Basic operations

Show Application Ring

There are few ways to activate the Krento Application Ring. If you prefer to use a mouse you can click on the mouse wheel button or double click on the Krento Pulsar. If you prefer to use a keyboard, press the Win + C keyboard shortcut to show the Application Ring. You can also display the Krento Pulsar context menu or Krento tray icon context menu and select the  "Show Krento Stones" menu item. If you prefer to use another hotkey combination or another mouse button for activating Krento on the screen, you can specify it at any moment by using the  Krento Settings dialog.

Hide Application Ring

To hide an Application Ring just press the same hotkey or mouse button you used to activate the Application Ring. You can also press the Escape key for it.

Change Krento Settings

You can change Krento settings via the Krento settings screen. To activate the Krento settings screen you can select the "Options" menu item from the Krento Pulsar or Krento Tray icon context menu. When Krento Stones Manager is visible you can also select the same menu item from the Stones manager context menu or press the Ctrl + E keyboard shortcut. To activate the Krento Pulsar context menu point your mouse on Krento Pulsar and press the right mouse button.

After selecting the "Options" menu item the settings window is displayed. The context of this window will be displayed in English or another language if you changed the Krento GUI language, but the layout of the elements in it will always be the same.

Krento Settings Screen

Krento settings screen contains a few different pages with application options that you can change. To select one of the settings pages you can press Ctrl + Tab keyboard shortcut or select the page by pressing the left mouse button at one of the page's icons at the left side of the settings screen.

Select Settings Page

Find Krento Data Folder

Open the Krento settings screen and press the "Open Data Folder" button. The Krento Data Folder contains all Krento settings files, plug-ins, skins, translation files, Toys, Stones, Docklets and icons. The physical location of this folder depends from the version of Microsoft Windows you are using. The location of this folder is also different for regular and portable versions of Krento.

Backup your personal data

Krento provides you with a simple way to backup all your personal data, including all your Application Rings, skins, toys, docklets and configuration settings. Open the Krento settings dialog and press the "Backup Personal Data" button located on the "Tuning" page. The backup file will be automatically created in a "My Documents" Krento subfolder. The name of the backup file is "KrentoBackup" + the current date. The backup file is stored in PKZIP format so you can open it with WinZip or any other application that can treat zip files.

Add an application to application ring

To add an application to an application ring just drag and drop an application shortcut from Windows Explorer to one of the existing Krento stones. You can customize the appearance of the stone later by using the stone settings dialog. You can use drag files, folders, shortcuts, Control Panel applets, web addresses, virtual desktop objects (like My Computer or Recycle Bin), documents, images, movies and any other files to Krento File Launcher stone to assign it as a target for this stone. When you click on the stone later, your target application will be executed. See Application Launcher documentation for more details.

Add website to Application Ring

To add a website to the Application Ring just drag and drop a website address from the address bar of your browser or from the any position on a webpage displayed in the browser to one of the existing Krento stones.  See Application Launcher documentation for more details.

Create new Application Ring

Select "Create new circle" from the Krento Stones Manager context menu. You can also use the Ctrl + N keyboard shortcut. You have to provide a unique name for your new Application Ring or existing Ring can be overwritten. If you wish you can also specify a custom logo for your new Ring and give it a useful description. You can group your applications by categories, for example games, text processors, websites, etc... and create a separate Application Ring for every category. Then you can switch between Application Rings using the Ctrl + F and Ctrl + B keyboard shortcuts that act like a history navigation in a web browser.  

Modify existing Application Ring

You can specify a useful description for your Application Ring or assign a logo image for it. Select the "Load / Edit circle" menu item from the Stones Manager context menu or press the Alt + Shift  + O keyboard shortcut to activate the list of existing Application Rings.

Select Application Ring

Press the "Modify" button. Modify Ring properties and press the "OK" button to save your changes.

Ring settings

Change the type of the stone

There are many different Stone types provided with Krento. Some of them can launch an application or open a website, another can shutdown your PC or display the current time, etc... You can always choose what kind of functionality do you want from the specific stone by selecting the type of the stone installed on the Application Ring. You can extend the number of the available stone's types by downloading additional Krento stones from the Internet. Usually Krento stone setup is packaged as a .stone file and can be installed by dragging it to the Krento Pulsar or by selecting the "Install new stone" menu item from the Krento Pulsar context menu.  Select the desired Stone and call its context menu by pressing the right mouse button when the mouse cursor is pointed to the stone or press the Alt + T keyboard shortcut. The list with available stone types will be displayed.

Change type of the stone

Select a new stone type from the list of available stones and press the "OK" button to confirm your choice.

