PortableApps.com Platform 'Next' Pre-Release 3 Released: Folders, App Store, Search, Theming and More!

PortableApps.com is proud to announce the latest test release of our upcoming Platform (codename: Leo). Pre-Release 3 of the 'Next' platform is available for immediate download. This 'Next' release introduces automated and customizable folders (aka categories) in the menu, our new theming engine with multiple chrome styles, the Portable App Directory app store for automatic download and installation of portable apps, find-as-you-type search to easily find apps in your ever-growing collection, an improved updater with better support for proxies, an improved options selection window, more-complete translations into more languages and lots more. Pre-Release 3 fixes several bugs, improves localizations and re-introduces automatic proxy support including proxy authentication. So, let's get to it... (permalink)

Existing 2.0/Next users can automatically update by clicking Manage Apps - Check for Updates

What's New in Pre-Release 3

Pre-Release 3 fixes a number of issues with the last release and improves localization. The most significant issues are the introduction of proxy authentication auto-detection and support, fixes for updating and installing uTorrent Portable, fixes for blank updater and app directory windows, and fixes for the task bar icon behaving improperly. The complete list is available on our pre-release bug tracking page.

We'll be doing ~~a second pre-release later this week or so (dates subject to change as always)~~ the next release on October 15th with additional new features. We wanted to get the proxy authentication detection out to everyone to ensure it works on corporate and university computers as soon as possible.

What Was New in Pre-Release 2

In addition to bug fixes, we added in some advanced features including the ability to hide the word "Portable" from all apps in the menu, the ability to disable splash screens in all your apps with a single checkbox, and the ability to disable the scrollbar in the menu for users who don't like it.

The rest of the features listed were introduced in Pre-Release 1...

Customizable App Organization With Automatic and Custom Folders

You asked for it, you got it. And then some. The ability to organize apps into folders is just the tip of the iceberg. You can combine automatic folders (all apps 'know' if they are an Internet app or an Office app and will show up in the appropriate folder), your own custom folders, favorites to pin apps at the top or to the first page and a 'smart' list ordered by the apps you use most. You get to decide how to organize your apps so you can easily get to them. Here's a preview:

Portable App Directory™ - A Built-In Portable App Store

Now it's easier than ever to download, install and use the portable apps you want with the built-in app store. The Portable App Directory shows you an easy-to-navigate list of all the available apps you don't yet have organized by category. You check off the ones you'd like to install and it does the rest, just like our automated Updater. They'll even show up in the right categories in the menu when they're installed, all automatically.

New Themes and a New Theming Engine

This release also sees the introduction of our new theming engine. With a choice of 6 chromes and 17 colors each, you've got a lot of choices in how you'd like the menu to look. From our classic beveled style, to our modern flat look to our Aerish theme that blends right in with Windows Vista and 7, you can easily pick the look you like. And soon, you'll be able to add in custom themes as well.

Find-As-You-Type to Quickly Search Your App List

In this release, you're now able to automatically filter the app list by typing a few letters of the name of the app you are looking for. With the menu displayed, you can just start typing (or type / to switch to find mode just like in Firefox). As you type, the app list is narrowed down to only apps that match what you've typed. You can hit enter to launch the first app in the list. Hitting escape or backspacing all the characters out and then once more with none entered will exit Find-As-You-Type mode and switch back to your normal app list. You can even hit the menu's hotkey (CTRL-ALT-SPACE) from any app to pop it up and just start typing to launch your app, all without a mouse.

Easy to Use Options Window

Customizing the PortableApps.com Platform to your liking is even easier with the organized Options window. You can alter the language, font size, transparency, automated language switching, app icon organization, change themes and more.

Improved PortableApps.com Updater - Keep All Your Apps Up To Date

The bundled PortableApps.com Updater has seen some nice usability improvements. It will automatically download the extra bits for online installers itself so you'll know exactly how much time is left. It's got improved translations. It automatically works with most proxies, even for online installers. There's even an option to have it automatically and silently check for app updates as you launch the platform. It's under Advanced Options, though it's disabled by default as the menu will minimize when it runs (a bug we're working on).

