Judging from how often users request custom shells (SharpEnviro, bbLean, and LiteStep are just a few of the requests/test builds I've seen), this is something people really want. And now, I'm pretty sure it's here.
About a month ago, I ran across emergeDesktop, which seems to be almost custom-made for a portable desktop environment. It's very stable, has a solid development record (the earliest release I found was from 2006, and there have been frequent releases since then) and feature-rich. The one thing it's missing is desktop icons, which the emergeDesktop developer is working on. (I suggest using Appetizer or a similar toolbox-style application until then.)
emergeDesktop is written in C++, which has no portability issues (I'm looking at your .NET requirement, SharpEnviro). It's as customizable as bbLean, but with a GUI - there's no need to edit settings files manually unless you really want to get under the hood, and then editing those files is easy because they're in XML format. It's very light-weight: my copy weighs in at 3.69 MB, and that's with settings files and some development files added in. And last but definitely not least, the project's main developer, ironhead, is very responsive to user input and very willing to accept patches.
During the past month or so, ironhead and I have worked together to make emergeDesktop more portable. We've added built-in support for the PortableApps Format and a couple of features to make running on top of Explorer (or any other shell) easier. Once we finish testing the latest of these features - a working system tray, even when running on top of Explorer - I'll post the first Development Test of emergeDesktop Portable.
Are you as excited about this as I am? 
Update (2011-06-02): ironhead and I have agreed to stage a joint release, and ironhead's release is up. Look for a matching PortableApps dev test in a few days.
Update (2011-06-09): It's here!
- computerfreaker's blog
- Log in or register to post comments
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on BlueSky
Comments
It sounds pretty good to
It sounds pretty good to me... but I'm afraid I don't have the time to investigate it at this early stage.
you betcha
you betcha
Stop/start explorer.exe?
Looking at the website, there is mention of having to stop and restart explorer.exe by logging off or restarting the pc. I trust you've been able to work around this?
No problem at all
The logoff/restart is only necessary if you're setting emergeDesktop as the default shell, essentially replacing Explorer. Simply downloading and running emergeDesktop lets it run right on top of Explorer, with no logoff/restart/any other inconvenient operation required.
Nice!
Is there an exit switch of some sort? If so, this could very easily join my auto-start and close list of necessary apps.
Kind of
Running emerge.exe Quit (no slash or dash is necessary before the Quit parameter) will partially do what you want; it will display a confirmation dialog, though. Do you want me to add a new command-line switch that will close eD without that confirmation dialog? (If you do, suggestions on what switch to use would be welcome)
Something like
emerge quit /silent
WFM
That works. I'll add the extra switch (should I make emerge.exe quit -silent work too?) and send ironhead the patch. The change should reach the eD repository within a day or two.
--silent
If you're going to use minuses, when it's more than one character you should follow the established standard and use two of 'em - --silent. I'd recommend using just one or the other - you decide which, won't bother almost anyone.
/silent it is, then, since a
/silent it is, then, since a slash seems to be what the other command-line parts of eD use.
How about "quit-silent"?
Did you consider
quit-silentsince/silentbeing alone (due to the space before it) seems (at least to me) like it would be an entirely separate parameter?What would it do if someone thought /silent was it's own parameter and ran "
emerge /silent" ?Subcommand
Subcommands are quite common in some sorts of applications - svn ci, hg push, git pull, apt-get install, django-admin startproject - which can all then have arguments, some of which will apply to all or many of the subcommands, some of which are subcommand-specific. I would thus expect
emerge quit /silentto quit emerge silently. It's doing just the same asemerge quit, but silently. Thusemerge quit /silentmakes sense.eD can handle it
eD's command-line parser is reasonably robust; if someone was to run "emerge /silent", they would get an error message: Failed to execute "/silent". Nothing else would happen.
Sweet
As long as 1: it won't confuse the program if somebody misunderstands it, and 2: you're confident that the end-users are
linux geekssmart enough to understand the intricacies of subcommands, then I guess "quit /silent" should be fine.It's up to you and IronHead.;)
emergeDesktop won't be
emergeDesktop won't be confused by the extra switch or a misuse of the extra switch; both ironhead and I took a careful look at the patch before it reached the repository, and neither of us found any problems with it.
Users shouldn't be confused by the new switch, either, since it's not quit-exclusive. I added support for the /silent switch to other eD options which usually show a prompt (reboot, suspend, etc.) Adding a /silent switch to something that usually displays a prompt is pretty intuitive, IMHO.
Good thinking
Making it semi-universal is a good idea, that really straightens out the previously possible confusion.
Good thinking.
Can't wait to see your first DevTest.
Perfect
quit /silent is perfect, that'll go nicely into OliverK's AutoClose.
Update: it's coming soon!
After a little more discussion and a lot more coding, ironhead and I agreed to stage a joint release. ironhead's release is up; assuming the reception on emergedesktop.org is favorable (in other words, nobody finds a major bug), I'll post the first dev test here in a few days.