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BlueJ Portable 3.1.7 Dev Test 1

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darksabre76
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BlueJ Portable 3.1.7 Dev Test 1

Application: BlueJ Java IDE
Category: Development
Description: From the publisher's website:
BlueJ is an integrated Java environment specifically designed for introductory teaching.
BlueJ was developed at a University specifically for the purpose of teaching object orientation with Java.
BlueJ is free!

SourceForge project page
Archive SourceForge project page (Will be official location after release)

Download BlueJ Portable 3.1.7 Dev Test 1 (9.56MB download / 13.0MB installed)
(MD5: 8d1297ffdf46d7102a8a76ec615db4d9)

Note: All previous versions of BlueJ Portable are now considered obsolete. gluxon has created a portable (and much more secure) version of the OpenJDK, available here. I have removed the embedded versions of the OpenJDK from my build and thus, rely upon his build instead. Please remove all previous versions before updating, and note that the dedicated OpenJDK 7 build is now obsolete and will not be updated further.

Release Notes:

See all release notes at the SourceForge project page.

darksabre76
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Well then...

I guess I will make a version of this... without the JDK and see how that goes. The only unfortunate part is that it needs the JDK to work =/

mjashby
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Portable Java

If you want to pursue this, you need to get it to work with JPortable if Java isn't installed on the machine it's used on. But that's easy for me to say - I haven't succeeded in fully converting any Java Apps yet! - I could do with some 'good' examples to learn the techniques from.

MJA

darksabre76
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Problem

There's one major issue with that: JPortable doesn't include the JDK, all it includes is the launcher. The Java Development Kit is a much more complicated thing than the Java Runtime Environment, and I have definitely tried using only the JRE to make this work, but to no avail.

mjashby
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Yes, of course

My mistake. Obviously suffering from Brain Fade.

Looking at your difficulties a little more closely, they just seem to grow as there are also separate JDK downloads for x86 and x64 and licencing terms for the user to sign up prior to download so...

I really wish you the very best of luck working this one out!

MJA

darksabre76
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Workaround

I may have found a gigantic loophole through which I can drive the boat that is this project. There is a project called OpenJDK that has a completely open sourced version of the JDK available as source code. Then, as luck would have it, OpenSCG has a completely pre-compiled verison for windows. I will be testing this to see if it works in my virtual environment before I even think about packaging it up, but this is definitely a good start for Alpha 2.

darksabre76
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Release for Testing

Well, after two internal alpha iterations (only so I could get rid of the closed source JDK so I wouldn't have this project taken down), I managed to create a fully self-contained version of BlueJPortable for public testing. Please see the link above for downloading.

Chris Morgan
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Formatting

Now could you please format your post and package according the the Development Test guidelines? i.e. DisplayVersion needs to be using "Dev Test" rather than "Alpha", this thread needs to be cleaned up significantly.

(And don't put "internal versions" in, we really don't care about them as they weren't released and no one but you ever saw them.)

I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1

darksabre76
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Done

Everything has been revised according to the guidelines and I have posted on the Test Release page accordingly. Thanks for telling me about the guidelines... I completely forgot they existed

3D1T0R
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DevTest Versioning

You only increase the DevTest version when it's been released on these forums, thus this should either be DevTest 1 (first available release) or DevTest 2 (if you uploaded and made available the [unintentionally illegal] version which contained the [non-open] JDK previously.)

~3D1T0R

Gord Caswell
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Versioning

As you've indicated on SourceForge that the current release includes 3.0.5, the app versioning should indicate this as well, as well as go back to dev test 1.

darksabre76
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Thanks

I didn't even notice I did that. The new version is going to be uploaded soon. I hope more people give feedback about the actual user experience though..

TheChallenge
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just my short Feedback

Well,
first thing I want to say is thank you for this nice Work!
Im using it actually for doing homework (our school system is very buggy) and have nearly nothing to criticize.
It works fine and is running very stable, in the last year it was only one time that it stopped doing what it should.