Discussing The Pre-Release, Enhancements and Bug Reports

As there is much to discuss with this new release, we've separated out a few forum threads for discussing:

Version Number Change - Final Won't Be 2.0

We're going to be changing the version number for this release due to the long time between the original betas that would have been 2.0 and this new development effort of what will be our next release. For now, we're referring to it as 'Next' even though the internal version will remain 2.0 while in testing. We've got a forum topic to discuss the various options for the next version. Please give the options a read and share your thoughts there.

Donations - You Can Help Keep PortableApps.com Free!

With increased popularity comes increased costs for bandwidth and hosting. We're also heading to the open source convention in a couple weeks to teach other developers how to make their apps portable. Your donations are GREATLY appreciated and help make all this possible. Please become a PortableApps.com supporter today!

- Please help support PortableApps.com's development and hosting

The Road To The Next Release

We'll be releasing additional pre-releases over the coming weeks. While termed a pre-release, there are still some known bugs in this release as well as incomplete translation loading in many places. After too much feature creep in the original 2.0 work, we've paired it back significantly to make it easier to test and get the releases out faster. We'll be rolling out file associations, automated app shutdowns, portable fonts, caching the full app list between sessions and a few other features in addition to bug fixes and translation updates over the coming weeks. We've already completed much of the work needed for much of it and will post more soon.

Download Today

You can download the new test version from the download page. Get it today!

Story Topic:

Open Source Release

Comments

Proxy

Proxy authentication works for me in both manual update and check on start up. Thanks John for all the work on this one! So far, the rest of the release looks good.

Unable to update PortableApps.com Platform

For the past two or three days, I have received the following error. I am running "Version 2.0 Pre-Release 2.1" "Windows XP (5.1) [Build: 2600]."

The error reads:

The downloaded copy of PortableApps.com Platform is not valid and can not be installed. This could be due to an incomplete download or other network issue. Please try running the updater again when complete."

I have tried two or three times from two different computers with the same result. Will this be fixed, or should I simply download and install the newer version? I'd prefer to use the upgrade path.

Thank you for your amazing work on Version 2.0!

Cheers,
jcarroll

Update: 8:15 am (GMT-07): Looking for a solution, found Proxy Authentication PA.c Platform Updater/App Directory Quick Test, but I don't know if I have a proxy issue; yes, this is a corporate connection, so I'm likely behind a proxy server; I don't know how to confirm or deny that. I tried the The Test Fix; it didn't work for me.

Manually Download

Manually download the file from the Download page and install it over your existing copy (selecting the destination directory where your current Start.exe or StartPortableApps.exe is). Then you should be on the updater that will work properly regardless of your location.

MaxthonPortable broken since update

Hi,

Since I updated to 'Next' Pre-Release 3, MaxthonPortable doesn't launch properly from the menu - it opens, but has no settings, search engines, history, favourites etc, i.e. it is even more basic than the standard install.

If I navigate to the MaxthonPortable folder and run it by double clicking the MaxthonPortable.exe file, everything is fine, so it looks like a bug in the menu, not in MaxthonPortable.

Regards,

Phil

WFM

The current Maxthon release works just fine for me form the menu. I start it up, add a bookmark, close it, reopen and the bookmark is still there. When I launch it directly, my settings and bookmark are still there as well. Sounds like something else with your setup specific to Maxthon. Please create a bug report about it in the Other Apps support forum and we'll get the Maxthon folks to take a look.

updated uTorrent today

Just to let you know the automatic update for utorrent work for me as well from behind my works firewall, this is the first time it has worked.

Thanks very much :0)

Hotkey

First off, awesome job guys. One suggestion please. Can you change or make the hotkey (CTRL-ALT-SPACE) modifiable or toggleable please? That is a frequently used hotkey for work software I use all the time. Thank you.

