v10 soft launch: Quick Access Popup version 10 is now available for early adopters! Download it from the QAP Forum.

Here is a summary of new features and improvements in v10.

Customize window improvements

The Settings window renamed Customize has been lightened to give close to 50% more room to the favorites list. Many commands previously available from buttons has been moved to a new menu bar. The File, Favorite, Tools, Options and Help menus giving access to all QAP commands are available at the top of the Customize window and in the QAP system menu (right click on QAP icon in Notification zone).

Also, to give more space to the favorites list, the Search box has been moved "under" the submenus dropdown list and can be revealed using the Search button when you need it. Finally, new keyboard shortcuts has been added. Press F1 in QAP to see the complete list of shortcuts.

Other enhancements of the Customize window include:

• you can now edit QAP features names in menus allowing, for example, to insert keyboard accelerators in menu with the ampersand (&) character also in QAP features items;
• the Search box now filters items from the menu currently displayed in the Customize window instead of from the top menu (Main);
• in the tree views, when adding or editing QAP Features and Special Folders favorites, new nodes at the end display All Special folders or All QAP Features in alphabetical order.

Revamped Options window

Over time, the QAP Options window has become quite busy. The new Options window now provides an improved usability thanks to sections tabs displayed on the left hand of the window. Existing options has been regrouped under the tabs: General, Settings Window, Menu Icons, Menu Appearance, Popup Menu, Popup Hotkeys, Alternative Menu Hotkeys, File Managers, Snippets and Hotstrings, User Variables and Database.

More advanced options and some previously found only in the quickaccesspopup.ini file are now available under the Menu Advanced Options, Launch Advanced Options and Various Advanced Options tabs.

Various improvements

• a new option under the Customize Window section opens the Customize window automatically at startup. This option is enabled by default for new users and off for upgrading users;
• for new installations, the default Settings Folder is now under My Documents\Quick Access Popup (instead of user's AppData folder);
• the Settings Folder can now be changed in Options, General section, with a dialog box asking if user wants to copy actual settings to the new folder or use the settings already found in this new location (or create new settings in this folder if it contains no settings files);
• refresh dynamic menus (Clipboard, Current Windows, Reopen a Folder, Drives, Repeat Last Actions, Frequent Files, Frequent Folders, Recent Files, Recent Folders, Directory Opus Favorites and TC Directory hotlist) when they are part of a submenu open using a keyboard shortcut or an hotstring;
• support environment variables (like %TEMP%) in location for temporary folder, working folder and backup folders.

New donor code

If you made a donation for Quick Access Popup v9 (or earlier), first, thank you again ! Now, you will have to upgrade your code for QAP v10. This new code is now matched with the sponsor name displayed in the message at the bottom of the Settings window.

To receive your new code, send me an email following these instructions.

Internal changes

Finally, you won't see it but the internal data structure of favorites and menu has been completely rewritten using "object oriented data model" techniques (using classes, etc.). This took most of the time devoted to QAP v10 but this will make code maintenance and addition of new features easier in the future.

Video: What's new in Quick Access Popup v10

There was no significant feature additions in the last v9.5 releases. These were more transition releases in preparation for v10 to be launched in october. QAP v10 includes major changes in the QAP engine and includes significant improvements to the Customize (aka "Settings") and Options windows.

Only the startup process had to be adapted for the v10 transition. v10 settings files are be backward compatible with v9 settings files.

For users who install QAP with the "Easy Setup" installation program

If whenever, after having upgraded to v10 (or a future release), you encounter an issue preventing you to use QAP normally, the release v9.5.3 will make it easier to revert to the previous stable version. You can download v9.5.3 here.

Users of the portable version

You can download the last v9 stable portable release v9.5.3 here.

Minor changes

•  the new checkbox in Options, Menu tab, called Retrieve icon when refreshing Frequent folders and Frequent files menus (avoid if you often have offline files) to bypass icon retrieval when refreshing Frequent items menu; enable this option if you never have offline network files in your Recent Items Windows folder
• fix bug, update the short name for menu when browsing the list of running application in "Add Favorite" for "Application" type
• fix bug for Directory Opus users, check if DOpus lister exists before opening a folder in order to protect the last used folders

Folders Popup users

Folders Popup is the QAP ancestor. Its latest version is dated September 2016. Up to Quick Access Popup version v9.4.1.3, the Easy Setup installer included an option to convert settings from the "ancestor" of QAP Folders Popup in order to import them in QAP. In v9.5+, this option has been removed but you can install v9.4.1.3 as in interim release. Users installing QAP in portable mode can still import FP settings using ImportFPsettings. More info here: I’m upgrading from Folders Popup. Can I import my favorites and option settings?

