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Portable Apps Technology

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rockbell
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Portable Apps Technology

Hi Folks,

I would like to have a portable app built that can run off a USB thumb drive on both windows and Mac OS.

Any recommendations on whats the best technology to use to build this kind of a standalone application?

We initially started working with C# build realized that its dependent on the .NET framework installtion on the PC. And Mac OS is an issue as well.

Much appreciate your help.

Thanks,

dyse

horusofoz
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Could be wrong as I am no

Could be wrong as I am no programmer but I beleive Java works on Windows, Mac and Linux.

PortableApps.com Advocate

Chris Morgan
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Not Java. wxWidgets.

Don't go Java. It's not the way to go for portable apps, though it may be at some time in the future. For the moment, though, Java is no go for PortableApps.com.

I would recommend the combo of Python and wxPython. It's been used in some apps here, e.g. BPBible, Task Coach. It works well, and functions properly on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. If you really feel like it, you can run BPBible from source on OS X! Smile

If you prefer C++, you can go for just wxWidgets. (wxPython is just python bindings for wxWidgets.)

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

m2
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rockbell, please tell us what

rockbell, please tell us what do you want this program to do, it's impossible to make a good suggestion otherwise.

Usually I also prefer C++.
QT, GTK, FLTK are good alternatives to wxWidgets.

"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." Asimov

rockbell
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More info...

Friends,

You are all "awesome". Some responses to your questions -

I would have a bunch of PDF files + metadata (XML) stored on the USB drive.
I need to build a custom file viewer that will help me display these PDF files by category and groupings (list/combo boxes) which will be extracted from the XML files.
The viewer would use a PDF plugin such as acrobat, sumatra pdf or xpdf.
There would be complex search features (these PDFs are searchable) as well as a search cloud for ease of search.

All of this is read-only, nothing would be written.

Please let me know what your thoughts are.

Thanks so much !

Thanks,

RB

m2
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Depends on how big is the

Depends on how big is the "bunch" and how complex searches do you want to provide.

I think that wxPerl is the best solution (1) unless your searches consume really a lot of CPU time. Then C++...with many other solutions in between.

But this program is not big enough to learn a new language just to write it comfortably, choose any language that you know which has bindings for some portable (OS-portable) widget library and either is compilable to standalone executable with machine code or has a pendrive-portable interpreter.
If you know only C#, I suggest to avoid C++. They look similar, but are very different and you'll likely have a lot of troubles with minor things like memory management.

Ad (1): I don't know if there's pendrive-portable perl for MacOS. Should be, but check it.

"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." Asimov

Josh English
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Christian, Any hints about

Christian,

Any hints about using wxPython? Is there a trick to the setup.py file? I can't find the trick to bundling everything in the .exe and avoiding the zip file.

Chris Morgan
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Look at BPBible

Ben (the main developer of BPBible and my brother), Jon (the other BPBible developer and also my brother) and I (who put in the stuff for a portable version), have made BPBible's release process very streamlined; it even supports building the portable version directly. You're welcome to copy, modify and use as you wish make_py2exe.py and make_release.py (accompanying make_portable files are here).

BPBible has the best Windows build process that I've seen in any Python application, and especially the ability to make a portable version (make_py2exe.py --portable). That portable version applies the settings needed to compress and bundle library.zip in a better way than the default. (I'd be interested to see how much smaller Task Coach ended up with the three switches (compressed, bundle_files and zipfile=None) turned on - it'd end up with fewer files, and, I think, quite a bit smaller).

(BTW, my name is Chris; Christian refers to my religion)

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

Josh English
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Thank you

I will look at that, as well some hints in the TaskCoach source I got on the wxPython list.

Sorry for the miscue. I don't often see Christians branding themselves that way, and frankly, I misinterpreted the signature.

TheOneMrO
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My multiplatform language of

My multiplatform language of choice is Python using wxWidgets. I use it for development of Keryx ( http://keryx.betaserver.org ) and will be having a Windows, Mac and Linux build in the near future. The Windows binary is already available. You can package Python for all major operating systems using py2exe, py2app for the Mac and you can also use something like PyInstaller to do all of them (Mac builds are currently in testing but can be used by grabbing the SVN version).

rockbell
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Thanks...

This is really good information, thanks.

I will personally not be developing the code but am looking to hire a few rockstar developers. If you have any recommendations, who can do the magic for me, send them my way Smile

Thanks,

Dyse

Thanks,

RB

TheOneMrO
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I would be interested in

I would be interested in working for you. Contact me at excid3 (at) gmail [dot] com if you would like to discuss it some more.

rockbell
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Interesting...

Willing to relocate to the DC/Metro area?

Thanks,

RB

TheOneMrO
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In college so unfortunately I

In college so unfortunately I cant, I can telecommut/work from home however.

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