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CherrytreePortable_0.33.1_Development_Test_5

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January 22, 2013 - 7:03pm
#1
samdev
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CherrytreePortable_0.33.1_Development_Test_5

Application: Cherrytree
Category: Office
Description: Cherrytree is a hierarchical note taking application, featuring rich text and syntax highlighting, storing data in a single xml or sqlite file.

Download CherrytreePortable_0.33.1_Development_Test_5 [19.8MB download / 97.2MB installed]
(MD5: a77c437ee3887a5ae1ff3325666a1ea7)

Release Notes:

Officially released with Cherrytree 0.33.4 on 2014-05-16
Development Test 5 (2014-05-16):

  • Update to Cherrytree 0.33.1

Development Test 5 (2014-01-08):

  • Update to Cherrytree 0.32.0

Development Test 5 (2013-12-07):

  • Update to Cherrytree 0.31.4

Development Test 5 (2013-09-27):

  • Update to Cherrytree 0.30.5

Development Test 5 (2013-03-23):

  • Update to Cherrytree 0.29.4

Development Test 5 (2013-03-16):

  • Update to Cherrytree 0.29.3

Development Test 5 (2013-01-30):

  • Added language switching support

Development Test 4 (2013-01-27):

  • Update to Cherrytree 0.29.2

Development Test 4 (2013-01-24):

  • Bug fixing
  • Configuration backup
  • Started Language switching support

Development Test 2/3 (2013-01-23):

  • Bug fixing

Development Test 1 (2013-01-22):

  • Initial release (Cherrytree 0.29.1)

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January 22, 2013 - 9:57pm
Ken Herbert
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Feedback

help.html

  • You need to add the base app's official website towards the end of line 130
  • You need to delete line 139 as the app is open source

Icons

  • You don't need cherrytree.png
  • appicon.ico should have 32-bit versions of the 16, 32 and 48 pixel icons, and the 248 pixel one needs to be 256 pixels

appinfo.ini

  • Publisher should just be the base app's developers & PortableApps.com

launcher.ini

  • You've got an extra DirectoryMoveOK line commented out
  • Cherrytree creates a directory in %AppData% that contains config.cfg - this file should be moved to/from \Data as this is where the app stores it's settings
  • Where is cherrytree_win32_portable.ini? I'm not seeing it anywhere during or after running the app
  • If you figure out what is going on with cherrytree_win32_portable.ini:
    • You shouldn't be moving it to Data\settings (this is reserved for Launcher settings) - just move it to \Data
    • [FileWrite1] has the filename wrong - you are missing the . between "portable" and "ini"
  • At least on my system it took quite a while for Cherrytree to appear - maybe increase the launcher splash time a bit so it doesn't look like nothing is happening

Other

  • You should add AppInfo\installer.ini with a list of the languages supported by the app - more information here
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January 23, 2013 - 8:46am
(Reply to #2)
samdev
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Feedback - answer 1

Hi winterblood,

Thanks a lot for your quick answer.
I use portableapps for a long time now and this is the first app I tried to submit for approval.

help.html

  • Done.

Icons

  • I'll work on this.

appinfo.ini

  • Done.

Launcher

  • This was the part where I had more doubts
  • I created the CherrytreePortable.ini under \App\AppInfo\Launcher
  • The CherrytreePortableSettings.ini is beign generated under Data\settings. Is this file you are looking for?
  • What about the official delivery (final splash.jpg, upload to sourceforge, update links on help.html regarding this apps url under portableapps.com). How does this work?

Other

  • As you can see in the appinfo.ini I tryed to put the supported languages but I was getting an error in the PortableApp Installer
  • I will check this instaler.ini as I didn't create it

Cheers,
Sam

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January 23, 2013 - 4:31pm
(Reply to #3)
Ken Herbert
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Launcher Data\settings\Cherry

Launcher
Data\settings\CherrytreePortable.ini should not be touched by you, as this is a file used behind the scenes by the Launcher - you never have to do anything to it. But your [FilesMove] and [FilesWriteX] commands reference a file called cherrytree_win32_portable.ini, but this file doesn't exist and I'm wondering where you got it from.

Give me a couple of hours or so and I will get back to you with some necessary changes, if time permits I'll get to language switching for it, too.

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January 23, 2013 - 6:00pm
(Reply to #4)
samdev
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I think I got it

I think I solved all points you mentioned. The [FilesMove] and [FilesWriteX] commands I copied from another app but didn't understood its purpose. Now after reading a bit more realized that they are not needed... I will upload this version so that you can have a look.

