Roland Weigelt's Emaroo 6.4.2 - Release Notes

• What's New?

First Steps

• Install Emaroo and run it via the start menu.
• Tip: Pin Emaroo to the taskbar* and drag the icon to the first or second position on the taskbar so you can start it quickly via Win+1 or Win+2.
  *) Right-click the Emaroo icon in the task bar and select Pin this program to taskbar from the popup menu.
• Press F1 or click the ? icon for a quick reference of the features.

What's New

Version 6.4.2 (released 2026-05-10)

• Fixed: Order of MRU items for Visual Studio not matching the MRU list inside Visual Studio under certain conditions.

Version 6.4.1 (released 2026-05-05)

• Fixed: Issue with Visual Studio Professional/Enterprise

Version 6.4.0 (released 2026-05-04)

• Changed: The code for Visual Studio (2017-2026) no longer uses jump lists. Instead, the most recently used projects/solutions and files are now always read using a different approach.
• Changed: Updated certificate.

Version 6.3.0 (released 2026-02-27)

• Fixed: Visual Studio Code not being detected properly (probably starting with 1.109).

Version 6.2.0 (released 2025-11-11)

• Added: Support for Visual Studio 2026.

Version 6.1.0 (released 2025-10-28)

• Added: Support for Photoshop 2026
• Removed: Support for Photoshop prior to 2025
• Added: Support for Illustrator 2026
• Removed: Support for Illustrator prior to 2025
• Added: Support for InDesign 2026
• Removed: Support for InDesign prior to 2025

Version 6.0.0 (released 2024-10-16)

• Added: Support for Photoshop 2025
• Removed: Support for Photoshop prior to 2024
• Added: Support for Illustrator 2025
• Removed: Support for Illustrator prior to 2024

Version 5.2.0 (released 2023-09-18)

• Added: Support for Photoshop 2024
• Changed: Updated certificate.

Version 5.1.1 (released 2023-03-22)

• Fixed: Typora executable not found on some machines.

Version 5.1.0 (released 2023-03-21)

• Added: Support for the markdown editor Typora (https://typora.io/).

Version 5.0.0 (released 2022-10-20)

• Added: Support for Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign CC 2022.
• Changed: Start menu folder renamed to just Emaroo.

Version 4.9.0 (released 2022-02-17)

• Updated: Support for Visual Studio Code 1.64 (changes regarding most recently used folders/workspaces). Previous versions of Visual Studio Code are still supported.

Version 4.8.0 (released 2021-11-10)

• Added: Support for Visual Studio 2022.
• Added: Support for Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign CC 2022.

• Changed: Emaroo no longer looks for Photoshop/Illustrator CC versions prior to 2020 by default. This does not affect support for CS6 versions (which some users still keep around).

  If you still need support for older CC versions, you can enable it as follows:

  • Close Emaroo
  • Start Notepad as Administrator
  • Open the file Emaroo.exe.config in the installation directory (usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Weigelt\Emaroo)
  • Set SearchForOldAdobeCCApplications option to True
  • Save the config file and start Emaroo.

Version 4.7.1 (released 2021-05-20)

• Fixed: Visual Studio Code workspaces not being handled correctly

Version 4.7.0 (released 2021-04-21)

• Updated: Support for Visual Studio Code 1.55 (changes regarding most recently used folders/workspaces). Previous versions of Visual Studio Code are still supported.

Version 4.6.0 (released 2020-10-21)

• Added: Support for Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign CC 2021.

Version 4.5.0 (released 2020-02-14)

• Added: Support for Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign CC 2020.
• Fixed: Silent crash when performing a "refresh" of the connection to a Visual Studio 2019/2017 MRU list.
• Changed: Updated certificate.

Version 4.4.0 (released 2019-04-14)

• Added: Support for Visual Studio 2019.
• Added: Ctrl+R ("run or read") now also supports shortcut files (.lnk)
• Fixed: Single files not appearing in Visual Studio Code.