Any thoughts on making the

Any thoughts on making the hotkey modifiable? I have to constantly start and close the launcher every time I want to run a new app so it won't interfere with my development software's shortcut keys.

Request

Greets "PortableApps.com" Team.

I would suggest that you add an option that would allow me to decide whether or not to save the applications installer at update them. This can be in the directory where the platform is installed or any other is right.

P.S.
I'm a PortableApps.com Fan!! I used the platform since I started my career 4 years ago.
Excellent work you have done with version 2.

Wow, coming home from being

Wow, coming home from being offline for 2 weeks travelling and I find a great new release (I missed the last one) which is much more refined. I gets even better with every release. I had a look at the german translation (in addition to tha corrections already done by Simeon) and found some minor displaying issues. I'll report them in the bugs thread.

Thank you for this 'Next' step.

pre-release?

so let me get this straight...
you come out with a pre-release 3 before 2 was ever released?
now is that confusing or what? lol

you guys really need to get with the program
get quicker release dates just like firefox
and chrome did, and stop being like winamp and phpbb
taking forever to come out with releases

Just like I said before, there is no reason it has to take you a freakin
2-3 years just to come out with language packs holding up releases when it is very clear everyone here speaks english. We wouldn't be on this site if we couldn't
I understand other languages are important, but not important enough to hold back
releases for 2-3 years like you guys have been doing

Read The Article

If you read the above, 'Next' is what 2.0 was going to be. We're not calling it 2.0 anymore. Pre-Release 3 means it's the 3rd pre-release of it. We will likely be doing one or two more before calling it final, which will be 'Next' Pre-Release 4 and 'Next' Pre-Release 5. The Pre-Release X label is similar to a Beta X label, but means that it is suitable for everyday production use. These builds are stable, as stable as the old 1.6.x line or 2.0 Beta was, and all users are encouraged to upgrade and use them. And we're dropping new bug-fix builds whenever there are fixes important enough to drop with them (PR 1.1 and PR 2.1, for example) and new full versions every week or two. As such, I'm a bit confused by your complaining about new releases, as they are coming out quite regularly (July 19, July 20, July 27, July 28, August 8 and another coming shortly).

Also, your comments on languages are a bit off the mark. Everyone here does not speak English. True, most of the forum-users speak English but that's mainly because the site is mainly in English because our Drupal install can't properly handle translations. We have a huge number of users who only speak German, French, Italian, Russian, Japanese, etc. That's why we support 51 languages in the platform now. And one of the whole reasons these are labeled as "Pre-Release" versions is because not all languages are translated, so the GUI will look incomplete to non-English speakers.

If you're really that concerned about version numbers, consider this release as 2.3. And 'Next' Pre-Release 4 which we're finishing up as 2.4. The final will be 3.0 or 10 or 11.08 or something similar. If you want to help pick what it will be in the forum thread about it.

Now, before going further, please take the time to read the above article and this response and actually try out the current release and all the new features and functionality. You're welcome to use it everyday. You're welcome to use it for free and never donate a penny to us. But, in the future, please refrain from making posts like this with the attitude and tone you are using. It is not appreciated. It only serves to negatively affect other users and developers. And it is against our community guidelines.

Pre-Release 2/2.1 was

Pre-Release 2/2.1 was released on July 27th.

https://portableapps.com/news/2011-07-27_-_portableapps.com_platform_2.0...

Translations are just as important as many of the features "Next" brings. Without them, more than 70% of the world would be unable to use the platform. It just doesn't seem so important to you since you're a native english speaker. (And as one, you should be using punctuation and capitalization).

Themes and German translations

Hi John,

first of all congrats for the great work you did on the new platform menu so far.
It's really great!

I recognized some missing German translations. Are they missing or just not used so far? If you need help on this translations please let me know!

With the old platform I used a self-modified IPAP-theme. Until now i don't see the possibility to import non-standard themes into the platform as it was possible before. Will this come with one of the next releases?