Where can I get/build the final splash image or this app?

How long will the app take to be published?

Tks,

Cheers,
Sam

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January 23, 2013 - 6:01pm
(Reply to #5)
Ken Herbert
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When it happens

You stick with the default development test splash until (if) such a time comes when it is released officially.

First time developers can sometimes take a while to get their first app released (over a year for me, longer for some, less for others). It largely depends on how popular the app is, whether it fills a specific function not yet present in the PortableApps catalog and how quickly it gets through testing, but there is also a factor involving how proficient you are with the PortableApps process, and how well you handle updating your apps, too. John doesn't want to rush-release an app from a first time developer, just to have them drop off the site soon after and leave him with more work.

But don't be put off. Your best bet is to keep going, find more apps to post, and get your head around the full process of making an app portable (including language switching, probably the hardest part of the process to get your brain around).

Regarding language switching, I've had a good look at Cherrytree, and I'm 99.9% sure it is going to require custom code, so we'll leave it alone for now. When I have more time I will look at it (custom code isn't a strength of mine, but I need to learn).

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January 23, 2013 - 6:32pm
(Reply to #6)
samdev
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Lets see then

By "language switching" you mean configure the app language directly from the language he selected during the installation?

Yes, I didn't see any configuration file written on the cherrytree_win32_portable folder... Also checked registry, but nothing relevant was stored. So, I'm not really sure how preferences are kept. I will try to have a look on its code and try to figure it out.

Yes, I will continue. I have a couple more apps I'm used to use under portableapps framework as they have the .exe in the first folder, it works just fine. I'll try to convert them too Smile

Cheers,
Sam

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January 23, 2013 - 7:19pm
Ken Herbert
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Dev test 2

Getting there, but still a few issues.

  1. Missing Polish and Chinese (Simplified) from the installer.ini [Languages] section.
  2. You don't need anything in your installer.ini apart from the [Languages] section, as the rest are either the default values, or empty values.
  3. Make sure you delete the Data directory before running the PortableApps Installer, a fresh install should never have a Data directory until after it has run once.
  4. You can ignore what I said earlier about the app taking a while to load, once we got rid of the code trying to handle cherrytree_win32_portable.ini it loads quite quickly, so the SplashTime in launcher.ini doesn't need to be changed now.
  5. Cherrytree stores its settings in %AppData%\cherrytree, so you need to move that folder to/from the Data directory with a [DirectoriesMove], and handle paths within that file exactly as you were trying to do for cherrytree_win32_portable.ini.
  6. In launcher.ini you can remove the WorkingDirectory bit, this should only be used if needed, and Cherrytree looked like it worked fine when I commented it out.
  7. It is up to you if you do it, but for a more portable-friendly setup I would do the following:
    1. Delete %AppData%\cherrytree
    2. Run Cherrytree and close it, without making any changes
    3. Copy %AppData%\cherrytree\config.cfg to App\DefaultData\cherrytree\
    4. Open DefaultData\cherrytree\config.cfg in an editor, and change the second line from file_dir = to file_dir = DEFAULTSAVEDIR
    5. Create a new [FileWrite] in launcher.ini that finds DEFAULTSAVEDIR in Data\cherrytree\config.cfg (not DefaultData\cherrytree\config.cfg - this would be bad) and replaces it with %PAL:DataDir%

      6. This will make Cherrytree point to \Data the first time someone tries to open or save a file, instead of somewhere on the host machine, and won't affect anything after the first run. But as I said, it is optional if you want to do it or not.

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January 24, 2013 - 9:52am
(Reply to #8)
samdev
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Another iteration

I uploaded a new version with most of the points you mension corrected. I'm not sure what I need to do regarding point 3 (please have a look in installer.ini and check if it's correct.). Also updated the laucher.ini and found how language is set. Cherrytree creates a file %APPDIR%/cherrytree/lang with codes like (en,...). I don't know yet how to handle the languages and how the process works but already started to do something in laucher.ini (I had a look on other app...).
Please review version 3.
Tks,

Cheers,
Sam

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January 24, 2013 - 5:00pm
(Reply to #9)
Ken Herbert
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Getting there

Good job on the path handling and DEFAULTSAVEDIR stuff, they both work fine.

You missed point 2 - remove everything from the installer.ini except the [Languages] section, including the new line you put in as a result of point 3, which wasn't very clear on my part.