Stone types list

The number of items in your list depends on how many extra stones you have installed yourself. When you change the stone type all information related to the previous stone will be lost, the changes can't be undone.

Add new Stone to the Application Ring

You can add an additional stones to the Application Ring by drag and drop an application shortcut from Windows Explorer or an URL from the web browser to the stones manager window (the window in the middle of the Application Ring). You can do it also by selecting "Add Stone" menu item from the Krento Stones Manager context menu or pressing Ctrl + A keyboard shortcut.

Remove Stone from the Application Ring

You can remove the stone from the Application Ring by dragging it out from the Application Ring or by selecting the "Remove Stone" menu item from the stone's context menu. You can use the Ctrl + R keyboard shortcut to remove the current (selected and highlighted) stone.

Hide or show Pulsar

Select the "Hide Pulsar" or "Show Pulsar" menu item from the Krento Pulsar or the Krento tray icon popup menu.

Hide Pulsar

Hide Krento tray icon

Clear the "Show Tray Icon" checkbox on the Krento settings screen. To display the tray icon again, open the Krento settings screen and check the "Show Tray icon" checkbox.

Show Tray Icon

Launch Krento when Windows starts

Open the Krento settings dialog. Check the "Launch Krento when Windows start" checkbox to allow Krento to automatically start when you switch on your PC or clear this checkbox if you want to launch Krento manually.

Launch Krento with Windows

Change Krento language

Open the Krento settings dialog. Switch to the "Tuning" settings page. You can select the desired settings page by pressing the Ctrl + Tab keyboard shortcut or by selecting the page icon at the left side of the settings screen. Select the user interface language from the list of the available Krento translations. You have to restart Krento to apply the selected translation.

Select GUI language

Load Krento Application Ring

You can load any available Application Ring at any moment by selecting the "Load / Edit circle" menu item from the Stones Manager context menu or by pressing the Alt + Shift + O keyboard shortcut. For selecting the next or previous Application Ring you can use the Ctrl + F and Ctrl + B keyboard shortcuts or the "Previous circle" and "Next circle" menu items from the Stones Manager context menu. It's the fastest way to switch between different Application Rings.

Load Application Ring

There is also a fast way to select the new Application Ring. Press the Ctrl button and while keep it pressing click the left mouse button on the Krento Stones Manager window. The context menu with the list of the available circles will be displayed. Next to every circle name you will see also the keyboard shortcut that is assigned to it.

You can load the Application Ring by selecting it from the menu. If you memorize the Ring's keyboard shortcut you can use it later to selecting the Ring without using the context menu.

Change Krento Activation way

You can change the keyboard shortcut used for activation of a Krento Application Ring on the screen as well as the mouse activation button used for the same purpose. Open the Krento settings dialog. If you want to use the default keyboard activation shortcut Win + C check the "Use default (Win + C) checkbox. If you want to assign your own activation keyboard shortcut, clear "Use default..." checkbox first then select the keyboard activation edit box and press the desired key combination. If you pressed the wrong key combination you can repeat until the right combination is pressed or press the "Cancel" button and assign your shortcut again.

Activation hotkeys

You can disable Application Ring activation or select between mouse wheel click and one of the additional mouse buttons (for 5 buttons mouse only). You can add an additional keyboard modifier to mouse activation. For example, you can assign a combination like Ctrl + Alt + Mouse Wheel click. In this case you have to keep Ctrl and Alt buttons pressed while pressing the mouse wheel.

Change Krento activation position

You can choose between two possibilities:  show the Application Ring at the mouse cursor position or always in the center of the screen. Open the Krento settings dialog. Select "Screen Center" or "Mouse cursor position" as a Ring activation point.

Execute Krento Stone

To execute the Stone point to it using mouse and perform a single click with left mouse button. If you prefer to use the keyboard, you can execute an active stone by pressing the Enter or Space keys. For executing the stone without selecting it do the following:

Consider the following example:

You want to execute Notepad and Stone number 5 has Notepad as its target. The Application Ring activation shortcut is configured by default. In this case you have to use the following key sequence: Win + C Ctrl + F5. If you have more than 12 stones in your Application Ring, only the first twelve stones can be executed using keyboard shortcuts. 

Select active Stone

Active stone is a stone that will be executed when you press the Enter or Space key. Active stone displays some text (usually its own description) in the Stones Manager window that resides inside the Application Ring.

You can use mouse wheel button or keyboard arrow keys for rotating an Application Ring around the Stones Manager window. The lowest (nearest to you) stone automatically becomes an active stone.

Command line parameters

Krento.exe accepts the following command line parameters: