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Audacity Portable 1.3.11 Pre-Release 2

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John T. Haller
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Audacity Portable 1.3.11 Pre-Release 2

I've just posted a pre-release of Audacity Portable 1.3.11. This should be a fully-functional release of Audacity 1.3.x. It supports upgrading from 1.2.x (though you will lose all settings in the process as they are not compatible).

This is one of the first official apps testing out the functionality of PA.c Launcher. It is using the Temporary Name Patch and the Splash Screen Patch to function like our standard launchers. And it is using the fix to remove launcher.ini from being left behind, too.

Download Audacity Portable 1.3.11 Pre-Release 2
10MB download / 23MB installed
MD5: d2452e3eac68778ef91f2b3e819e0b1c

Please test this out and report your results.

Thanks,
John

Fixed in Pre-Release 2:
- Audacity Portable in PA.c Menu doesn't launch
- Asked to associate AUP files on startup
- Can not upgrade from 1.2.x
- File and directory left behind in TEMP

scriptdaemon
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Thank you John.

Testing now.

When the bug in PAL is fixed, will it automatically remove the leftover file when the app with the fixed launcher is run?

EDIT: For the test release, you might want to install to X:\PortableApps\AudacityPortableTest by default (it currently installs to X:\PortableApps\AudacityPortable by default)

EDIT 2: Upon first run, it asks if I want to associate .aup files with Audacity. If I click yes, will the launcher take care of it, or is there a way to disable it asking this so the user doesn't get confused?

EDIT 3: It also asks which language to use for Audacity on first run. Shouldn't the launcher take care of this?

EDIT 4: It doesn't actually launch from the menu at all. (Before I had opened the AudacityPortable.exe file directly.) Using 2.0 Beta 4.

John T. Haller
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All Fixed

All have been fixed in pre-release 2. Language switching is not yet implemented in the PA.c Launcher.

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John T. Haller
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Pre-Release 2

Pre-release 2 is posted and this should now be good to go. It fixes all known issues and seems to be working well. Language auto-switching is not yet available though.

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scriptdaemon
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If Audacity Portable can

If Audacity Portable can detect LAME automatically, how come you have to go into preferences for it to detect ffmpeg?

John T. Haller
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Enabled

Unlike LAME, ffmpeg requires an additional Enabled=1 setting in the INI. Just setting the path to it isn't enough. And if you enable it when it isn't there, it'll bug you on launch. No idea why they did it different than LAME, but they did. So, we can't enable it directly in the PA.c Launcher, it'll require custom code.

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scriptdaemon
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Ah, so it's their problem.

Ah, so it's their problem. Gotcha.

Devo
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INI and Data folder

I have a couple issues with the ini. The end user shouldn't have to rename the ini and change the name of the section heading to get it to work. It should be like every other app where you just copy the ini over and change the settings you want.

Also, shouldn't there be more options in the ini, such as:

AudacityDirectory=App\Audacity
SettingsDirectory=Data\Portable Settings
AudacityExecutable=audacity.exe
AdditionalParameters=
DisableSplashScreen=true

The settings seem a little backwards. It seems to me that the Audacity settings should be stored in the Data\settings\ folder and the launcher settings should be in a different folder (maybe Data\launcher settings\)

These are just a couple opinions that I think would make this release similar to all the other releases.

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Nope

AudacityDirectory, SettingsDirectory and AudacityExecutable are gone and will not be returning. AdditionalParamters and DisableSplashScreen will be the only things available with most apps going forward.

The settings directory is used for the launcher settings as well as registry entries and individual settings files moved back and forth to the app's directory or locally. Whole directories that are moved are placed in their own directory structure. The naming of the folders doesn't matter much as there's really no reason for end-users to go messing with them anyway. And if an end user does, the Portable Settings folder is the name of the folder dictated by Audacity itself anyway, so it remains consistent with their non-PAF portable version that's not quite fully portable.

