PortableApps.com Platform 12.0.1: Cascading Tray Menu, Automatic App Closing, Better Search, Awesome Themes, Faster, Sleeker, Stronger, and Ready for your USB, Cloud, or local drive.

John T. Haller's picture
Submitted by John T. Haller on August 21, 2014 - 7:34pm

PortableApps.com is proud to announce the PortableApps.com Platform 12.0. This release adds new features like a cascading app menu in the system tray, automatic app closing, proxy support, a great set of themes, a much faster updater and app store, improved app searching, a cloud+portable+local installer, improved multilingual support, and lots more! As always, it also features a complete app store, automatic updater, easy app organization, portable fonts, and lots of other features to make it your favorite set of apps whether you're running from a portable drive, a cloud drive, or run locally. If you'd like to see more features and functionality keep coming, please read a personal appeal from PortableApps.com founder John T. Haller to help! Read on for all the details...(permalink)

Existing Platform users can automatically update by clicking Help - Check for Updates.

New in Platform 12.0

This new update adds lots of features you're sure to love like:

  • Automatic App Closing - Closing down and getting going is easier than ever with the platform automatically (and safely) closing your running portable apps and letting you know which ones need to be closed before you eject and finish syncing your cloud drive. Luthfi Harahap was kind enough to re-license some of his code to help with this feature
  • Awesome Themes - The theming engine has been revamped and looks even better than before. The modern default theme matches well with Windows 7, Windows 8 and the upcoming Windows 9 release.
  • Cascading Tray App Menu - Several long time users wanted access to a full app menu on right-click, and Martijn (user: Kloas76) answered the call
  • Better Always-Ready Search - The app search box is always visible and ready by default, so you can open the platform - possibly with the CTRL-ALT-SPACE hotkey - and just start typing to launch your favorite app. You can even search in app descriptions if you'd like by ticking a box in Options
  • Proxy Support - The connections tab in Options lets you automatically or manually configure the platform to work with your internet proxy
  • Full Featured Installer - The Platform installer can now detect and install to your portable devices, synced cloud directories, local machine, and more
  • Much Faster Updater / App Store - The code to check for updates is now 10x faster and the download of the app database 1/5th the size. You save time and bandwidth every day.
  • Lots of bug fixes and tweaks - Lots of little things throughout the platform have been fixed and spruced up. It's faster, sleeker, and more stable than ever before. Even with all 300+ apps installed.
  • Localization Updates Galore - We've had a ton of updates to all of our locales courtesy of our hard working translation team. You'll see them in the forums and in story comments with a little translation flag next to their name.
  • All the fixes and features are details in the PortableApps.com Platform Changelog

Next Steps - Monthly Releases

Now that 12.0 is up we'll be working on the remaining features listed in the Platform bug report and feature list and doing a new platform release about monthly. One big feature we'll be working on post-12.0 will be file associations. Work on this was stalled due to other commitments by our lead developer as well as his recent injury and recover but is now continuing anew. Sorting out the Windows 8/8.1 issues since it blocks the standard approach is first on that list. We'll also be finishing up the custom theme engine and adding support for external themes, adding more automation support (BAT files, run on exit, etc), app customization, Java and .NET apps, more advanced features, and lots more. We'll be doing public betas each month, so you'll know exactly what features are arriving and when.

Ongoing Donation Drive

PortableApps.com needs your help to keep bringing you great software! To learn more, read a personal appeal from PortableApps.com founder John T. Haller. Now you can sponsor the PortableApps.com Platform and help us keep delivering awesome software for free. With options ranging from having your name included to a full-blown site-wide sponsorship, there's a good fit for everyone. Sponsor us today and be a part of the action!

We also accept donations of any size to help with development and hosting:

Make a Donation - Please help support PortableApps.com's development and hosting

Buy The Platform On A Flash Drive: Companion and Carbide

If you'd like a speedy new flash drive to use with the new platform, we have the the PortableApps.com Companion available starting at under $30. This durable USB 3.0 drive comes laser-etched with your name, URL or other text and is a great way to carry your software with you. And it comes in a new 64GB size. If security is your concern, we also have the PortableApps.com Carbide available. It's the Safest, most secure USB flash drive on earth. Best of all, sales of both help support the PortableApps.com project and our mission to change the world of software!