Kind regards

PortableUser2009

Hi, these are issues of the

Hi,
these are issues of the Prereleases. Some are described in the opening topic but there is a more detailed bug-report topic inculding a bug list. It is linked in the opening topic as well.
I think the translations will be fixed in the next releases. The existing strings are translated in the locale file but some are not read as they seem to be hard coded in this prerelease.
Theming should be possible in the final release as well.

Halo, I am using PA platform

Halo, I am using PA platform Pre-Release 3 on Windows XP SP3. When PA platform is active (both when it is on the screen and it is minimized), all icons on desktop disappear and I can not right-click the desktop e.g. to set the display properties, etc.
Is this something to be fixed or is it considered as normal condition ??
Thanks.

hidden Icons

Are you sure you dont have hide icons enabled in the advanced options?

I mean: all icons on

I mean:

all icons on "WindowsXP" desktop disappear and I can not right-click "WindowsXP" desktop e.g. to set the display properties, etc.

If I exit PortableApp flatform, "WindowsXP" desktop will behave normally.

Thanks.

[Formatting fixed; don't put dots in blank lines, let them become paragraph breaks - mod Chris]

This option is hidden in PR3

But if HideDesktopIcons is enabled, yes, that's how it would behave.

Here's how to fix it:
Close the platform (required).
Open PortableApps\PortableApps.com\Data\PortableAppsMenu.ini
Look for the line
HideDesktopIcons=

Change it to
HideDesktopIcons=False

Now, open the menu and it should be fine.

Thank you guys for the

Thank you guys for the solution and modifying the format of my previous message.

Yes, I have modified the PortableAppsMenu.ini. The value for HideDesktopIcons is now False. I do not remember whether I modified it in the past or its value is True by default. But, no, it can not be modified via user interface (Options).

Thank you.

And I think is a good idea to make

And I think is a good idea to make some custom fields (name, app url, download url, PortableApp Version etc.) and in the post to can use some vars (like #name#, #appurl#, #download#, #pav#), for an post (in beta test forum zone). And the PA Platform to have an menu for "Beta Apps", and in that menu to be all compatible portable apps, wich are in Beta.

Scrollable favorites

Hi,

Can we have scroll features on the favorites if I have more than 19 Favorites? I have 23 and I can't access the 20 and up. I have to go to the category tree.

Thanks

You should post this as a bug

Here
https://portableapps.com/node/28593

Find as you type

If I may suggest in "Find as you type" feature, I think it will look better if the text box is immediately part of the menu like Win7 Start Menu and the cursor is immediately there.

Just my opinion.

Feature Request

Hello John,

I would like to thank you and your team for all your efforts over the years. I use Portable Apps everyday at my work. One request - and I do not know how difficult it would be, but some apps that have a hyper-link (eg. LibreOffice in the menu bar Help> LibreOffice Help) will go to whatever the default web-browser is. Another example is the Feed Notifier wherein on clicking a feed it opens in the default pc web browser. I use portable apps on my work pc where I do not have administrator rights and so cannot make any changes, which is why I use the Portable Apps. How difficult would it be to have code that would check first whether one of the portable web browsers is installed and is available?

Thanks again for everything, you guys are awesome.

Best,

Coming

It's coming in an upcoming pre-release: "File associations built-in rather than needing eXpresso or Portable File Associator addons installed" in https://portableapps.com/node/28593

Next Platform update?

Has anyone read anything about what is going on with the next update? Last thing John said was "We'll be doing a second pre-release later this week with additional new features." (which was back on the 8th), but maybe there is a forum thread/comment I've missed discussing issues that have come up.

Coming

It's coming but a few real-world things intervened. I unusually got a week-long migraine which ended just about in time for us to prepare for the hurricane as NYC was shutdown and sections evacuated for the first time in history. That's also why app updates are a little lagged. The time I have had to work has been devoted to some updates to the platform and site for some partnering opportunities we'll be announcing in conjunction with the final release (the pages are not yet public yet). Things will get moving again in a few days once power is restored or starting tomorrow night if we somehow manage to avoid losing power.