Version 4.3.2 (released 2019-03-09)

• Updated: Support for Visual Studio Code 1.32 (changes regarding of most recently used folders/workspaces). Previous versions of Visual Studio Code are still supported.
• Fixed: The MRU list for Notepad++ remained empty if the configuration file config.xml is not a valid XML file. This problem was already (kind of) addressed in 4.0.0, but now Emaroo performs a more thorough cleanup of the XML file. To be clear: Emaroo only reads the file, it does not write to it at any point. The file corruption is caused by Notepad+++ itself, which doesn't seem to have problems with it.
• Fixed: Custom actions without any file or directory macros for the currently selected MRU item did not work if the MRU list was empty.

Version 4.3.1 (released 2018-10-21)

• Fixed: Slow startup/high CPU load in some scenarios.

Version 4.3.0 (released 2018-10-16)

• Added: Support for Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign CC 2019.
• Updated: Support for Visual Studio Code 1.28 (changes regarding of most recently used files). Previous versions of Visual Studio Code are still supported.

• Changed: Emaroo no longer looks for Photoshop/Illustrator CC versions prior to 2018 by default. This does not affect support for CS6 versions (which some users keep for compatibility reasons).

  If you still need support for older CC versions, you can enable it as follows:

  • Close Emaroo
  • Start Notepad as Administrator
  • Open the file Emaroo.exe.config in the installation directory (usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Weigelt\Emaroo)
  • Set SearchForOldAdobeCCApplications option to True
  • Save the config file and start Emaroo.

Version 4.2.1 (released 2018-08-19)

• Fixed: Problems with handling of workspaces.

Thanks to Jochen Manns for reporting the issue and providing repro information that helped fixing the bug.

Version 4.2.0 (released 2018-08-15)

• Updated: Support for Visual Studio Code 1.26 (new user setup vs. system setup, changed persistence of most recently used workspaces). Previous versions of Visual Studio Code are still supported.
• Changed: The settings for Show hidden and Show missing now work across tabs and are persisted when exiting Emaroo.
• Improved: Reduced flicker when changing tabs.
• Fixed: On some systems a black line appeared at the bottom of the VS2017 tab.
• Workaround: In case the MRU list for Visual Studio 2017 shows only old items (or none at all), you can now switch the strategy how the MRU items are determined:

  • Close Emaroo
  • Start Notepad as Administrator
  • Open the file Emaroo.exe.config in the installation directory (usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Weigelt\Emaroo)
  • Set UseVS2017MruFallback option to True
  • Save the config file and start Emaroo.

  Note: The fallback strategy delivers the same results as the File > Recent Projects and Solutions menu (i.e. less items than the jump list, at least by default).

  A big Thank you! to Darren Schroeder for his support (technical info, example code, testing).

Version 4.1.0 (released 2018-07-05)

• Added: You can now hide files or directories using a new toggle in the context menu (Hide in list). To quickly show hidden list items, check the show hidden option next to the search field.
• Fixed: A typo in the product/macro ID of Affinity Designer led to the misspelled macro $(ExeFilePath(affinityDesiger)). Emaroo 4.1.0 (or higher) will upgrade the configuration automatically on first start or when importing older JSON configuration files.
• Fixed: Copy/paste of custom actions not working under specific circumstances.
• Fixed: An unnecessary horizontal scrollbar appeared on the settings page if the list of applications showed a vertical scrollbar and Visual Studio 2017 was installed.

Version 4.0.1 (released 2018-06-14)

• Fixed: For custom actions with short texts and without tooltips, the compressed text was larger than the original text.

