[Outdated] PortableApps.com Launcher 2.0 Beta 2

Thanx for sorting all that earlier !
Some minor things, but I want to write them immediately. Intend to forget otherwise.

1. [Fixed] In Language.nsh, line 21:

   	${IfThen} $0 == "" ${|} ${SetEnvironmentVariable} PortableApps.comLanguageCode en-us ${|}
   

   I believe 'en-us' is wrong, as PortableApps.comLanguageCode uses 'en' in PAM

2. [TODO] If I'm using WinampPortable out side PAM environment, the language will get reset to English, at every startup. All users not using PAM, would end up with portable apps only in English !
3. [Won't implement] Could the lang-switching issues get solved by adding an option to [FileWrite?]
   

   [FileWrite1]
   Type=INI
   File=%PAL:DataDir%\settings\winamp.ini
   Section=Winamp
   Key=langpack
   Value=%PAL:LanguageCustom%
   IfEmptyValueDoNotWrite=true
   

4. [Fixed] In ExecString.nsh, any chance on adding ${ParseLocations} to the 'Get additional parameters from user INI file' part. I really need it for Winamp, and do it now within customcode, but is really a bit of a hack that way. It's probably just 1 line extra and I suppose other apps could need it too.
   I'm using it cause Winamp has a real issue with relative paths in passed parameters !
5. [Fixed] Personaly, when I'm using the PALgenerator, I would prefer the option of locating 'PortableApps.comLauncherDebug.nsh' in the source folder of the app I'm generating the launcher for, like the way you set it up for 'PortableApps.comLauncherCustom.nsh'

Whenever I switch the language manually within Winamp, winamp restarts it self, and PAL just finishes. So winamp will be sitting there without PAL to cleanup after it !
I did include:

WaitForOtherInstances=true

But still the same problem happens ?
Unicode NSIS Portable is also experiencing the same problem with 'WaitForEXE='. But is working fine with PAL Alpha 4 !
It must be something you changed recently.
[edit: it's Wraithdu's ProcFunc.nsh compiled in NSISu, it's not working]
[edit2: Done a quick (temporarily) fix, and I think it's just ${ProcessWaitClose} what you're using. Anyway a strange problem in !macro ProcFuncs_,what's use by ${GetProcessPID}
Patch for line 343-450 : http://pastebin.com/BtbBH3E9
There are bound to be additional problems with Wraithdu's script
It would even be more usefull if there would be a ${ChildProcessWaitClose}

Ability to deal with utf-16Le ini files !!!
http://pastebin.com/xPNv9WKf
Give it a look over, and modify it if you like !
Just wanted to let you know !
[edit:added an extra line to reset $_FEIP_Bom value]
[edit2:as I'm improving the script a bit, http://pastebin.com/tprH9HUB
See for yourself if you will use it, probably it's not that important, jet !]

When attempting to run an app without admin using RunAsAdmin=force, the error returned is "Unable to run as administrator, error 1223. Some features of Revo Uninstaller Portable will not work if you do not run as administrator."

That's fine for RunAsAdmin=try, but as far as RunAsAdmin=force goes the intent is to not load the program at all. It should instead notify the user that the app cannot be loaded rather than tell the user it has limited functionality.

EDIT: Also, can you add the ability to suppress the error messages in the .ini file? I'm working on Speccy Portable right now and it has its own error message, so having two errors pop up about running without admin is redundant and might frustrate the user.

hi i'm trying to portabilized teracopy and i want it to just sit in the system tray and take over the windows normal copy and paste. how would i do this using your launcher. sorry if this is the wrong section for this

I use the latest source pulled from the mercurial rep using Wraithdu's app.
It seems that there is something wrong with ForEachINIPair.nsh as it only moves the first file and not the second one. My ini is as follows:

[Launch]
ProgramExecutable=JPEGView\JPEGView.exe
WorkingDirectory=%PAL:AppDir%\JPEGView
LaunchAfterSplashScreen=true
SinglePortableAppInstance=true

[FilesMove]
JPEGView.ini=%PAL:AppDir%\JPEGView
ParamDB.db=%PAL:AppDir%\JPEGView

You got me thinking, about you not wanting to including to many plug-ins.
There is the possibility of adding the EnumINI plug-in routine to another plug-in, which would possibly just add 1 or 2 kilobytes to the other plug-in!
Or even combining a series of plug-ins into one multi plug-in.
It could save a fair amount of kilobytes, as all plug-ins basically use several of the same routines. If you are interested I could give it a try and see how many kilobytes will be saved !
[edit:after having a closer look at the EnumINI plug-in, I realized it just returns the keys. But with adding 4 extra lines to the source I got it to return the values as well. The main fallback is that it has to reload the file at every enumeration ! As you probably realized with your implementation of GetPrivateProfileSection()]

For Speccy Portable:

With RunAsAdmin=try, the program won't load at all if you select no to run as admin.

I'm posting it in a minute, but noting this problem.

When loading Speccy itself, I'm 95% sure that I remember loading it on my work computer (where I do not have admin) and it loaded without problem (though some features are not available). You might want to test it though, as I don't go back to campus for a week.

[Invalid, Speccy issue on Vista/7]

Chris just wanted to say Thanks I know you have been working so hard on this new development and appreciate your helping me with the old one.

Problem is is that by the time I learn that one this one will be ready. Oh well Thanks again!

