PortableApps.com Platform 2.0 (Leo) Beta 5 Testing

That's great news !
Congratulations and thank you for the hard work.

To add to the kudos, I installed it tonight as an update of the previous beta-4 installation. System is Windows 7 64-bit in French, the former platform in French and the new one is also installed in French, and I haven't found too many missing strings. Two programs needed updating and were updated successfully.

My issues so far are minor.

Issues

1. The themes seem listed by alphabetical order according to their English name, rather than with the posted (French) name. So themes are listed this way:
Noir - Bleu - Bronze...
which doesn't sound logical until one starts to think in English:
Black - Blue - Bronze...

Could it be possible to select strings in the user language, and then sort them accordingly? The more themes there are, the more important it becomes.

2. I am positive my eyes didn't trick me, but the choices written in the right-hand part of the menu appear in light grey whereas before they appeared in white. Going to "large font" doesn't solve the problem. Quite frankly, I MUCH preferred white letters. Especially on a dark background, give me as much contrast as possible!

Suggestions and ideas

1. I was glad to see that the update process is optional. When I read the description of this version, I was afraid it would be an automatic process happening at startup, whether I want it or not. I think the description should state clearly that the user remains in control. (If I missed that line in the description, my apologies.)

2. I think I would remove most or all the themes, leaving only a couple of well-defined and very different themes, say: Default (my favourite), Default Dark, Rainbow. The other themes (yours and eventually 3rd parties) would be downloaded separately. Right now, many of the themes are very similar (ex.: grey vs silver) and on my portable, the menu takes up the whole screen without any extra theme downloaded!
And as a bonus, it would solve de facto the sorting issue.

Thanks again.

Michel Gagnon

I've run across a couple of bugs on the updater in Windows 7 HOme Premium, Core I5 with a Radeon ATI HD4350 graphics card and 6gb of ram.

After copying over my programs to the Beta version and running the updater I ran into the following issues:

First, it will not do a complete download of Open Office 3.2. The error message is: Download Error: Transfer error on file

Second, when the updater finishes, the folder and tree displays in Explorer go black and after they come back, the display looses it's lock. Which is to say, windows float away from their original position, and in the case of this Reply window; in Firefox the text above the text box has covered the toolbars.

Third, while I can still run apps from the Portable Apps platform the folders and menus have frozen.

The full list of programs updated, except for Open Office, is:

Portable App Download App Type

ClamWin Portable 0.96.1 Rev 3 8 MB Security - Antivirus
ConvertAll Portable 0.5.0b 8 MB Utilities - Unit Conversion
Dia Portable 0.97.1-1 13 MB Graphics and Pictures - Diagramming
Foxit Reader Portable 4.0.0 5 MB Office - PDF Reader
FreeCommander Portable 2009.02a 2 MB Utilities - File Manager
Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 3.6.6 9 MB Internet - Web Browser
Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition 3.1 9 MB Internet - Email
Notepad++ Portable 5.7 4 MB Development - Text Editor
OpenOffice.org Portable 3.2.0 92 MB Office - Office Suite
Sudoku Portable 1.1.7.3 1 MB Games - Puzzle Game
SumatraPDF Portable 1.1 2 MB Office - PDF Viewer
uTorrent Portable 2.0.2 Build 19648 1 MB Internet - File Sharing
VLC Portable 1.1.0 Rev 2 20 MB Music and Video - Media Player

...to the latest version !

Latest version is 3.3.3

Updater updates to 3.2.1.1

If not intentional, it's a small mistake in the updater.ini database

[edit: BTW, I got the PAU progress bar fixed, probably will meet in IRC these days to send you the source]

Everything seems to work fine, except when updating the app list, when the mouse gets invisible when hovering the platform (Wine1.2RC7, Ubuntu10.10), but's it's probably WINE's fault.

EDIT: Forget it, wine was being updated as it run and it's now fine. Although the systray button behaves strange: When I click it, a button appears in the taskbar, and then I must click the taskbar buton for the menu shows up. The updater is fine, it's updating 20 apps, but the loading screen has a white backgrounnd everywhere except whe the text is. Now it's to wait to it to update those 20 apps, OO.org included, with a less than 1 MB internet connection

Once again, thank you for your work.

I've seen that PAc Updater automatically installs applications in platform specified language. It's an interessant feature but with some problems.