One thing I dont know about if it's fixable is that you cant open any documentation directly, there always occurs an error due to blueJ looking for the files in the standart installation folder on C:/Programs/BlueJ/
Its a bit annoying to always have to open the apps folder of where I saved blueJ and getting the documentations manually.

Btw, sry for the bad English, I hope I didnt melt your brain with all my mistakes Smile

TheChallenge

Gord Caswell
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Comments on 3.0.8 DT2

First off, this doesn't run at all for me on Win7 x64, and by doing some investigating, it looks like it's because there's no JDK included, or so bluej.exe says when I run it.

Now, on to comments:

  • Remove all the custom-coded launcher stuff in Other\Source, if you're using PAL, it's not needed. If you aren't, your nsi file has some errors in it, since it looks like you copied it from Neverball's launcher. I reccommend using PAL.
  • splash.jpg should be located in App\AppInfo\Launcher
  • Other\Source\license.txt should not be bluej's license, but rather the license for PAL and the PortableApps.com Installer. Since BlueJ is open-source, it's sufficient to leave the license file in App\BlueJ where you have it already.
  • Please copy in this package over top of your existing build, as there are numerous files missing which are part of the standard PortableApps.com Format.
  • help.html should be the standard file in the package above, not a link to BlueJ's website.
  • AppInfo.ini:
    • Remove the "Trademarks", "InstallType", "EULAVersion", "UsesDotNetVersion" and "ExtractIcon" lines as well as the "SpecialPaths" section
    • The Name should be Blue J Portable, not Blue J Portable Dev Test, same goes for AppID
    • PackageVersion: We do not reccomment ever increasing this value past that of the base app when developing. In this case, it should never be increased past 3.0.8. For some discussion on how to do numbering, see here.
    • Publisher: As you are not the publisher of the base app, this should read something like "M. Kölling, J. Rosenberg & PortableApps.com" or "M. Kölling, J. Rosenberg & PortableApps.com (darksabre76)" or some other reference to the BlueJ publishers.

That's all for now. Sorry for the harsh list, but you wanted comments Smile
Once you upload a working version, I'll take a look at it again.

darksabre76
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Thanks

I actually wanted this sort of feedback. It was my first app and it's rare to get this level of feedback. Thanks and I'll try to get it up to spec.

EDIT: Also, if you run BlueJ.exe directly, it won't work, that's why bluejrun.exe was created from bluejrun.bat. They reference the .jar file in the correct way.

Gord Caswell
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Ignore me...

Something else I noticed just now when I was examining bluej.bat: there is no bluej.jar, even though it is referenced in bluej.bat. That could be why it's not running.

[EDIT] brain fart...I didn't read the whole line.

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NP

Thanks again for the feedback. I think the most recent versions are up to spec finally. I used your feedback for one of my other apps too, working on the third one (a little harder to get running for some reason).

EDIT: Also, I think my numbering is in line with the current BlueJ release. So I'm not sure why that comment was there.

Gord Caswell
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Versioning

The reason for the versioning comment is that if you plan on releasing this app here officially, we need to be able to update smoothly.

If you increase the version, for example to 3.0.8.3, when we release it officially, we would need to increase it beyond that so beta testers get upgraded. So, for example, we would need to increase it to 3.0.8.4

The problem then is that what happens if the app is released as a base app version smaller than our current package version? For example, 3.0.8.1? If you've kept your package version below the base app version (ie., 3.0.7.80x), then when we release it officially it would be increased to 3.0.8, and when the base app is updated, we would update accordingly.

darksabre76
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Makes sense

Never actually thought about it that way to be honest. Part of it was that I never thought my app would ever be at PA.c level. I guess the easiest way would be for me to wait for the next official release of BlueJ, or rename the latest version to be 3.0.7.801 (and split off the JDK7 into something like BlueJ Beta or something). Which would you suggest (if either)?

gluxon
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You mentioned requiring help

You mentioned requiring help getting the splash screen to work properly in another thread. I looked at this, and it seems both splash screens are working. Was there a different problem I missed?

I would remove the splash.jpg from App\AppInfo\Launcher. We don't usually use custom splashes when the original application already has one. We've traditionally added "Portable" to the original instead.

