Here you will find various recipes, tips and recommendations about how to use Xecrets Ez [Beta], the desktop app for macOS, Linux and Windows.
The app is the same across all supported platforms, but since the platforms have some fundamental differences, there are a few differences also for Xecrets Ez [Beta].
There's really no installation required, Xecrets Ez [Beta] is designed to be run as a stand-alone single executable, what's often called a portable app.
However, since macOS, Linux and Windows do have some differences, for convenience and ease of use, you may want to perform some platform specfic actions. If you're not putting the app on a removable device such as a USB stick (which works perfectly fine) we recommend that you place the app after downloading and unpacking in a fixed unversioned location.
The download itself is always versioned by name, so that it's easy to know what you've got. For example, the download for macOS may be named XecretsEz-Osx-2.3.398.tar.gz while the corresponding Windows download would be XecretsEz-Win-2.3.398.zip .
Use the appropriate utility to extract the actual app executable, XecretsEz for Linux, XecretsEz.app (the .app extension is usually hidden and it's actually a directory) for macOS and XecretsEz.exe on Windows.
We suggest you move the extracted app to the following location:
/Applications (or user local /Users/[YourUserName]/Applications)./home/[YourUserName] or equivalently the Home shortcut.C:\Users\[YourUserName] or equivalently %USERPROFILE%.The advantage of placing the app in a fixed location is that it's easier to find it when you need it, and it also makes it possible to conveniently associate encrypted .axx files to the app, see below for details.
You can pin Xecrets Ez [Beta] for quick access.
No action really required, macOS will place it in the recent apps section in the dock if it's in /Applications and you will find it in the Launchpad like any other application. If you want it always in the Dock, right-click the icon in the dock when it's running, and select "Options | Keep in Dock".
For Linux it requires a little bit of manual work to get Xecrets Ez [Beta] into menus, but as a Linux user, you'll probably feel right at home. This is on Ubuntu 22.04, but it should be fairly similar in most distributions. You will have to manually create and edit a .desktop file, and place it in the ~/.local/share/applications directory. Please name the file com.axantum.XecretsEz.desktop. Copy and paste the following, changing [YourUserName] to whatever user name you are using in your system.
[Desktop Entry] Name=Xecrets Ez Exec=/home/[YourUserName]/XecretsEz %f Type=Application Categories=Utility;FileTools
Pin the program for quick access to both Start and the Taskbar. Right-click the executable where you placed it, and then select "Pin to Start" and/or "Show more options | Pin to taskbar".
Each operating system has it's own desktop file manager, typically Finder for macOS, GNOME/Nautilus for Ubuntu Linux and Explorer for Windows. There are many other options, but here we describe procedures for these.
Normally you open a file by double clicking it, but how does the operating system know how to open it, i.e. what app to use?
This is called associating the file type with the app. The procedure differs, and there are many alternate ways to do this, here are some ways it can be done.
Normally it's not required, but if you have other applications registered for the .axx extension such as AxCrypt, you may want to change it. To associate Xecrets Ez [Beta] with .axx files right-click an .axx file, select "Open with" then "Other...". Select either /Applications or /Users/[YourUserName]/Applications, scroll down to XecretsEz, select it, check the Always Open With checkbox and finally click Open. You can also do this from the Get Info menu on right-click.
This is for Ubuntu 22.04, but the process should be similar in most distributions. To associate Xecrets Ez [Beta] with .axx files right-click an .axx file, select "Open With Other Application", click View All Applications, scroll down to XecretsEz, select it, and click the Select button. Xecrets Ez [Beta] opens the file, and will do it with a double-click in the future.
To associate Xecrets Ez [Beta] with .axx files right-click an .axx file, select "Open with" then "Choose another app", scroll down to "Choose an app on your PC" and browse to where you moved the XecretsEz.exe executable when you installed it. Finally, click the "Always" button to make the association permanent.