Most of installers allow only two installation choices : "english" or "additionnal languages". Because additionnal languages take too much space, I often unchecked the option to keep installation folder to it's minimal size (USB drive).

So, from my point of view, there are 2 possible improvments :
- modify installers so that each language can be installed separatly (the best solution)
- use the same option as previous installation (I unchecked "additionnal language" during last installation, PAc Updater should "know" that and do the same during updates.

Thank you for reading this.

I'm waiting for the Beta 6 with categories before I upgrade (Note: Upgrade not update ) from Mod34. That's why I want to ask if the updater will have development test capability in it's advanced features. For obvious reasons I suspect not but also want to suggest such for a future (2.x) release.

Keep up the Good Work john

I really like the new features! Ive been using PA for the last 4 or 5 years and have always tried to keep up to date... now its a whole lot easier! However, I do have a few issues...

-Someone else did mention this so this is more of an 'it happened again thing' after launching the updater the hover-selection on PA froze, nor could I launch another app interact with any part of the menu. Only happened once, restarted PA and could not get it to happen again. Everything mentioned previously is up to date.

-I know you said that there being a taskbar element in Win7 was partially fixed and only showed when the menu was open on screen... All I can say is nope. For me its there from when I start PA till when I exit PA, regardless of whether the menu is visible or not. The first time I remember seeing this is after updating to Beta4 from I'm not sure what version, but its still there.

-This is more of a request than a real bug. Ive been having issues with my ISP for some time which causes my connection to arbitrarily be, not disconnected, but I have no up or down speed and nor does it come back if I leave it, it just times out. I have to manually pause/start my downloads again for the downstream to be active again. Is there any way you can increase the robustness of the Updater to cater for connections being lost so I dont lose what has possibly been downloaded already, but rather it times out, moves onto the next download and tries to resume the failed DL (instead of starting again) either at the end of the update session or beginning of the next session? Adding this to online installers would also be useful - see next point.

-It never picked up that my Portable Java required an update. I've been unable to complete an update (I tried manually before, but the above mentioned network issue just kept happening).

-Loading the app icons on startup seems to be back to being slow... Beta 4 was blisteringly fast by comparison. Refresh app icons is still fast though.

Windows 7 (6.1 Build 7600) x64 Professional running with Aero
nVidia 8600gs m
1920*1080*32(pri), 1440*900*32(sec)
PAP Beta 5 Pre 2
Dark Blue theme
Running PA off a VHD

Just had another thing happen when looking at the PAP version.
Help > About > leave the About window open and change focus to Google Chrome (running as a PA ;-P) > Click the PAP Icon in the System Tray > PAP menu and About screen briefly gains focus before disappearing and Chrome regaining focus > did this several times > clicked on the Taskbar icon and the PAP menu gained stable focus without losing it.

Keep up the awesome work!

An extra option in PortableAppsMenu.ini along the lines of "Update=Daily|Weekly|Monthly|Off" that would run the updater silently and "Theme=Random" that would pick a new theme each time PortableApps starts would be nice.

I was also wondering if the upgrade from 1.6.1 was clean (as in no useless files left over from the previous installation)?

My first time trying the new version and I'm loving the new features. Great work!

(Sorry if this has already been covered somewhere.)

John,

I remember you said that you needed to add an icon in the task bar because the default behaviour for icons in the System Tray is to only show icons when there is a notification. Could it be possible to define the icon so it is always in "Notification Mode"? That way, it would always appear in the System Tray – as long as PortableApps.com is running, that is. Or are there other side effects?

As per IRC, here it is.

I had the menu running and ran a game that changed the resolution...I haven't used the menu since...I just opened it to launch an app, normally it's at the bottom right of my left 1440x900 monitor, but now, because of the res change that happened its at the bottom in the middle of my right 1440*900 monitor and I can't click on anything or move it. Right-click options still work fine. The PC acts as if the menu isn't even there, as whenever I click somewhere, it goes to whatever app is behind the menu. I checked the ini and it still shows the correct "Bottom Right" positioning options.

for the lulz, I decided to switch to japanese and other "non common" character using languages. all it gave me was instead of the normal japanese-like characters, it gave me random squares and such. This makes me think the unicode support is off as in not working correctly

edit: Where are my manners? Great software, ive been using PA for awhile now (less then a year) and still like seeing my friends stunned faces! but as a suggestion for a release after 2.0. maybe an option to change the whole computers theme temporarily? like the desktop background switcher already used?