Sorry to hear about all of that

John, thanks for the update. I'm very sorry to hear about the migraine in particular.

Firefox 7 Betas

I just wanted to also mention that I am looking forward, in particular, to Firefox 7 Betas in a PortableApp version. Firefox 7 Beta 2 is out now, but between a version being released weekly and the current hurricane/power situation, I probably wouldn't bother with Beta 2 and instead just release Beta 3 (which should be out Wednesday/Thursday).

Beta 4 released

Beta 4 released on 09/07/2011

Thank you so much!!!

Since my discovery of PortableApps, my own dreams have become more realistic. I am an aspiring author who is on the go constantly. The ability to carry all of the necassary tool with me and work on any available computer has been a huge asset. The new pre-release is amazing and I love the ability to customize. I think that what you have accomplished has been well worth the wait and every bit of patience that I have needed.
One question I do have is whether or not you have plans to add a 'password protect' feature on the suite. With what I do, I would love to be asked to enter a secure password to access the platform.
Thank you for all your hard work!

One question, does the

One question, does the built-in app store automatically remove the indivdual app installers after installation, or do I have to hunt them down and delete them manually? If the latter's the case, I would like to know where the installers are put (unless it's just the Temporary Files folder, which won't be a problem then)

auto deleted, temp

They're downloaded to temp since it will have better performance and likely more space than your flash drive and automatically deleted.

Ah, alright. Thanks for the

Ah, alright. Thanks for the quick response!

Thank you !!!

Just wanted to send big "Thanks !" to the team and all contributors to Ver2.0 Pre3.

Finally after years with the old version I did update to this one and what can I say - it is just marvellous.

Great job, folks !!

PS And yes, I will send a donation - as long as those @*#&%! Euros buy us something

Next Platform update?

The next platform update "later this week" mentioned on August 8 never happened and of course there has been a lot going on. Hopefully another update is coming soon to address some of the known issues or add some of the documented upcoming features.

It is time that you corrected

It is time that you corrected the errors, otherwise people not donate!
published it fast!

THANKS

Finally, (and I waited for it over 3 years now)

I can install the OSS-programs in a dialog!

This is perfect, not only for portable devices, even after setting up a computer with windows its really useful and fast: (makes me feel like using a repository under linux)

What i would like to have more in the "Portable App Directory Install Dialog":

1) A small program search function (where u can enter f.x. libreoffice) and it finds it - like provided by find-as-you-write-it

2) Total amount of used space after installation and free space on the device.

3) a small explanation on what each program is.

Thanks soo much for this feature!!

PS:
Under wine we have again the same bug like 1-2 years before:
behind the program-icons in the gui, there is no transparent but black background

works great just one suggestion

change the portable apps directory icon and the text when done installing the apps. it seems to be based on the updater and you just threw it together with the updater code. other than that ot works perfectly on windows 7 and windows server 2008 R2. keep up the awesome work

Platform updates?

Does anyone know what is going on with the platform updates? The next platform update "later this week" mentioned on August 8 never happened, but obviously John and crew have been updating apps.

I wasn't sure if John or others were effected by the hurricane more than I realized and it has really put plans behind schedule or what is the problem, but I'm really looking for platform updates to address some of the known issues or add some of the documented upcoming features.

I wondered that myself! Even

I wondered that myself! Even a quick note just to explain the delay would be nice!

As much as I appreciate the work gone into the menu and apps its the constant broken promises that annoy me!

As I keep advising you to do John, stop giving dates, times or schedules as though I don't doubt you have good reason, its obviously not possible to stick to it. Look at how long the two week release schedule lasted!

No ill will meant, just some advice that's all.

Hofstadter's law

The Hofstadter's law must be applied somewhere. In the end-user side, in our case.

All i have to say to that is

All i have to say to that is that Mozilla don't suffer from this law! So why do Portable Apps seem to be affected?

Because Mozilla have more

Because Mozilla have more than just a few people working on development, and don't have their primary developers doing just about every other role as well.

