Packaging applications specifically built to be Portable already

Correct, it doesn't have a "main executable" as such.

Perl (it's not an acronym) is a language platform, in the same sense as Java or .NET doesn't have a "main executable".

The packaging process is really a test for me at this point. The distribution generator has the ability to "portablise" any variant that it builds, so once I work out how to automate the zip -> PA Installer process, what I'll probably do is move to bundling a Perl/CPAN-installed IDE on top of the base install.

http://padre.perlide.org/wiki/Screenshots

So at that point, you would end up with a "main executable" that would serve as a suitable point for a production release.

I've also noticed in that URL you mention that there is discussion of using a common run-time Perl in a Common Files directory, should I be investigating doing that?

There's a couple of minor issues with your suggestions.

The main one is that the way the whole native portability bootstraps.

The perl.exe will resolve it's own location in absolute terms. It will then localize it's internal (default) library search path. So moving Perl itself around isn't an option.

Once bootstrapped to this point, there's hooks in three or four modules that are essentially universal dependencies for anything filesystem related.

When these module are loaded, they start from the Perl binary location and search upwards to locate a file called portable.perl, which is known to sit in the root path of the installation. Portable.pm is loaded to read and process the contents of this file, which consists of a set of named relative paths that override certain in-memory locations for the duration of the current executable invocation.

So within the Portable tree, I need to establish a distribution root.

I assume this means the dist root is going to be App\StrawberryPerl, which means we end up with App\StrawberryPerl\perl\bin\perl.exe as the location of the actual compiler/interpreter. A typical language install has dozens of binary things anyway, so I'm assuming we DON'T want those visible.

The Data\ thing should be fine, as the File::HomeDir module is also Portable-aware and will obey whatever portable.perl tells it is the relative path to the user data directory File::HomeDir->my_data.

Other\Source looks fine

That leaves the root directory. I assume I'll have to do something like creating a specific batch script for each thing I want to be specifically runnable, which will then point into the dist root.

I guess that also likely means that I need to find a bat2exe converter and hack in icon support etc manually? Or is there a better way?