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Yeah, I forgot to reply again

Yeah, I forgot to reply again mentioning that I got it working after actually reading the documentation.

Also, funnily enough I thought the splash had to be there one way or another. So I guess I'll take it out when OpenJDK comes out and I make (what I assume will be) the official version.

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2 Things

First, thanks to everyone who's downloaded and tested my packaged BlueJ so far. As of the time of this writing, I'm hovering at 7952 total downloads for the project. That's amazing. Even more amazing is that the last month has has more downloads than any other month to date, at 786. Thanks everyone for the support, and I hope this can be released when the JDK goes official.

Second, I hate to request stuff of admins, but I'd like to request cleanup of the comments above. Specifically the discussions that occurred before the project was named properly (before 2011-09-03) and any other comments that are no longer relevant. If someone can do this, thanks. If not, no worries; it shows how far the project has come.

Gord Caswell
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Greenfoot

It's great to see you working on more and more apps, Matt Smile

However, as Greenfoot is a separate app from BlueJ, even though it's based off of BlueJ, it should have a separate dev test thread, not be listed with BlueJ.

This looks like a neat learning tool!

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Sounds good

Since they had a common code base I thought it would be easier. But you'll see a new post in a couple minutes. And thanks, I've gotten a little more confidence in my app-packing in the last few months.

Update: Annnnndd moved.

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Updated to 3.0.9 Dev Test 1

Portable version updated to 3.0.9 Dev Test 1. All prior launcher updates have been maintained such as native OpenJDK Portable support. See release notes linked above for details.

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Updated: 3.1.0 Dev Test 1

Updated to 3.1.0 Dev Test 1. See release notes for details.

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Updated: 3.1.1 Dev Test 1

Updated to 3.1.1 Dev Test 1. See release notes for details.

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Blue J with Java JDK

Hi:
I noticed that the BlueJ home page has a version 3.1.4 packaged with JDK that was released Sept. 14, 2014. They claim it is portable and can be installed to a USB stick. The version here says you should import gluxon's OpenJDK, install it and then install the portable 3.1.1 version (I'm not concerned about the slight version difference).

My concern is whether the version on the BlueJ homepage will function in my portable apps suite? Another question is whether one version is recommended over the other (Portable apps vs BlueJ.com) and why?

Any and all help appreciated.
Thanks
Jojo

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Old

This build is pretty old at this point because I haven't had time to put into PA.c stuff in a while. I'm intending on updating everything within the next couple of weeks.

With that primer out of the way, the reason that gluxon's build is recommended is because it's non-proprietary. Basically, none of the PA.c apps can have something without and open source licence bundled in without permission. The version that is being distributed by the original developer includes the JDK because they probably have some agreement with Oracle.

Off the top of my head, I have no idea if the version on their site will work with the PA.c platform. Give it a shot and report back here if it does or doesn't, it would actually be cool. If theirs works better, I'd point people their way or try to make my packaged version better.

Hope this helps.

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BlueJ portable from their site

Thanks a lot darksabre76.

I'd actually prefer a version you created because I know that will work well with PortableApps. Yet in the spirit of teamwork I'll download and install the BlueJ version and try to install it as specified in the "Adding other Apps to the Portable Apps menu as stated below;

"The PortableApps.com Menu will also work with other standalone and portable apps. You just need to place them in a directory "next to" the PortableApps.com directory. So, in a standard layout, you'd create a directory within the X:\PortableApps directory and place it within there. For example, if you have a portable program MyApp.exe, you could create a folder called X:\PortableApps\MyApp\ and place MyApp.exe and all its files within there. Then, just click Apps - Refresh App Icons within the PortableApps.com Menu and your new app will show up."

In this case I would add a folder "Blue J" inside my portable apps folder. I gather that is what is meant by "next to" the PortableApps.com
directory.
Please let me know if I have that right.
Thanks gain.

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Sounds right

As long as the main executable (.exe) is in that "Blue J" folder, then the platform should see it.

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Updated: 3.1.7 Dev Test 1

Updated to 3.1.7 Dev Test 1. See release notes for details.

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