What has, and does, and will continue to come out of PortableApps.com is nothing short of extraordinary considering the small number of people working on it, and the large number of people using it.

Subject to Change

As always, the dates are subject to change based on other business aspects, as previously explained and as indicated in the post... an expected date is not a promise... never was, never has been and it is explained that it can change. Remember, priority one is ensuring the ongoing financial viability of the project. After all, what's the point of developing a new version if the site goes dark? And, at the moment, I'm the only dev actively working on the platform, so when my time is split, business work comes first and dev work comes second. App updates always take priority as well as out of date apps can have security issues (browsers, email, etc) or miss out on the ability to work online (games for instance). Lately, the Drupal upgrade has taken priority as well and several more upgrades were attempted (all failed due to Drupal bugs... so we're doing it manually). An update to the platform is nearly done for later this week, though, and no interruptions are foreseen even with the two solid days of business work required. I don't wish to see this topic devolve, so there's no need to discuss delays any further within this topic.

so.....

when is the ETA for the next release

Did you read!?

After reading what John wrote, are you really asking that question?

Lol exactly what I

Lol exactly what I thought...

John, I apologise if I came the wrong way, I really am not complaining about any of the work or even the delays. I just think with all you have to deal with, including uncertanties, you shouldn't give dates or at least not specific dates. It doesn't help when people keep asking either! We all love this platform, though I wish it had many more features the auto updater is the best and once file associations are added all the other stuff is minor for me.

You, and your co-devs, do a fantastic job and we're all grateful for all your work. But as I said before you obviously have trouble keeping to dates. I'm not belittling your reasons I imagine they are very valid but given that understanding you should only give rough time scales.

Just my opinion not meant to offend;)

You don't understand

What you, and others, fail to comprehend is that they is nothing driving this project or PortableApps in general. It is a hobby, worked on by people on weekends, after classes, when the family goes to bed, when there is nothing to watch on TV and etc.

It is something fun to do when there is nothing else to do. That's it. No money incentive, no project deadline sent down from someone higher up, nothing. If it gets done today or tomorrow or next week or next year nothing changes. No rewards, no incentives.

So as John has said repeatedly, things get done when they get done, if at all. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Use what's available and be happy it's there for you to use. Complaining is a waste of time.

Sorry, but I'm afraid its you

Sorry, but I'm afraid its you who doesn't understand...

I'm not complaining about how long its taking at all. My 'complaint' for want of a better word, is that John keeps giving dates and not sticking to them.

I understand and already knew everything you said, but whether its free or not, by creating a website and advertising a service people have expectations, its human nature, right or wrong that's simply how it is. So when there's news that something is about to be released, updated or whatever, people will be disappointed when it doesn't happen.

If this keeps happening, which it is here, people start caring less and not bother so much with the entire idea.

From what I can tell John is planning on making money with this project via hardware/software combo in the form of USB drives. Though I don't know if this is simply to fund the project or to make a profit. Whatever its for, I say good luck to him its more than well deserved.

I imagine if you were about to buy something you'd been waiting to get and there was a delay you'd be a little disappointed too. Now imagine the delays were continuos and despite promises of sorting it out there were still delays, by this time you'd start getting to the point of not caring what happened. And that's what's going to happen here.

I use what's available and look forward to platform updates but I dislike being told something and it doesn't happen there's no need for John to give dates until he's 99% sure he can stick to it. I don't think its right, there's a lot of people eagerly awaiting updates only to be let down almost everytime. Me? Well I don't listen to a word of news anymore as Johns word simply can't be trusted.

Make no mistake about it this is in no way a complaint of any kind because I am simply past caring. Its nothing more than a statement of fact. I do think John and everyone else does a fantastic here and am grateful for their work. I apologise to John if I offend him but these are my views and that's what a forum is for.