Here is a summary of new features and improvements in Quick Access Popup version 9.3 and 9.4.

Opening Explorer windows on multi-monitor systems

Starting with QAP v9.4, users with dual-display or multi-monitor systems have more control on the location of the Windows Explorer windows displaying their favorite folders. If the default file manager in File Managers tab is Windows Explorer, the tab includes a new option On a multi-monitor system, always open the Explorer window on the active monitor when system has more than one monitor.

Maximize folder on multiple-monitors systems

Also if, in the Add/Edit Favorite dialog box for a Folder favorite, you select a custom window position under the Window Options, and choose the Maximized window state, you can now specify on which monitor the Explorer window for this favorite will be maximized. This option is available for favorites of types Folder, Special and FTP when Explorer or Total Commander is the active file manager (Directory Opus users should use DOpus Layouts instead).

More information: Can I open a folder a on specific monitor of a multiple-display system?

Video demo: Multiple-monitor support (15 min.)

QAP windows position

Starting with v9.4, on dual-display or multiple-monitor systems, the Settings window is displayed on the "active" monitor. QAP detects the active monitor based on the mouse or active window position when you opened the QAP menu. If you prefer the Settings window to be always open on the same monitor, you can uncheck the option Open Settings window on Active monitor on the General tab of the Options window.

Also, QAP always positions its other windows relative to the center of the main Settings window or of their parent window. And it will remember the width of the Add/Edit/Copy/Move Favorite windows (useful when menu paths become long and need to give more width to the list).

More information: How do I open the QAP Settings window?

Directory Opus Favorites and Layouts dynamic menu

Users of the file manager Directory Opus who selected DOpus as preferred file manager in the Options, under the File managers tab, can now automatically include in their QAP menu the Favorites items from DOpus. For new users who select DOpus when they install QAP, the menu is inserted automatically. The other have to add a new favorite of type QAP feature Directory Opus Favorites under the Dynamic Menus category. This menu can also include the DOpus windows Layouts in their menu by checking the Show Layouts in Layouts menus option in the File managers tab.

More information: How do I enable Directory Opus support in Quick Access Popup?

Demos: Video - QAP and Directory Opus 1/2 (16 min.) and Video - QAP and Directory Opus 2/2 (15 min.)

New QAP icons and custom replacements

QAP v9.4 includes some new QAP icons. Users who installed QAP with the portable ZIP file should make sure they update their JLicons.dll file (for users who installed QAP with the Setup program, this is done automatically).

Also, v9.4.1 introduced the new button QAP Menu Icon Replacements under the More tab of the Options dialog box. This button opens a dialog box where you can enter a list of custom icons replacements for the standard QAP menu icons from JLicons.dll. See the list of icon codes.

More information: Can I replace the QAP standard icons with my own custom icons?

Current Windows Exclusions

v9.4.1 also introduced the button Current Windows Exclusions under the More tab of the Options dialog box. This button opens a dialog box where you can enter a list applications that you do not want to see appear in the Current Windows menu (aka Switch) found by default under the In the Works menu.

In the text box, enter any part of the window title of the application to exclude (the window title is what appears in the top horizontal bar of the window). You can enter multiple exclusions, one per line.

More information: What is the "Current Windows" menu and how is it built?

Various improvements

• new option Start Numeric Menu Shortcuts at 1 (instead of 0) in Options, Menu tab
• Total Commander Hotlist menu:  when building Total Commander Hotlist menu, support path redirected by "RedirectSection=" value under [DirMenu] (in addition to supporting "AlternateUserIni=" under [Configuration]), with path relative to folder of wincmd.ini
• add command line parameter "/Working:[path]" used to set QAP working directory (useful when creating a "Run" registry key to autostart QAP without using Startup shortcut file)
• Import Windows file shortcuts to menu: add context menu entry Import Shortcut to Quick Access Popup menu to import a Windows file shortcut into a new favorite with its name (without the .lnk extension), its icon and, for applications, its Start In and Arguments (parameters) properties; add registry keys for the Import Shortcut command to the ManageContextMenu.bat batch used by portable installation users to enable or disable context menus
• in Options, Basic tab, add the option Main settings file backup folder to select a destination folder for backups of the main settings file (quickaccesspopup.ini); backup are created only for main .ini file; Shared menu settings files and Alternative settings files (open with the "Switch Settings file...") are still backup in their own folder