Version 4.0.0 (released 2018-06-13)

• Added: Support for Adobe InDesign CC 2018.
• Changed: The dialog for editing custom actions has undergone a major overhaul. Input of $(...) macros is now more consistent. Set the cursor to the desired location and either open the new context menu of the text field or press the $(...) button.
• Added: The macros $(ExeFilePath) and $(ExeDirPath) can now have parameters to get the file/folder path for a specific application (e.g. $(ExeFilePath(word2016))) or its newest version (e.g. ($ExeFilePath(word))). The context menu of the input field helps you to pick the right macro.
• Added: Tooltips for custom actions.
• Added: .bat is now a supported extension for the run or read -feature (Strg+R).
• Added: The context menu of the custom action buttons below the MRU lists has a new Debug entry. With this you can preview the custom action for the currently selected file or folder with all $(...) macros expanded.
• Changed: When inserting a custom action (either by pasting from the clipboard or importing from a JSON file), the custom action is now pasted behind the currently selected item.
• Changed: When you copy a custom action to the clipboard, the text in the clipboard is no longer JSON, but a heavily compressed string which can be inserted into websites, emails, etc. This makes publishing custom actions much easier. Import/export of individual custom actions via .action.json files is still supported (and will be in the future). Read more about this on the custom actions repository on GitHub .
• Changed: When switching to the settings tab, the custom actions for the application that was previously selected are shown automatically.
• Fixed: Emaroo sometimes crashed on the Notepad++ tab. This happened because the Notepad++ configuration file sometimes contained a second XML declaration at the end of the file - which obviously isn't valid XML. Emaroo is now able to deal with this.
• Removed: Most built-in Open file for application X in application Y features, because they can now be replaced with custom actions (using the $(ExeFilePath(...)) macros).

Version 3.6.2 (released 2018-03-14)

• Fixed: Empty MRU lists for the x86 versions of Word/Excel/PowerPoint 2016 Professional Plus.

Version 3.6.1 (released 2018-03-13)

• Fixed: The tabs for some variants of Word/Excel/PowerPoint 2016 and/or their MRU lists were not displayed.

Version 3.6.0 (released 2018-02-27)

• Added: Run .exe or .cmd files / read .html or .md files that are located in the directory of a most recently used item, either by pressing Ctrl+R or via the context menu.
• Fixed: Crash on startup on some computers that had UAC disabled.

Version 3.5.0 (released 2018-01-31)

• Added: Support for Affinity Designer. If Adobe Illustrator is installed, files in the Illustrator MRU list can be opened in Affinity Designer via the context menu.
• Added: Support for Affinity Photo. If Adobe Photoshop is installed, files in the Photoshop MRU list can be opened in Affinity Photo via the context menu.
• Removed: Support for Windows Explorer. Too little use, too much effort to get an MRU list - which in the end never contained all expected entries.

Version 3.4.0 (released 2017-10-26)

• Added: Support for Photoshop/Illustrator CC 2018.
• Added: Command for refreshing the icons of MRU files and executables, e.g. the icon of Visual Studio Code which was changed for version 1.17 (and will be changed again in the future ).
• Fixed: Crash that could occur if a Photoshop or Illustrator file in the MRU list was located on a SharePoint file share.

Version 3.3.0 (released 2017-09-30)

• Added: Support for the 64bit version of Visual Studio Code.
• Changed: Files and directories are now handled equally when it comes to copying to the clipboard: Ctrl+C copies the item (i.e. the file or directory) and Ctrl+Shift+C copies its parent directory.
• Fixed: Various problems with Visual Studio Code not working correctly (caused by some behind-the-scenes changes in its configuration storage).
• Fixed: Wrong icon used for folders if the first folder accessed by Emaroo after setup is a folder with a special icon (e.g. the Documents folder).
• Fixed: Collision between setting the always open as administrator marker and turning off UAC afterwards - the Visual Studio solution could not be opened then.

