MinGW Portable Development Test 5 (formerly MSYS Portable)

OK, some random notes as I think of them/notice them, in no particular order:

This should really be called MinGW Portable. MSYS is really mostly irrelevant. X:\PortableApps\MinGWPortable will be used by Code::Blocks Portable and other IDEs as well (which I'm working on). Being MSYSPortable would spoil it in the extreme. Because it's not MSYS. It's MinGW32/MinGW. MSYS is just an RXVT client which uses MinGW to "emulate" linux if you like.

I suggest that you do what I was going to do, which is have an INI switch to select MSYS or a Command Prompt with the MinGW bin directory in the PATH.

I'll look at this when I can download and test it.

Version number? Installer is MSYS_Portable_0.0.1.paf.exe, this should be MinGW_Portable_5.1.4_Development_Test_1.paf.exe (I think that the right version number is 5.1.4?)

You really shouldn't use versions of things which you compiled if you can avoid it, which you can.

Development is the right category.

I noticed that it was more than twice as big as my previous MinGW package, so I decided to find out why.

You've got ADA and Java support built in, but that's not the nub.

You haven't compressed the app with UPX! You should try compressing it with the PortableApps.com AppCompactor.

Using NRV2E and recompressing ZIP/JARs:
Size Before: 197622 KB
Size After: 149869 KB
Space Saved: 47753 KB

As you can see, this has taken it down to 75.8% of the original size.

However, where this is not so good is in the installer. Before, it's 26.1 MB. After, it's 36.8 MB. 41% larger. But that's one of the trade-offs you have to make.

Then I found a few minor issues with the rest of the package:

Your next installer filename should MinGW_Portable_1.0.10_Development_Test_3.paf.exe (assuming 1.0.10 is the version number you decide to use... the whole thing is a bit messy).

The launchers should both have "1.6.1.0" as their version numbers - that's the PortableApps.com Launcher version number at the moment.

In AppInfo you've got a few issues: the CMD version should be "Command Prompt Portable (MinGW)" (space between Command and Prompt), and MSYSPortable.ico should be appicon1.ico, and CommandPromptPortable.ico should be appicon2.ico.

Edit: in CommandPromptPortable.nsi, you should change PORTABLEAPPNAME to "Command Prompt Portable (MinGW)" and APPNAME to "MinGW", and on lines 89-92, you should change the following:

	;Set New Path
		ReadEnvStr $PATHENV "PATH"
		StrCpy $PATHENV `$PATHENV;"$EXEDIR\App\MinGW\bin`
		System::Call 'Kernel32::SetEnvironmentVariableA(t, t) i("PATH", "$PATHENV").r0'

To the following:

	;===Put MinGW into the PATH
		ReadEnvStr $0 "PATH"
		System::Call 'Kernel32::SetEnvironmentVariableA(t, t) i("PATH", "$EXEDIR\App\MinGW\bin;$0").n'

And then you can scrap the "Var PATHENV" line, and not waste a 16 or so bytes of memory by getting $2 filled by the SetEnvironmentVariableA call (that's the turning r0 into n bit)