Very Clear

I made it CRYSTAL clear the date of the last release was subject to change. If you choose to ignore all the work that's been occurring behind the scenes and reported on like the multiple Drupal upgrade attempts and the manual work to get Drupal upgraded, that's your choice. If you choose to ignore the business work like drives and fundraising that's been reported on and should come to fruition soon, that's your choice. If you choose to ignore the constant release of updated apps, bug fixes, new features in the PA.c Launcher, new features in apps (like Java support in Firefox, SeaMonkey, Iron, etc) and other goings on which are very visible, then that's your choice. If you choose to interpret a tentative date as a somehow iron-clad promise, that's your choice, too, but you don't have the right to complain about it over and over and over and over. It was very clearly stated that it was subject to change and it did based on a number of outside factors. If you choose to think of tentative as iron-clad promise in your head, that's fine, but please keep it to yourself in the future, especially when you've already been clearly and kindly asked to stop. Saying I can't be trusted for altering a tentative date is simply uncalled for and downright rude. The point of this forum and the comments is to work together to make the project better, not to behave like that.

Hmmm... hit a nerve me

Hmmm... hit a nerve me thinks!

First let me apologise. I'm not the greatest with words though I say what I see which sometimes offends for that I am deeply sorry.

But also I will say that you should not be offended by truth but look at and see if it is the truth...

You have stated many times since I've been a member about release dates for the platform. Nothing happened. Though, this year at somepoint you started giving notice of cancellation it still amounts to the same result.

Maybe I'm not explaining myself properly who knows. I do see that there are app updates but again what happened with the new apps being resumed? Don't take that as an attack its simply a question without malice. Simply they haven't resumed but you said they would do soon and that was months ago.

I fully understand and accept your position I even sympathise with it and that's why I apologise for any comments that offended you I'm not attacking you I was just trying to give you some advice. Trying to help by telling you why these people are complaining but you took it all wrong.

You know the saying 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'? Well exchange the word beauty for the word offence.

I will say no more except sorry once again. I will delete my account as soon as I get time.

No Need

Scott, there's no need to delete your account or to be so melodramatic about it A contrary opinion in these forums is perfectly fine. Welcome, actually. Always has been. But posting about something over and over when you've specifically been asked to stop is frowned upon and counterproductive. Your opinion of the truth is just that, an opinion. It's not some unassailable truth. And just because I don't share it and Ed takes up a contrary position is no reason to constantly harp about it. Just let it go and enjoy PR4 when it comes out later ~~tonight/tomorrow~~ (tomorrow).

While that is all reasonable,

While that is all reasonable, would you mind discussing that in Off Topic? We had all those arguments roughly a gazillion times so obviously all has been said about it...
-edit- too late again

Not Quite

I've move into fully working on PortableApps.com as opposed to part-time. But that means I need to focus on the business aspects even more to ensure it can keep going as a viable project and be able to pay my rent.

But again, let's leave this whole discussion where it is... done... and move on to other things.

awesome john!

Thats great, i would love more rapid updates of programs on the site!

If i may can we stop chaning the versioning system, its confused me to death now.

I find myself thinking of learning programming, something i hate to death, but ur inspiring me to help on the programming of open source and i may just learn programming after all.

Love the good work keep it up

Version

The current version is always posted on the Download link in the main navigation. 'Next' is the current latest version and is just what we call things while we finalize the actual version number of what would have been 2.0. Once you install it, whenever you check for updates, you'll always know if your platform is up to date in addition to your apps.

Suggestion

Considering the vast amount of time you have spent and are continuing to spend maintaining the board's Drupal system you really should consider another option. One less labor intensive, by you. Personally I would recommend IP.Board's but you may prefer phpBB's. Both are very good and should be vastly more cost effective than Drupal if you put a dollar figure to your time.

Yes there would be time spend on a conversion but it would be a one time thing rather than this constant on going effort.

