A key issue with portable apps is of course that file associations are in-fact registry entries on your PC which call up the relevant apps....
i.e what use is winzip portable (only to illustrate the point) if your zip file comes up as a default blank icon and when you click on it nothing happens as there is no program installed on your OS to handle it (only a portable one) and thus nothing indicating this in the registry, even when you have the Portable App Platform running!
My suggestion is to implement a system with-in the Portable Apps Platform itself, which would (while the platform is in operation) install the relevant file associations and file icons ETC for all the portable apps and enter this information into the registry etc and then (if desired) removing these (optional on an app by app basis) and reinstating the registry to its original state when the P-App Platform was closed! (but of course it would still be optional to retain these associations of selected apps if desired... ie in the case where you are running your portable apps on your desktop pc)
Also the P-App Platform when started would check to see if it was in the same location it was in when it last ran (+the status of all its apps) and if there was any path changes it would then come up with a message box:
Update Portable app File Associations/Icons YES - NO?
This way when the P-App platform was running all the desired file associations would work and all these files would be rendered in the correct icons (even if no app was FORMALLY installed for these (only the Portable ones)).
- - - - - -
Also in addition to this would be check boxes next to each app - - > Run at startup.
This would place the portable app platform in the start up sequence and it would then also take care of booting up the relevant apps on startup (whilst of course remaining hidden)
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There are two solutions already in the Beta Forum: PortableFileAssociator and expresso. They are workarounds for now, but some use them regularily. For one of the upcoming releases of the Platform, temporary file associations are planned already. Might take a while until it is implemented.
Autostart of Apps is already impemented (right click => Start Automatically). Maybe just in the 2.0 Beta 5 I use.
The functionality you wish can easily be achieved manually (place StartPortableapps in autostart folder and mark apps for autstart).
For local use it is easy to associate filetypes with the respective launcher (that is named as Portable launcher though...)
I find it strange that [illegal suite] is able to do that for such a long time now whilst PortableApps still cannot do it for years even though it seems there are more people behind the PortableApps and it's open source.
What I mean is that there is a model and there is a way. File association completely changes the way PortableApps work. They become like a way to make any PC your home PC. It's a bit like virtualizing without snapshots (even though technically it has nothing related).
File associations have been available as an add-on to the PA.c Platform for years now. And you have multiple choices of add-ons for file associations, all of which can start automatically with the PA.c Platform (right-click, start automatically), all of which are coded by PA.c developers (eXpresso is a PA.c fork and enhancement of Cafe), and all of which predate file associations in the illegal suite you mentioned (which based its file associations on the two works referenced above).
Now there are enough folks interested that we're going to build them into the platform proper and automate them. As part of that, we decided to open the format up even more and enhance it so any developer can indicate what formats their app supports with simple entries in the AppInfo.ini. And we'll be prompting the end user along the way to ensure file associations are working the way they want them to.
It's the same way our updater was originally a separate add-on (released right after PortableApps.com Suite 1.0). Some folks weren't interested in it and others hated the idea of it 'dialing home' back then. Plus, it wasn't really ready for prime time. Once enough folks were interested and it worked reliably enough to call stable, we brought it into the Platform proper.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!