AppliMate v1.1

Author: Mark Schilberg

Platforms: Win98/ME/XP/NT/2K

Support email: coramark@sympatico.ca

What is AppliMate?

AppliMate is a very simple yet useful utility that starts multiple applications when it's executed.  It can pause a number of seconds between each execution and start applications in a normal or minimized state.  AppliMate is useful for people who routinely need to start a number of applications.

How do I use AppliMate?

Here is an example of how to use AppliMate to start three fictional programs, program1.exe, program2.exe and program3.exe, in different ways.

By default, AppliMate will look in the file called AppliMate.ini (in the same directory/folder where AppliMate is installed) for execution instructions.  You initially need create this file with a text editor such as Windows Notepad.  Here's an example of the contents of AppliMate.ini ...

C:\Program Files\Application1\Program1.exe
1
C:\Program Files\Application2\Program2.exe minimize
2
C:\Program3.exe -parameter1 minimize

For the above example, AppliMate will execute Program1.exe normally, wait 1 second, start Program2.exe and minimize it, wait 2 seconds and finally start Program3.exe with a parameter of -parameter1 and minimize it (the parameter is only used here to show that AppliMate does not ignore parameters).  Note that the full path is needed to each executable.  Note also that pauses between executions aren't necessary.  They were included here only for example.

Once this AppliMate.ini file is created, all you need to do to start these three programs is run AppliMate.exe directly or via a shortcut.  Note that AppliMate has no user interface.  It was simply designed to execute any commands found in the initialization file.

As mentioned, by default, AppliMate looks for AppliMate.ini for instructions.  You can specify a different initialization file by specifying the file name as a parameter in the target line of the shortcut, i.e. c:\Program Files\AppliMate\AppliMate.exe differentfile.ini

Author's Notes:

I wrote AppliMate to automate the starting of programs which I use for Microsoft Flight Simulator such as FS2002 Reliability Factor, FS Timekeeper, RapidShot and FS2002 Aircraft Shutdown.  Coincidentally I also wrote those applications :-)  Feel free to visit the websites by clicking on the links.  By the way, here's the contents of my AppliMate.ini file ...

D:\FST\fstimekeeper.exe minimize
1
D:\FSRF\ReliabilityFactor.exe minimize
1
D:\AS\aircraftshutdown.exe minimize
1
D:\RS\rapidshot.exe
2
D:\Nostromo\nost_LM.exe -open