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Devo
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So if I've been reading

So if I've been reading things correctly, PortableApps.com is trying to move to using the PAL exclusively, or will you still be developing individual launchers? If you are moving to using PAL exclusively, then what will happen is a computer will not allow the user to launch a specific exe? There is no way to tell the launcher to use a different exe or folder. I think this could become an issue for some users, maybe not all, but you are removing some of the functionality of the current generation of launchers.

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Yes and No

The number of users that customize locations of the app vs the launcher is exceedingly small. The number who customize the EXE is an exceedingly small percentage of that exceedingly small list of users. For the most part, there is no real reason to do either. The only reason to ever do it was to make backups easier (so you could easily backup just your app data)... and that hurdle was removed when we added the PortableApps.com Backup utility to the mix with the 1.0 platform/menu release.

Pidgin Portable's launcher, for example, hasn't let you do any of that for, I believe, a year and a half now.

Customization for the sake of customization when there's no real reason for it at the expense of added development time and increased support issues just doesn't make sense. There's no need to maintain 70 different launchers when we can have everything work with one. And there's really no need to be moving pieces of apps around. It doesn't gain you anything. And it only adds to the complexity of the code we maintain.

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Devo
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I have a request then

Can you keep that functionality in both the Firefox and FileZilla launchers? The computers at work are really locked down and won't let us use many outside programs, Firefox and FileZilla specifically. Oddly enough I can use chrome with no problems.

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It's fine by me

It's fine by me as long as you make sure we wont lose any portability functionality like leaving remains in the pc (not windows mrus that cant be removed) or integration with the backup utility (the data folder).

zwade
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I'm having a problem with

I'm having a problem with this app, it won't load.

The launcher runs for a few seconds, then sometimes the actual app starts up for a second or two, then the app and launcher shut down. No error messages. Installed to hard drive and using XP SP2.

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Comments

1. In Help/About I notice it says it's using %APPDATA\Audacity (second tab, scroll to the bottom). Is that normal? I don't think anyone wants their Audacity temp data on their flash drive, but after I exit Audacity, the directory remains. The directory contains two empty folders, a zero-length file, and a 2kB file.

2. Purely cosmetic, but for the portable build, shouldn't you guys get some credit in the thanks? I know PA normally doesn't alter the base program, but since it's open source, and you are creating a derivative work (in a sense) I believe you're completely justified to add yourselves into the special thanks/credits.

John T. Haller
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Answers

It's actually using AudacityPortable\App\Audacity\Portable Settings for data. (The launcher moves this back and forth to the Data directory) Not sure why it says different in About. Unless audacity itself is moving that info back and forth to the local PC (which would be bad). This is the advertised mode of making Audacity work on USB for the 1.3.x branch. It seems, as is often the case, that it's 'mostly portable', but not to our standards, and leaves stuff behind on every PC you run it on. Most 'portable' software does this. We'll need to have the launcher clean that up before the final version.

The Temp directory is set to one on the local hard drive. It is removed on exit.

We don't alter credits unless we alter the app. It's unedited Audacity (though UPX compressed) with our launcher added to automatically handle things like Lame, FFMpeg, Temp drive, presets directory, and soon the MRU, too.

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Compatibility Q&A

I have a question. Will this run from the, er, PAM mod R34 menu?

EDIT: TWO, actually. Will this run from eXpresso as well?

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Yes

The PortableApps.com Launcher still puts an executable in the root of the package, just like the old launchers, so you can run it without the Platform.

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Motosuwa
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Tested

Works beautifully (both in actual use and from the MOD R34 menu). It works very well with my desktop version files (and this is coming from Windows 7).

You know what, I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life TAKE THE LEMONS BACK! Get mad!! I don't want your lemons; what am I supposed to do with THESE!?

Motosuwa
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Bug

The app seems to mass-lag when opening projects made with 1.3.12. Is this just me, or is anyone else having this problem?

You know what, I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life TAKE THE LEMONS BACK! Get mad!! I don't want your lemons; what am I supposed to do with THESE!?

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