Release of Quick Access Popup v9.2.1 greatly improves menu "show time" (the time it takes to refresh dynamic menus when you open the QAP popup menu). Menu refresh code was seriously optimized using new tools offered by the SQLite database. Do not expect huge increases in performance. Moving data collection to a background task speeds up menu refreshing but rebuilding the menu as you request it still takes a minimum amount of time. My goal with this release was to make it as quick as possible and, as important, to deliver stable "show time" regardless of the time Windows sometime takes to reply to queries about recent folders, recent files or disk free space.

More info: What's new in v9.1 and v9.2?

IMPORTANT note for users upgrading to v9.2.1

Now that menu refresh time has been optimized, it is now recommended to "attach" the submenus under the In the Works menu: Recent folders, Recent files, Frequent folders and Frequent files menus to the QAP main menu. Make sure the Attach all dynamic menus to QAP main menu option is checked (Settings, Options button, Menu tab, first check box in second column). For new installations, this option is now checked by default.

History

Version 9.2 introduced a new components (namely a SQLite local database) and a background task that collect the information required to build the Frequent Folders and Frequent Files. This new method is also used to build the Recent Folders, Recent Files and Drives in a way that should be more reliable than the old method. Some users, not all, reported performance issues when launching Quick Access Popup v9.2 or when showing the menu. New components can require fine tuning for specific system configurations. Of course, beta testers and myself did not noticed the performance issues during our pre-v9.2 tests. This is why I added diagnostic code in beta releases v9.2.0.1 to v9.2.0.7 and, with the help of some users experiencing this issue, I collected information to analyse and fix this issue. Hopefully, v9.2.1 is now more reliable. If you still have issues, do not hesitate to report them to our QAP Support Google Group.

Here is a summary of new features and improvements in Quick Access Popup version 9.1 and 9.2.

"In the Works"  and "Frequent Items" menus

With v9.2, QAP introduces the very handy menu In the Works where chances are high that you'll find the next folder or document you need to work on. This menu regroup two new dynamic menus: Frequent Folders and Frequent Files listing the contents you used the most frequently in the last days or weeks (the period covered can be configured in Options). The In the Works menu also includes the Recent Folders and Recent Files dynamic menus that show the content you just used in the last hours, sorted in the time of usage. Finally, in the Current Windows submenu, it lists the folders and windows currently open on your desktop.

More information: What is the "In the Works" menu and its "Frequent", "Recent" and "Current Windows" menus?

Video demo: Video - The "In the Works" menu (12 min.)

Placeholders

Placeholders are codes like "{Clipboard}" that you can insert in Snippets content and in favorite's Location, Parameters and Start In fields (for all types of favorites supporting these options). For example, when you launch a favorite, the placeholder "{SEL_LOC}" in the Parameter will be replaced with the path of the selected item in Windows Explorer. In Snippets, the placeholder "{Clipboard}" will be replaced with the current content of the Windows Clipboard when you paste it. The placeholders "{Clipboard}" and "{SEL_LOC}" (ant its variants "{SEL_DIR}", etc.) are introduced with v9.2.  Placeholders existing in previous versions "{LOC}", "{DIR}", "{CUR_LOC}", "{CUR_DIR}" ant their other variants are now, since v9.2, supported in all places: Snippets content and favorite's Location, Parameters and Start In fields.

More information: Can I insert values in favorites location or parameters using placeholders?

User Variables and cloud drives

QAP users cans now created placeholders with their own user variables. These can be used for a multitude of needs. But users of Shared Menus will appreciate the capability to use a placeholder like {Dropbox} in a shared favorites location because this placeholder will be replaced with each shared menu user's Dropbox root location. If empty, the list of user variables is filled with the following cloud drive's root folder (if found on user's system): {Dropbox}, {Google Drive}, {OneDrive} and {iCoudDrive}. User variables can be used in Snippets content and in Favorite properties.