Is anybody else seeing this? Previously the colours matched the colour scheme of the PortableApps.com web site. Now, on my monitor, the menu looks drab and the white letters have gone grey (making the Drive letter and free size difficult to read)

Hi, ...

Windows 7 Ultimate x64, 8 Gig Ram
PortableApps.com Platform 2.0 (Leo) Beta 5 on C:\LogicielsPortable\PortableApps
194 directorys inside = C:\LogicielsPortable\PortableApps\PortableApps

When starting Beta 5 it display a progressbar (probably to detect my 194 portable softwares), but when that progress bar is displayed, and "PortableApps.com Platform 2.0 (Leo) Beta 5" lost focus, it become not responding.

It show =

Description
Un problème a provoqué l’arrêt de l’interaction de ce programme avec Windows.
Chemin d’accès de l’application défaillante : C:\LogicielsPortable\PortableApps\PortableApps\PortableApps.com\PortableAppsPlatform.exe

Signature du problème
Nom d’événement du problème : AppHangB1
Nom de l’application: PortableAppsPlatform.exe
Version de l’application: 1.999.5.0
Horodatage de l’application: 4c4010b8
Signature de blocage: c828
Type de blocage: 0
Version du système: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Identificateur de paramètres régionaux: 3084
Signature de blocage supplém. 1: c828455794b40cea11762bb3c5446cc9
Signature de blocage supplém. 2: e7cc
Signature de blocage supplém. 3: e7cc8a2ce897618fdb1e50ed07d0e89a
Signature de blocage supplém. 4: c828
Signature de blocage supplém. 5: c828455794b40cea11762bb3c5446cc9
Signature de blocage supplém. 6: e7cc
Signature de blocage supplém. 7: e7cc8a2ce897618fdb1e50ed07d0e89a

I notice that the main window is still not resizable, and is more than 600 pixels high, even when the app list is mostly empty. Will the final be resizable and/or scrollable?

I noticed that if after checking for updateable apps, you get a modal dialog you have to dismiss, which is a little annoying.

I would also like to be able to see more information about each app, e.g. installed size, when installed, last used, updates available, etc.

Thanks.

I saw a mention about how on Windows 7 the PA.c menu forces the taskbar to rise up from hidden to shown status. This is not a repeat of that bug.

I am currently using this on a Windows 7 Laptop (Ultimate x64 on a Compaq 2710p Tablet) and I see no way to minimize the menu to the system tray like I had it doing before. It just sits there, always in my taskbar (I do not auto-hide the taskbar, so I am not sure if this is related or not).

Am I missing something, perhaps a setting I need to (re)-add to the .ini file to allow for auto-hiding PA.c menu to the system tray? Or has that feature been temporarily disabled for the same reasons that the show taskbar bug is manifesting?

Also, my heartfelt THANKS! for the app updater. That is a pure life saver for me, I was severely bummed when the old PA.c updater app stopped working....

Excellent work, John and the rest of the crew! Kudos all around!

In its previous incarnation, the updater showed the whole list of installers from SF.
You could use it to both update installed apps or install ones that you didn't have yet.

My vision was that this approach would be used to replace the whole Suite thing - so all you'd need to do is DL the menu, and then use the Updater/Setup function to automate installation of the apps you want. Ideally, you could even have preset groups of apps to act the same way as suites, except more customizable - and it would eliminate the need for JTH to maintain and update suites.

The advantage of this approach is for people without limitless bandwidth or uptime. Apps would download in series instead of having to wait for a giant suite bolus, apps would be installed in the current version the first time (since the suites almost always had some apps outdated).

Sure, the new one is simpler, but IFO prefer control over simplicity.

I do have an idea how to use the updater to DL suites, but I need to test some stuff first... GBTY

We all know some people like to run PA off their Harddrive, or somewhere other than the root of the flashdrive. So my suggestion is, if the menu is running, have the app installers realize this, and install to that menu.

For example. I installed the menu to a folder called PA on my desktop. So if the menu is already running, it would be nice for the app to know to install to "C/.../Desktop/PA/PortableApps" as opposed to me having to specify it.

Hi John,

so far I used the IPAP theme but now it doesn't fit to the
latest platform version. So it needs to be adapted to this platform version.