I meant that before you run the PortableApps Installer to create the paf.exe package, you need to delete the Data directory from your folder structure (if it is there, my new beta test of LAN Messenger seems to create Data when installing which is odd).

Regarding language switching, you've got a good start and there are some issues, but because of the way Cherrytree stores its language nothing you do in the launcher.ini will work, because as far as I know and have tested none of the [LanguageFile] or [FileWrite] Types handle strings with nothing to define them, and none of them handle wildcards either.

To achieve language switching here we would need to write some custom NSIS code, which I will look into as time permits.

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January 24, 2013 - 5:54pm
(Reply to #10)
Aluísio A. S. G.
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No need for removing Data

There is no need for removing Data before running the installer. In fact, you can have other files and directories next to the portable app; the install will only pack App, Data, Other, help.html and .exe files in the root.

Previously known as kAlug.

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January 24, 2013 - 6:07pm
(Reply to #11)
Ken Herbert
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Preventative measure

I know there is no technical requirement to remove Data but I think of it more like a preventative measure.

I recommend it so people get it into their workflow and minimize the possibility of existing data files being packaged, in case the user has run the app prior to packaging it.

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January 24, 2013 - 6:05pm
(Reply to #12)
samdev
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Custom NSIS code

I tried several things too, but yes, it seems to be hard to parse a file containing only a word... Sad
Ok, will fix these last things and maybe I can explore NSIS. Is there any way to call/use/introduce/execute NSIS custom code by defining something in these .ini files? Is there any info on that?

Cheers,
Sam

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January 24, 2013 - 6:55pm
(Reply to #13)
Ken Herbert
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You can access data from

You can access data from launcher.ini in custom code, but you may not need to as it all should be in the Launcher's environment variables. Don't quote me on it though as custom launcher code isn't something I've really touched.

The documentation is here and you will also need to know about segments, and the debug stuff may be handy, too. Honestly though, the documentation on custom code is quite minimal, your best bet is to find an app that utilizes custom code for the same purpose and just use the documentation for reference.

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January 29, 2013 - 5:45pm
(Reply to #14)
samdev
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Languages expected behavior

I was having a closer look into this Custom.nsh things and at a first check it is not so complicated, but lets see.
My problem is more related to the expected behavior of the [LanguageFile] and its relation with the normal associated [FileWriteX]. I was assuming that this is only used during installation time to configure the application with the language selected in the AppInstaller. Am I right?
Meaning that if what is defined below is true (file exists) nothing else is executed.

[Language]
Base=%PortableApps.comLocaleName%
CheckIfExists=%PAL:DataDir%\cherrytree\lang
DefaultIfNotExists=English

But if the file doesn't exist the default language will be written to a file using a [FileWriteX].

So what are the [LanguageFile] for?

[LanguageFile]
Type=ConfigRead
File=%PAL:DataDir%\cherrytree\lang
Entry=""
For my case this doesn't help so I have to build the Custom.nsh to read whatever is on the lang file, right?

I thought that the idea was to use the configuration on the launcher to update the lang file with whatever was selected on the installer using the [LanguageStrings] to map the correct characters to write into the file.

So, I'm a bit lost here.
Can you give some guidance?
Tks,

Cheers,
Sam

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January 29, 2013 - 6:18pm
(Reply to #15)
Ken Herbert
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Got it a bit wrong

The language switching code does not preset the language to what was chosen during installation.

Everything in the language switching except [LanguageFile] is about trying to set the language of the base app to the same as the Platform if the option is set to run all apps in the same language as the Platform.

The [LanguageFile] bit is only there for if the app isn't running from the Platform to determine the last language the app was run as, otherwise every app not run from the Platform would just end up in English.

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January 30, 2013 - 4:13pm
(Reply to #16)
samdev
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Is it done?

Hi,

I think I got it now.

I managed to build the Custom.nsh to change the lang file. I tested it by changing the language options on PortableApp. Each time we run the app the file is updated, then the app reads it...

Can you give feedback on this last update?
Tks,

Cheers,
Sam

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May 9, 2014 - 3:19pm
John T. Haller
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Release?

I was wondering if you're still interested in supporting this on an ongoing basis. I think this would be a good app for us to make official.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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May 16, 2014 - 6:03pm
(Reply to #18)
samdev
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Yes ;)

I have tried to have it always up to date. So, yes.

Cheers,
Sam

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May 16, 2014 - 6:32pm
(Reply to #19)
John T. Haller
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Cool

I think this might be next weeks new app release then. I'll give it a full work over before then.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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