Discussing The Release, Enhancements and Bug Reports

As there is much to discuss with this new release, we've separated out a few forum threads for discussing:

Download Today

You can download the new version of the PortableApps.com Platform from the download page. Get it today!

Please note that any bug reports and feature requests go in the PortableApps.com Platform Bug Report and Feature Request Tracker.

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Comments

John T. Haller's picture

Avast's current antivirus setup has an error where it alerts with a generic "Win32:Evo-gen [Susp]" notice when you attempt to upgrade. Avast has been notified of their bug. Existing users can temporarily disable their antivirus to install/upgrade since the file is clean (as confirmed on VirusTotal) or wait for Avast to fix their bug.

UPDATE: Avast has confirmed the issue with their current virus definitions and is pushing an update to fix it today.

As a reminder, please report any bugs or other issues within the PortableApps.com Bug and Feature Tracker.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

For quite some time, I have been a great fan of PortableApps. Thanks a lot, John, for this excellent piece of software. Although the latest release of the platform has a number of very nice new features, I was slightly disappointed that the default theme has been adapted somehow to the new Windows 8 look. I understand that, although I am one of the many people who still prefer by far Windows 7. But was it really necessary to remove the old default theme completely? You could have kept it at least with a different name, as you had done with other previous default themes. Anyway, it's no big matter, I just wanted to let you know. Thanks again for PortableApps.
Erich

Erich Leisch
Senior Software Engineer
FORTH, Institute of Computer Science
Heraklion, Crete, Greece

John T. Haller's picture

The default theme from 11.x was accidentally left off the final build. It will be coming back today in a 12.0.1 bug-fix patch.

UPDATE: And it's back as "PortableApps.com Smooth" in the 12.0.1 release.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Was the PortableApps logo removed from this new build? I don't see it prominently displayed at the top of the application anymore.

Hi John,

thanks for the 12.0 final release and by the way for introducing the search box border color setting we discussed yesterday.
It looks much better that way.

Kind regards,

PortableUser2009

John T. Haller's picture

We made the decision to go with much more subtle branding, so you'll see a small and classy PA.c logo just above the Eject and Close buttons.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

SevenFactors's picture

Excited & happy with the official release of PortableApps Platform v12.

Keep up the amazing work guys. ^_^

This is a great release! I appreciate all the small underlying enhancements like fixed gdi-bug, automatic app closing, always on search bar etc. Nice work!

John T. Haller's picture

Based on user feedback today, we're happy to announce that the first update has been pushed out as version 12.0.1. It includes:

ADDED: Platform 11.x theme as 'PortableApps.com Smooth'
ADDED: Select custom folder from first page of platform installer
ADDED: Advanced Option via manual INI edit to hide search when not in use (details)
UPDATED: Bulgarian, English, EnglishGB, Spanish International locales in platform and Spanish International in installer
FIXED: Modal window error when reshowing menu after running a search result
FIXED: 'Update to beta platform releases' stuck on
FIXED: Refreshing with search results shown causes cascading task menu to not contain all apps
FIXED: Area below Help (hidden OEM button) is focusable when OEM.ini present but OEM icon not activated

Existing users will get a quick-install 1MB patch version. Thanks for your patience for the couple bugs that popped up post-beta!

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

I much prefer the minimal look and search isn't something I'd ever use so thanks for the option to remove it :tu:

Live for an ideal and leave no place in the mind for anything else.

Excuse me, I don't know about it, but what is OEM.ini and how can we use it? I search for more info but didn't find anything...

Gord Caswell's picture

OEM.ini is for use with OEM drives, such as KeyZ, not meant for general use. As such, there isn't publically available documentation on how to use it.

If you're looking to do theming with it, the capability to theme your menu is coming back in a future release, and will be supported, whereas modification of OEM.ini will not (since that's not what the file is for).

I find out that you can put your personal photo in the top right corner by clicking on it (there is a square).
Is it a hidden feature?
Is there any option for it?
How do I make a relative path to a file in my USB?

John T. Haller's picture

Click the square to select a 48x48 PNG, BMP or JPG file to display. It will make a copy in the platform's data directory and display it from then on. Right-click to clear the image.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!