The [FilesMove] thing works now thanks to gringolocos patch but I have another problem. It only works if I set MoveFiles to
JPEGView.ini=%PAL:AppDir%\JPEGView

and not if its set to what the help.html suggests:
settings\JPEGView.ini=%PAL:AppDir%\JPEGView

If i put "settings\JPEGView.ini=%PAL:AppDir%\JPEGView" in toe launcher.ini, it still copies the file to /Data/JPEGView.ini

(EDIT): Nope. No bug. My mistake. I had put the settings file in /App/DefaultData and not in /App/DefaultData/settings. Works now as expected.

I'm actually quite surprised how fast ForEachINIPair 1 is !!!
For my tests I used the example PortableApps.comLauncher.ini (3KB) which comes along when I clone from the Development repository. I used the [Environment] section and done the tests from the local HDD . Even timed it excluding the buffer creation & freeing!
When scanning this section right in the top of the ini file, ForEachINIPair1 is even 12 times faster, then the newer version.
When I locate the section where the registry sections are it's 2,5 times faster, but any lower into the ini file it becomes less & less.
Still thought, even when the [Environment] section is located in it's original location (almost in the bottom) it still is a small bit faster.
TimeNSISFunctions.nsi (just for ansi NSIS, due to the time plug-in)
[edit: Anyway probably we are still talking about 0.005 sec. to read an ini section of 4 lines, for the newest ForEachINIPair.nsh. What isn't bad !]

Found a bug in the newest ForEachINIPair.nsh !!!

; GetPrivateProfileSection guarrantees there will be an = on each line

This doesn't count for my computer ! (Windows XP sp3)
Whenever there is a line without the '=' character, the macro will go into an endless loop !

I am packaging a program that has it's own help.chm file in its AppDir. Problem is it appears to not hook the hh.exe file from the localhost computer to open the file. If I just run the file alone it works without a hitch, just when I Launch it with the launcher do I have an issue. FYI I also had the issue with P.A.L.

tyvm

I saw the launcher a while back and though it was a lot of trouble and I would have to change everything and I didn't want to use it.
Then yesterday I spent half an hour looking at it and converted wxDev-C++ Portable to use it.


[Launch]
AppName=WxDev-C++ Portable
ProgramExecutable=Dev-Cpp\devcpp.exe
CommandLineArguments=-c %PAL:DataDir%\settings

[FileWrite1]
Type=Replace
File=%PAL:DataDir%\settings\devcpp.ini
Find=%PAL:LastDrive%
Replace=%PAL:Drive%


Now I see the power of it. Great work thanks a lot.

The only thing I was missing was more examples on how to use it so I put the code above.

Once again thanks. I am now going to use it on other projects...

The application I want to move to the launcher has its config file in $DOCUMENTS.

Up to now, I used to do the following:
1) Make a back up of the config in $DOCUMENT, just in case
2) Move the portable config to $DOCUMENTS
3) Run the application
4) Move back the config file
5) Restore the backup if needed

How do I do that with the launcher [FilesMove] seems to be only a part of the solution.

Thanks for the help.

I just tried using the Launcher Generator; it completely failed on me. Here's the log it gave me: http://pastebin.com/yF80BBVg
I don't really have time to try debugging, unfortunately; I'll just see if I can manually recompile PAL.
Also, making Unicode NSIS Portable an online installer is a really, really bad idea IMHO; I've got somewhere around a dozen apps, and needing to re-download NSISu Portable every time is going to drive me crazy. (Alternately, could you let us specify the path to NSISu? That would be a nice, clean solution)

EDIT: what gives with NSISu? I got two messages when I tried to recompile PAL for WorldClock:

  !warning: Unable to get AppID from appinfo.ini; it should have a line AppID=AppNamePortable in it. Used value PortableApps.comLauncher instead. (D:\DOCS\Programming\PAF\WorldClock\WorldClock (3)\Other\Source\PortableApps.comLauncher.nsi:191)
  !warning: Unable to get Name from appinfo.ini; it should have a line Name=App Name Portable in it. Used value PortableApps.com Launcher instead. (D:\DOCS\Programming\PAF\WorldClock\WorldClock (3)\Other\Source\PortableApps.comLauncher.nsi:199)

Despite what NSISu says, though, my appinfo.ini sure as heck has both a Name and an AppID line; here's my appinfo.ini. http://pastebin.com/fJfzVTP1

Any time I try to run the launcher (after naming it according to the manual and creating the App\AppInfo\Launcher\Console2Portable.ini) I get this error message:

PortableApps.com Launcher cannot be started. You may wish to re-install to fix this issue. (Error: ......App\AppInfo\appinfo.ini cannot be found).

Thanks for any info.

Dave

As MaximaPortable hasn't been updated for a while I made my own. It seems to work fine on most computers but it left registry settings on two I have tried so far. The both run XP SP2. The registry was handled fine on windows 7 and XP SP3 computers.

The ini file is:

[Launch]
ProgramExecutable=Maxima\wxMaxima\wxMaxima.exe

[Activate]
Registry=true

[RegistryKeys]
maxima_portable=HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\wxMaxima

[Environment]
MAXIMA_PREFIX=%PAL:AppDir%\Maxima
MAXIMA_TEMPDIR=%TEMP%\MaximaPortable
MAXIMA_USERDIR=%PAL:DataDir%\settings

If I can be of some help on this, let me know.

[Use <pre> rather than <code> for blocks of code - mod Chris]