Requesting apps: Part 1 - Beginners development and packing.

After reading though all the requested applications here, one thing strikes me.

Why?!!

ISTM that the majority of applications requested are open source, in which case surely anyone can make an application portable?

That's the whole, key, SELLING POINT of opensource software! (That it's available to anyone to improve!)

But then I looked at the "Development" section with a view to helping out...

Surely the process could all be explained a bit better?

https://portableapps.com/development/beginner_packaging has a beginners guide, but the instructions seem to be too simplistic to be of much use for most applications which aren't already portable (e.g. Step 3) - or to someone who's technically competant - though it is just a beginners guide!

Step 4 could probably be junked as it is atm - the portableapps.com installer generator handles all of that - and is indeed required. (If it's not used, the portableapps.com specification isn't adhered to, and the portable version of the software you're trying to help make will violate the portableapps.com trademarks!!!)

Also, it's a lot simpler than using NSIS directly and it's complex scripting language!

Step 5 states that JAR files are ZIP files - but if they're already compressed ZIP files, why would a script to compress all JAR files found in a directory be needed? It seems a little redundant?

UPX can already compress all EXE/DLL files found in given directory anyway as well, so...

Step 6: It would be worth mentioning that this is only allowed for opensource projects (some apps requested here are freeware/commercial). It would also be worth pointing out that any app your make portableapps.comized won't actually have anything to do with the portableapps.com sourceforge project. Nothing! Best to make this clear, as anyone might see "sourceforge", see "portableapps.com" on sourceforge and think this is what it means.

Perhaps the most significant ommission from the "beginners development and packing guide" is... THE LAUNCHER NEEDED!!!

There's no mention of this anywhere - but the majority of portableapps.com applications seem to need one.

I seem to remember there was something on here (anyone got a link?) to a generic launcher - though it was wasn't ready for release yet?

Also, there's nothing to suggest how an application can "make it" to the portableapps.com WWW site. e.g. putting it up on the (hidden from casual view!) "test list"

I'd be happy to help out redoing bits of this document to make it more helpful to people just starting to repackage software into portableapps.com format, though there doens't seem to be any way of doing so?

The guide isn't like a wiki, where the community can improve it (it does state clearly that it's unfinished), so I'm hoping this post will start the ball rolling...