Who is responsible for this theme?

Regards

PortableUser2009

Is there a duplicate of the official PA theme since the one in beta 5 is way off the mark?

Here's the report of what I mentioned yesterday and the day before.

Uninstall an app; while it is uninstalling, switch to a different window (I'm fairly sure that that's the part which triggers it). Once uninstallation is completed, the status message of what it's deleting disappears, but the window itself - "Uninstalling App Name Portable. Please wait..." remains (with the hourglass cursor, which is by design, I gather). The window stops being application-modal, so the Platform is usable, but the two windows remain linked together.

I think it's just that once it's lost focus, the code which was used to hide it stops working.

Just a few things. The Beta is working well on my end, but:

1. I noticed that the really nice violet theme from Beta 4 has been changed. The 'violet' entry is still there of course, but the colour is now different to the old violet, and I personally think the new violet is not as good looking as the old one. Is there any chance we can get a 'classic violet' returning in the next beta? I tried fooling with the ini file of the new violet in an attempt to get the old colour back, but without success.

2. Ditto for the Beta 4 default theme - the red colour of the default Beta 4 theme would also be nice to have back. For me, the red of the new default theme isn't nearly as nice as the old one.

3. I used the updater, and it said I needed to update to rev 2 of VLC. I let it do so, but I was sure I already had rev 2 installed, so I downloaded the VLC installer again and compared it to the one I already had (the one I had used to install the program to the drive). Both copies were identical, so I don't know why the updater decided that something needed updating.

This has really been getting to me lately. For all the recent versions of PAP, I was always wondering why just scrolling through the app list has to take 100% of the cpu, and because of it, scrolling very slow.
But now, for the new 2.0 beta 5 it really seems to be even worse, although the strange thing is that from time to time the menu scrolls that fast

Great job! PortableApps works great on my Windows machine, but when I run it on Wine under Linux, I noticed a few bugs:

* On the updater, the names of the applications will not show up.
* There is a black background on the icons in the Menu.
* Check Drive for Errors is greyed out.
* While updating Google Chrome Portable, Wine popped up a Program Error dialog box that said that GoogleChromePortable_5.0.375.99_online.paf.exe had encountered a serious error and had closed. While that may have been an error on my machine, the updater continued and assummed it had been installed correctly.

Looking forward to 2.0!

I don't know where to put this comment, so I'm sorry if this isn't the right place.

Could you add support for the Home/End keys? It are super-useful to navigate in the apps list.
Also, the possibility to enlarge the menu would be a great addition for those of us who have large screens.

Thanks!

I've experienced this with Pidgin update thath was released. For default, the apps are installed in X:\PortableApps\<AppNamne>Portable, but if you use another folder name that isn't the default (eg. X:\PortableApps\<AppName>, X:\PortableApps\<AppName> Portable, etc.) these apps will be shown in the PortableApps Suite but the PortableApps Updater will ignore these aapps and will show "Currently you apps are up-to-date."

Great work and thank you for all your effort!!

While updating all my apps I came across a few things:

1)The installer continues with the installation after download without flagging that for some installers (skype, chrome, etc.) there is still internet connection required during installation. An option window whether to install updates or not would help!
2) after having no internet connection the installer installed bits of chrome&skype, but didn't download anything(b/c it couldn't) broke the apps and flagged them as updated rather than failure to update.

Many thanks

You can not configure the proxy to the PortableApps.com Updater program and this does not work in places where there is no direct Internet connection ....

Just observe .....

Thank you for Portable Apps, use it everyday. My kids can't believe what I have on the flash drive.

Twice now the updater has said there are two updates. I go ahead and run the update and the first app update fails and the second one installs normally. Just happened with uTorrent and VLC. uTorrent did not install but VLC did. Reran updater and it still would not update uTorrent. Went to the uTorrent page and downloaded it and updated with no problem.

Updater did not tell me I needed to update Java.

Using Windows 7 Home HP Desktop 8GB 64 bit

The only no standard thing is I have everything in C:\PortableApps\PortableApps\

Firefox, Toucan, and VLC installed correctly using the updater.

Thank You again, Have a good day and a better tomorrow.

Hi John, there is some way to put (for example) a checkbox in options that when you check it, the program ask to close (close process tree) all the programs called from Portableapps menu and then eject ?

cause I did it using other suit, but I back to use portableapps and I miss this feature