. But it should be possible to remove the highlight for individual entries without actually starting the corresponding program.
Case in point: installing a new version of VideoLan (VLC) results in three highlighted entries:

• VLC Media Player
• VLC Media Player - reset preferences and cache files
• VLC Media Player skinned

Clearly the middle one is not one you want to start normally. So you want to remove that highlight, without starting the program.

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Regards ;-}
Dick

Even if you don't launch the program, the highlight should go away automatically after 48 hours of installing the program.

There is also a Registry setting to control after how many hours the highlight goes away. It is:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\IvoSoft\ClassicStartMenu\Settings]
"OldProgramsAge"=dword:00000030

This means 48 hours (default). Remember to change to "Decimal" when editing this DWORD value in Registry Editor (in hours). You can set it to anything - 2 hours or 336 hours (2 weeks).

_________________
Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

Thank you for the quick reaction!

This is a general setting again. 48 hours is OK in general. Shouldn't there be a way (right mouse click maybe) to reset it manually for individual items?

_________________
Regards ;-}
Dick

Yes, the suggestion is good. One problem is that the text for "Remove highlight" will have to be localized into all the languages supported by Classic Shell. There are other challenges too like the highlighting being dependent on the data maintained by Windows for storing frequently used programs. That data is stored in encoded form in the Registry by Windows.

_________________
Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

@Ivo
Advanced options in a text file would solve this >.> (yes I know i've pushed this before)
but something like this is perfect to stick in a .txt file within the root:
1.the user could select the text, and run it through their favorite translator to see what it does..
2. its an option obscure enough that it doesnt deserve to clutter up the UI
3. there are enough options (besides this one) that have an arbitrary value that are simply chosen, based on what's best for the majority


The only down side would be potential bugs, when some of these values are modified to extremes... (Though I don't see them causing any system instability beyond classic shell, which means the user can just revert the text file to its original state;

The problem is not just with having a setting. The problem is that currently the highlight system uses the MFU data stored by the OS. This allows the start menu to also detect when you run programs through other means. A new system that is not tied to the MFU data and can allow selective dehighlighting, will require a lot of effort to develop and can only track programs launched from the start menu.

Starting with Classic Shell 4.2.3 release candidate, you can right-click on a highlighted program and select "Remove highlight". This is possible because the programs executed in the last 48 hours are stored in the Registry now.

_________________
Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.