Access Impulse from the Tray Icon
Published on April 9, 2009 By Island Dog In Personal Computing

Impulse: Phase 3 was recently released, and one of the new features was Impulse Now.  Impulse Now is a small tray applet that lets users know about available updates and provides an easy way to access features in Impulse.

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If an update is available for a game or application in Impulse, this icon will flash to notify you of updates.  There are two different sets of menus available to view, you can access one or the other by left and right clicking on the tray icon.

Left-clicking

Left-clicking the Impulse Now icon brings up the main tray menu, which gives a variety of options. 

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  • Open Impulse: Pretty self-explanatory, and also double-clicking the tray icon will open Impulse.

  • Application Groups: There are two categories under this, which are My Software and My Games.  Both of these are a way to quickly access an application or game installed in Impulse.

  • Updates: If Impulse Now is signaling that a new update is available, clicking View Updates will show you what’s available.  If you need to check for an update, just click Check for Updates.

  • Configuration:   Here you can access the configuration menu which gives you many options to configure Impulse Now to your liking.

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Right-clicking

Right-clicking Impulse Now gives you mostly configuration and help options. 

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For more information, and a free download, head over to www.impulsedriven.com .


Comments
on Apr 09, 2009

This is the greatest thing since the WC tray. I had a problem with the icon disappearing after 60-90 minutes but solved it by not having the icon hide when inactive. I just wanted to mention it in case others have the same issue.

on Apr 09, 2009

The only problem I have is that whenever I "exit" Impulse, there's still a process running in the background.  This isn't a huge problem, but it is mildly annoying, especially considering how other digital distribution software such as Steam fully exit.

on Apr 09, 2009

The only problem I have is that whenever I "exit" Impulse, there's still a process running in the background.
You can close Impulse Now by r-clicking on it  and closing it to kill that process. It can be launched manually by going to ProgramFiles>Stardock>Impulse>Now and clicking on the ImpulseNow.exe file.

Tip:Make a shortcut to it for easy access.

on Apr 09, 2009

Okay, thanks for the advice.

on Apr 10, 2009

Can this be pinned to the Impulse support forum?  Would make sense to be there, too.

on Apr 10, 2009

Is there a way to disable the flashing of the icon when an update is available? I had to hide the impulse icon since it was constantly flashing and saying there's an update for Demigod available, even though we can't update it.

on Apr 11, 2009

Might be good for some. For me, the last thing I need is more services running on start up. I removed it. I can start Impulse manually when I need it. The rest seems fine.

on Apr 12, 2009

You can close Impulse Now by r-clicking on it  and closing it to kill that process. It can be launched manually by going to ProgramFiles>Stardock>Impulse>Now and clicking on the ImpulseNow.exe file.

 

Tip:Make a shortcut to it for easy access.

I wonder if the devs were out of time with ImpulseNow? A lack of an on/off switch? Making it work almost like it's a separate entity of the client? Not even a self-generated shortcut to enable it again?

Sorry, but that's a perfect example of over-complicating things. Being different from the competition should not be above the need to keep things simple/intuitive.

One thing I like about Impulse is to be able to customize its settings. The Impulse orb is excellent, and I would've expected the same mechanics design with Impulse's system tray icon (aka ImpulseNow).

on Apr 13, 2009

I disabled it. I find the flashing annoying. I want to update when it suits me, not when an app tells me to.

It told me an update was available, so I updated and got an error. Why?...

...one thing it didn't tell my was my subscription had run out! Now that would have been useful information to have...!