Version 3.2.0 (released 2017-07-24)

• Added: New context menu directly on custom actions (Edit/Copy/Export). You can now open the Edit dialog without switching tabs, which speads up the edit/test roundtrip.
• Added: Custom actions can now run executables/open files in the directory of a most-recently-used item. The $(DirPath) macro now also works in the Executable input field.
• Added: The icon of a custom action now indicates whether it requires administrative privileges.
• Added: Emaroo now handles some use situations involving quote characters in custom actions automatically:
  • If the arguments of a custom action consists of only the $(DirPath) or $(FilePath) macro, quotes are added automatically when closing the dialog with OK.
  • Quotes around executable paths are removed automatically, which is useful if you copied the path in the Windows Explorer via the Copy as Path context menu entry. In earlier versions the quotes would prevent the custom action from working at all.
• Fixed: When opening a Visual Studio solution in a higher version of Visual Studio, the always open as administrator setting (via a .openAsAdmin marker file) wasn't honored.
• Removed: Support for IrfanView - it didn't work correctly in all scenarios. I have a basic idea how to fix the problem, so support will come back as soon as I find the time for research, implementation and testing.

Version 3.1.0 (released 2017-06-05)

• Changed: Major overhaul of import dialog UI, greatly reducing complexity when importing into configurations that have many custom actions and/or installed applications.
• Changed: UI tweaks to export dialog.
• Added: Check for new version on help page (only on-demand, not performed automatically).
• Changed: The number of custom actions is no longer limited to 10, even though only the first 10 actions can be executed via hotkey. Removing the limit is intended to support scenarios where a larger number of custom actions exists temporarily (e.g. when trying out custom actions).
• Fixed: Copy/paste of custom actions didn't always change the ID when it was necessary.
• Fixed: Various corner cases in import/export.

Version 3.0.1 (released 2017-06-02)

• Fixed: Possible crash in import/export dialogs.

Version 3.0.0 (released 2017-05-31)

This version took waaaaaay longer than planned...

• Added: User-defined custom actions that can be defined per-application, called via the hotkeys Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, ... Ctrl+9, Ctrl+0.
• Added: Export/Import configuration settings.
• Added: Support for Visual Studio 2017.
• Added: Support for Word, Excel, PowerPoint 2016.
• Added: Support for Photoshop CC.
• Added: Support for Illustrator CC.
• Changed: When starting an executable, the working directory will now be set explicitly. Usually this shouldn't have a noticeable effect, but avoids situations where (error) messages that contain file or directory paths may show the name Emaroo (which may confuse some users).
• Changed: The setup package is now signed (no longer unknown publisher warnings).
• Fixed: Wrong order of MRU items for Visual Studio 2015 and Blend for Visual Studio 2015.
• Info: Emaroo is now using jump lists for Visual Studio and Office (using Eric Zimmerman's JumpList library), thus honoring pinned items. Other applications/tools haven't been transitioned yet.

Version 2.5.0 (released 2015-05-25)

• Added: Support for Visual Studio Code (most recently used files and directories).
• Added: For IrfanView, now both most recently used files and directories are shown.
• Added: Individual applications can be hidden on the new configuration tab.
• Fixed: Error message when cancelling a UAC prompt
• Fixed: Crash at startup on some first-time installations

Version 2.2.1 (released 2015-01-30)

• Fixed: Directories couldn't be opened via Enter or double-click because of bug introduced in 2.1.0.

Version 2.2.0 (released 2015-01-30)

• Added: Files can be dragged outside the application window (e.g. to copy them to a folder or open them in another application). This will not affect the most recently used list.
• Fixed: Context menu not updating items to match the always open as administrator option when using the menu key on the keyboard.
• Fixed: Bitmap cache files of old versions not being removed.