More information: Can I create custom user variables and use them in file paths or snippets?

Video demo: Video - Users Variables (11 min.)

Windows Apps

Windows Apps is a new family of applications from Microsoft that has the advantage of being available in a very similar way under various Microsoft devices. These apps are pre-installed in Windows 8 and 10 or downloaded from Windows Store. Technically, their architecture and behavior differs in many ways from regular applications. For example, they doesn't use the traditional executable (.exe) files anymore. This is why many application launchers do not support them yet. Since v9.1, Quick Access Popup supports these Windows Apps also known as Universal Applications, Metro Apps (under Windows 8) or Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps.

More information: How do I add Windows Apps (also called "Windows Store", "Universal" or "Metro" apps) to my menu?

Favorite Sound

Quick Access Popup can now play a sound after any menu item is launched. The favorite sound location field is added to Advanced Settings tab of Add/Edit Favorite dialog box for all types of favorites. Supported sound formats include wave (.wav), mp3, midi, etc. depending on your system configuration. You can also play a system sound (like the Windows "question" sound) or your own sound sequence.

More information: Can I play a sound when I launch a favorite?

Various improvements

• Some QAP features has been renamed:
  • Add This Folder or Link is now Add Active Folder or Web page
  • Switch is now Current Windows
• Tabs has been reorganized in the Options dialog box tabs. The Exclusions tab was removed and the More tab was added with buttons for Exclusions list, Frequent Items Dabatase and User Variables options dialog boxes.
• An new QAP Feature List Applications lists currently open applications and windows with various technical window properties (mostly for debugging use). It can be added to your menu from the QAP Features list, under the QAP Management category.
• An option in Alternative Hotkeys tab of the Options dialog box determines if notifications are displayed or not when using an Alternative Menu feature.
• The environment variables (like %TEMP%) and relative paths (relative to QAP working directory) are now supported in Start In option in the Advanced Settings of favorite Applications.
• All internal links to QAP website in the application has been updated from "http://" to "https://" because, yes!, QAP website is now more secure with an SSL certficate.

Language

Thanks to Maeng Bong Kyun, Quick Access Popup is now available in Korean language. Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish has also been updated for v9.2. Chinese should be on its way. Thanks again to translators for this hard work.

History of all changes

See: Change log.

Here is a summary of changes in version 9.
Read more

Here is a summary of changes in version 8.7.
Read more

Here is a summary of changes in version 8.6.
Read more

In my view, every QAP user should upgrade to v8.5! This page tells you why. The v8.5 release fixes some annoying bugs. It makes available new features that I wonder why I did not code them before and it takes the recent Snippets feature to a more mature development stage!
Read more

Version 8.3

This new QAP version (2017-07-20), thanks to a new search tool inside your favorites list, will greatly improve your efficiency while managing your QAP menu. This release also includes a complete rewrite of Shared menus file locking (reservation to avoid conflicting changes by simultaneous users). Users of Shared menu are strongly encouraged to upgrade to this new release (this has no impact on your existing Shared menu files). Users of Windows Explorer Context menus and Windows shortcuts will appreciate a new context menu entry that automatically imports a shortcut including its settings: working directory, icon, etc.
Read more

With version 8, released 2017-01-03, Quick Access Popup can refresh your menu as the content of your folder changes. It also include a new dialog box to manage all your menu icons in one place and take the full benefits from brand new menu icons from Icons8. And much more...
Read more

Quick Access Popup is a powerful upgraded version of Folders Popup that introduces several new features to the application that take it to the next level and give users more flexibility when they use the program.

Add your vote!

After close to nine months of (part-time!) work, Quick Access Popup (QAP) v7 is NOW officially released. Thanks to the beta testers who helped making this major release ready for public distribution. Thanks also to all users who sent their suggestions for improvements on Folders Popup website or on this site.

For those who love Folders Popup, QAP is still the same productivity tool but with a larger scope as it will allow not only folder switching but also application, documents, web pages and FTP sites launching with plenty of new features including, just to mention this one, the possibility to assign mouse or keyboard shortcuts to any favorite, group or submenu. Welcome to Quick Access Popup!