Drupal is a CMS, PHPBB is just a forum

PHPBB is a bulletin board system. Drupal is a content management system. One lets you run a forum, the other runs this entire website (as well as the forum). It's really apples to oranges. Forums are pretty dead easy to run. Content Management Systems are far more complex and have much more functionality. Drupal 7 will enable us to have classes of users with abilities to translate specific parts of specific pages on the website, like descriptions of apps without being able to post new versions or adjust download links, for instance. The Drupal upgrade issues are due to an issue with Drupal 4 when we upgraded years ago. That's why we can't do the automated upgrade and why we're going to manually move the data so we'll have a clean D7 install that we can automatically upgrade from then on.

Release 4 This Week

Release 4 has been completed and will be posted tomorrow. I'll be making some minor changes to the updater database in conjunction with the release which are not yet complete. This is to enable hiding 'advanced' apps in the app store like Beta releases of some apps and the Google Chrome Dev channel (hidden by default but you can turn them on with a check) as well as optionally only showing open source apps (off by default, but you can hide freeware with a check) for folks who want to go 100% open. The updater will still update all apps you have installed whether freeware or not, of course, so you'll never have to worry about being out of date. Without the changes in the database, the features won't work, of course. Until tomorrow I'm going to get some sleep and hopefully get over this cold.

UPDATE (Oct 10): I have the updater database updated and the platform itself ready to go. Unfortunately, the shared libraries update ability (jPortable, for example) broke in the process. I've got it almost nailed down but need to crash for now. I'll have it out either tomorrow afternoon (the 11th) or Wednesday morning the 12th as I'll be attending the NY Tech Meetup tomorrow night (if I'm up for it... or sleeping if I'm not). Sorry guys, but this cold is still kicking my *ss.

UPDATE (Oct 12): As today was spent entirely lying down save a couple forum posts to move some other things forward, I'll have the platform out tomorrow or Friday at the latest. We may not be launching the fundraiser and newsletter at the same time as I haven't been able to finish that up (we'll see how they go) and I want to get the platform out regardless. I'll figure out rent.

Nice

Thanks for the notice.

Please update the german

Please update the german language, this is the biggest bug

As stated before, you can

As stated before, you can just copy the contents of the latest pastebin in the german discussion thread and save it to the file German.locale in \PortableApps.com\App\Locale. But I would assume, the next Pre-Release uses the lates translations, too.

Latest Version

Could you point me to the latest version just so I'm sure I have it?

It's still the same as in the

It's still the same as in the Localization Thread for the 'Next' Pre-Releases. The Pastebin can be found here: http://pastebin.com/kf0JqmN8.
We did freeze it until the next Pre-Release to wait for further testing. All known issues should have been fixed (so far we could tell).

Got It

Unfortunately, the posting will take a little more time.

Hope you are feeling better.

If you'd like, I can help you set up a CafePress store - so long as you have the graphics (and it can be as simple as the logo to start), it can be up and running in a few hours. I'm sure that before you know it, you'd have people buying PA.c swag in droves...
... it might help with the rent

PR4 Release Date Update: Oct 15th

I felt better enough once medicated to get a couple hours of work in tonight. I just finished fixing the bug with jPortable not being recognized which was introduced with the new "Show Advanced Apps (Beta, Test, etc)" and "Show Only Open Source Apps" functions in the platform/updater/app directory. It will require an update to the jPortable installer (in the PA.c Installer code itself) as well to function properly, so I'm going to complete that tomorrow and push out an updated platform, an updated jPortable build and an updated PortableApps.com Installer which will handle it all automatically going forward (and have a smaller download/install size to boot). I'd stay up and finish it now, but it's 1am and I need sleep to kick this cold (which is actually the flu). Although the platform will be pushed out tomorrow, I'll be holding off on the fundraising drive and newsletter until Tuesday/Wednesday as we'll be pushing something else out then as well. My apologies again on the delay. And goodnight.

I'd stay up and finish it now, but it's 1am and I need sleep to kick this cold (which is actually the flu).

The flu = die Grippe.

Alles gut!

okaber trotzdem ist das kein

ok
aber trotzdem ist das kein Grund einen festen Termin 2x zu verschieben.
Ich hoffe das er das am 16.10.2011 dann packt, mit dem PP4.