Version 2.1.0 (released 2014-12-23)

• Added: Support for Visual Studio 2015
• Added: Option in the context menu for Visual Studio solutions to always open a solution as administrator. Setting the checkbox adds a small file in the directory where the solution is located; if the solution is named e.g. Example.sln, the marker file will be named Example.sln.openAsAdmin.
• Fixed: If tabs shared the same accelator keys (e.g. Alt+I for Illustrator and IrfanView), only the first tab could be selected. Now pressing the accelerator key repeatedly will cycle through the tabs.
• Changed (related to fix above): Emaroo no longer tries to provide unique accelerator keys on systems with multiple versions of a program (e.g. Visual Studio, Blend or Photoshop) because it resulted in increasingly non-intuitive accelerator keys. Now all versions share the same accelerator key.

Version 2.0.0 (released 2014-11-27)

• Added: Support for Illustrator CS6/CC/CC 2014 (most recently used files).
• Added: Use Ctrl+T to open the selected file in a text editor (where it makes sense). If Notepad++ is installed, Emaroo will use it. Otherwise files will be opened in regular Notepad.
• Added: Copy now copies the selected file/directory both as text (i.e. the full path) and as the actual file system object to the clipboard.
• Added: More directory locations in IrfanView.
• Fixed: Some UI glitches in high DPI settings.
• Fixed: Text of entry in context menu for Blend VS2013.
• Changed: Emaroo now requires .NET Framework 4.5.1.

Version 1.6.0 (released 2014-07-20)

• Added: Support for Photoshop CC 2014 (most recently used files).
• Fixed: Order of most recently used files in Notepad++.

Version 1.5.0 (released 2013-12-27)

• Added: Support for Photoshop CC (most recently used files).
• Added: Support for Notepad++ (most recently used files).

Version 1.4.0 (released 2013-10-22)

• Added: Support for Visual Studio 2013 (most recently used solutions/projects).
• Added: Support for Blend for Visual Studio 2013 (most recently used solutions/projects).
• Changed: Removed rounded corners ;-)

Version 1.3.0 (no public release)

• Added: Support for Visual Studio 2012 (most recently used solutions/projects).
• Added: Support for Blend 5 (most recently used solutions/projects).
• Added: Support for Office 2013 (most recently used documents of Word, Excel and PowerPoint).
• Added: Support for Photoshop CS6 (most recently opened pictures).
• Added: Support for IrfanView (most recently used directories).
• Added: The Emaroo window can now be dragged by pressing and holding the left mouse button on an unused area of the window.
• Changed: In order to have space for more applications, now only the active tab shows the application name. The other tabs show only the application icons (the application names are available through tooltips).

Version 1.2.1 (released 2011-10-01)

Version 1.2.1 has been finished for a couple of months, but somehow never made it to an official release due to lack of time - sorry!

• Fixed: Right-clicking an item did not select it before opening the context menu.
• Fixed: Possible issues in certain corner cases.

Version 1.2 (released 2010-11-07)

• Added: MRU lists can now be filtered by typing a search term, the search results are shown in alphabetical order. The current version supports leading and trailing wildcards, i.e.
  • text* : starts with text
  • *text : ends with text
  • text or *text* : contains text
  Tip: Typing * (without the quotes) will sort an MRU list without filtering.
• Added: A (global) list of directories that should be excluded from all lists can now be defined (open the file ExcludedDirectories.txt.sample in the Emaroo installation directory for more information).
• Fixed: On the Explorer tab, \\servername entries were sometimes shown as being unavailable even if the server was actually online.

Version 1.1 (released 2010-10-23)

• Added: Tab page for Windows Explorer, showing directories that were recently entered into the address bar.
• Added: Accelerator keys for selecting tab pages by pressing Alt+<key>.
• Fixed: Overlay icons of shell extensions not appearing in new Windows Explorer instances on some 64bit Systems.
• Changed: Ctrl+<digit> does no longer switch to a specific tab page. Use the accelerator key for the tab page (Alt+<key>) instead. The Ctrl+<digit> hotkeys will be used in a different way in future versions.

Version 1.0 (released 2010-10-03)

• (initial release)

News/Updates

• Emaroo website: http://www.roland-weigelt.de/emaroo (or: emaroo.net)
• My blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/rweigelt