It’s been a long time since the last beta release. I’ve been working on the French version of Quick Access Popup.  And it came with some additional work to make language management easier in the future. French users can download this beta release (v6.2.4) here: Beta test Home page.

I'll let this first localized version live for some time and, if everything goes well, I'll ask translators to update the Folders Popup translation files to Quick Access Popup. After this important work (many thanks in advance to translators!), QAP should be ready for official release!

For all users interested in the beta release, there are some interesting new features in v6.2.4. Among them, the automatic detection on Windows folder icons when you create a favorite folder. Also, as an interesting bonus, you can now use the Add favorite / Change favorite icon dialog box to also change the Windows folder icons very easily.

Welcome to my new project ! Quick Access Popup is the next generation of the popular Windows freeware Folders Popup. It will offer all the features in Folders Popup plus additions made possible by a complete rewrite of the application.

From your custom popup menu, Quick Access Popup will launch your most used folders, documents, applications, websites and FTP sites, plus all sort of special features to ease and accelerate your work. And it will still be freeware!

Quick Access Popup is now at the beta tests stage. Until it is ready for public release, you can:

• Join the beta testers group if you have the time and the technical interest to give this software a try, provide valuable feedback or help uncover bugs
• Download Folders Popup (Folders Popup setting will be upward compatible with Quick Access Popup)
• Add suggestions, comment or vote on existing suggestions on the Quick Access Popup withlist
• Ask questions or give general feedback on my blog (use the comment link)

Thank you for your support!

Note: User comments and reviews in this website's header are for Folders Popup, current incarnation of QAP. They will apply to QAP, for sure :-).

Icons by: Visual Pharm.

The development of Quick Access Popup is going very well! In the last four months, I completely redesigned the internal architecture of the application. This, by itself, will not be visible by the Folders Popup users. But this new platform makes it easier to add new features and to build a more flexible tool to edit your popup menu and favorites.

The "Settings" window now allow to manage nine type of favorites:

• Folders
• Documents
• Applications
• Special Folders (50 predefined Windows folders including Computer, Recycle Bin, Downloads, etc.)
• Links (URL)
• FTP sites (with username and password)
• QAP Features (a dozen of special menus or commands of including Reuse an Open Folder, Recent Folders, Add This Folder, etc.)
• Submenus
• and Groups

Some of the changes in Quick Access Popup deserving mention:

1. In addition to being easily accessible using the popup menu, any favorite destination (folders, applications, documents, etc.) can now be associated with a keyboard or mouse shortcut.
2. Favorites are now be powered by advanced settings like preset window position, launching application, and working directory.
3. The QAP features menu entries (Reuse an Open Folder, Recent Folders, Add This Folder, etc.) can now be inserted where you want, in the main menu (as in Folders Popup) or in any submenu.
4. Management of Groups is integrated with submenus and favorites. Groups are now a special kind of submenus where the all favorites in a group are launched in one click. Favorites can be moved from regular submenus to groups and vice-versa.

There is still a lot of work to do. I could not give a target release date. But I would say that more than half of the work is done. I will soon start the alpha testing phase with invited seasoned Folders Popup users who already helped debugging Folders Popup in the last years. As soon as the app is stable and complete enough, I will move to the beta test phase. If you would like to participate to beta test, please leave a comment in this message or send me an email to support@quickaccesspopup.com.

Stay tuned!

PS: And even if all new features suggested on this site will not be in the first release, you can still vote for your preferred items on the wishlist or make a new suggestion by adding a comment to this post: Welcome to the Quick Access Popup wishlist!

Welcome to my new project ! Quick Access Popup is the next generation of the popular Windows freeware Folders Popup. It will offer all the features in Folders Popup plus additions made possible by a complete rewrite of the application.

From your custom popup menu, Quick Access Popup will launch your most used folders, documents, applications, websites and FTP sites, plus all sort of special features to ease and accelerate your work. And it will still be freeware!

Until Quick Access Popup is ready, you can:

• Download Folders Popup (all Folders Popup setting will be upward compatible with Quick Access Popup)
• Add, comment or vote on Quick Access Popup new features
• Register to Quick Access Popup beta users program
• Ask questions or give general feedback on my blog (not available yet)

Thank you for your support!

Note: User comments and reviews in the header are for Folders Popup, current incarnation of QAP. They will apply to QAP, for sure :-).

Icons by: Visual Pharm.