PortableApps.com Platform 12.0.5: 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 September 10, 2014 - 7:13pm

PortableApps.com is proud to announce the PortableApps.com Platform 12.0.5 release, a bug fix release for the new 12.0 Platform. This release improves default theme colors, updates multiple locales, adds the ability to optionally add the platform to your PC's start menu/tiles, and has some bug fixes. As before it has a complete app store, automatic updater, easy app organization, fast app searching, proxy support, a great set of themes, 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 12.0.5

This minor update improves default theme color selections, adds the ability to optionally create a shortcut to the platform in the Windows start menu/files, updates many locales, and fixes a bug. The complete set of changes is available in the PortableApps.com Platform Changelog.

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.
  • Eject or Power Off - For local users, the eject button automatically switches to a shutdown/restart/log off button, bringing up the Windows prompt to select your choice. You can also right-click on the button to select to show either eject or shutdown/restart/log off.
  • 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. Additionally, we'll be doing regular bug fix, minor feature, and locale update releases with small quick-install updates to existing users so the regular updates don't get in the way.

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

As always, our releases are 100% clean and were pre-scanned using Virus Total and confirmed clean in every supported antivirus engine including Avast. You can view the full installer clean scan results as well as the update installer clean scan results.

Avast's scanner is quite problematic, even for a free antivirus. And, unfortunately, this false positive can not be easily alleviated by adjusting Avast's sensitivity.

The false positive has been reported to Avast again. Hopefully, they'll fix their error soon.

UPDATE: Avast appears to have fixed their issue

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

Ken Herbert's picture

Avast used to be one of the better free solutions (unobtrusive, low false positives, good detection rate of actual malware, all without changing a single setting from their default), but more and more lately I am finding excessive false positives, far too many in-app notifications/ads, and things that have to be tweaked to work "right".

I think I will be looking for an alternative soon.

John T. Haller's picture

It appears that Avast may have fixed their issue. Both the full and update installer are downloadable and runnable in my test virtual machine with Avast running with a default configuration now.

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

I've used the free level of Avast for years. I would like to have the firewall that a CS Suite had when my ISP offered it free to their customers. They abandoned that for the McAfee suite, and my neighbor had all sorts of problems when he installed it.

I've seen some good reports on the Commodo Suite and will try and find out more to see how it compares with other suites. It appears to have everything that the paid version of Avast has.

When we finally broke down and obtained a Windows 8-based machine after holding out as long as we could, we discovered to our dismay that the free Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus won't install, so I went poking around for another free alternative.

I was especially hoping to avoid the self-serving popups which I had previously experienced with AVG and Avast (which I used, and recommended to others, for many years before MSSE), so I tried the free Commodo Suite for awhile.

It seems to have a lot of protective features, at least one of which appears to interfere with Windows Backup that manifests in such a way as to prevent a backup from successfully completing. I didn't spend too much time trying to figure it out, but as far as I could determine, it had something to do with Commodo's auto-sandbox feature.

To its credit, Commodo did NOT interfere with Carbonite (which I also have, in addition to running Windows Backup onto an external drive).

Ultimately, however, I liked the fact that Commodo did not have a bunch of gratuitous popups (although it wasn't completely silent, as is MSSE) and it did seem to stay out of the way in most other respects, once the initial tuning was completed.

BTW, it turns out that Windows 8 appears to come with a more robust version of Windows Defender than did Windows 7, which apparently renders MSSE unnecessary, and which is why it won't install on Windows 8.

Security Essentials won't install on Windows 8/8.1 because it's built in, just renamed back to the old Windows Defender name

OOPS: was meant to be a reply