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Classic startmenu

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humbug
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Classic startmenu

Hello,

is it possible to create a classic startmenu too? Like in Liberkey, both is possible and i would prefer such a small and clearly arranged menu. I love portable apps but it`s a little bit annoying if always the "big menu" pops up.

John T. Haller
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Cascading

It's called a cascading menu and a contributor built a version for the PA.c Platform. It's planned to be in the 12.0 final release at the moment.

Please note that discussion of illegal software like LiberKey isn't permitted here.

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Lord_Theren
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Illegal?

Liberkey is illegal? How so?

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John T. Haller
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Always Made Illegally

LiberKey has been engaged in illegal software distribution from its inception. The first couple years, it was actually just the open source ASuite menu and a bunch of PortableApps.com apps but with our splash screen, license, and readme files removed so users didn't know (which is illegal). They've been distributing apps like CCleaner, Firefox, and others without permission and in direct violation of their licenses the entire time (also illegal). For the GPL/LGPL open source apps they distribute they didn't bother distributing the source as required by the license for the first few years. They did distribute it for a couple years, but then decided not to again because they didn't want to pay for bandwidth (also illegal).

When called out on a few of these things, they've outright lied about it in other forums, which isn't exactly surprising given their other behavior. They then abandoned their userbase entirely for months with no notice and continued to distribute outdated and insecure browsers, chat clients, etc. A few volunteers have since taken to updating a handful of their apps, but their platform and most apps including all games are abandoned now.

It's worst for their users that have no idea about the illegal software, vulnerabilities, sketchy portablization, etc. Luckily, it never had that large a userbase. The download numbers were inflated by forcing you to download a suite of a hundred apps just to download the platform for the first few years and counted that as a hundred apps downloaded... and then all subsequent updates to those one hundred unwanted apps as more apps downloaded. And the forum user numbers are artificially inflated because they used to force you to register as a forum user for their updater to work.

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Lord_Theren
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Oh, I get it now

I thought you meant the LiberKey suite itself was illegal. I read an article that compared PortableApps.com and LiberKey and it said that LiberKey had had some legal issues associated with it.

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John T. Haller
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Some, Possibly More

The suite itself, when installed, immediately prompts you to download a suite containing illegal apps (with unauthorized modifications and packaging of Firefox, CCleaner, Speccy, Google Chrome, etc). So, that part is illegal. The suite itself could very well contain bits taken from PortableApps.com, WinPenPack, ASuite, etc for the functionality but as it's closed source and uses encrypted configuration files for the apps, it's designed to hide the way it works. The encrypted configurations means you can't tell what parts of the way they portablize individual apps they got from us, WinPenPack, FramaKey (which was still operational at the time), etc. It also means you can't easily tell what mistakes they made in portablization (seeing what registry keys/local directories are handled vs not just by looking at an INI or source file).

Fun fact: one of the LiberKey folks ran a script to post thousands of votes for themselves in that linked lifehacker article, keeping true to their pattern of artificially inflating their downloads, userbase, etc.

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Lord_Theren
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Oh my gosh!

When I downloaded LiberKey, I had to take extra steps to NOT download all the apps. I don't even really like the LiberKey menu. Where did you hear that they inflated the LiberKey vote on the lifehacker article?

The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

John T. Haller
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Next Article

It's detailed in the next article by lifehacker. It became extremely obvious after it happened over the course of a few hours late one night.

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Lord_Theren
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Link?

Can you give me a link? I can't seem to find it for some reason.

Although I gotta hand it to them, the LiberKey Menu has some cool features like how it can replace all of your desktop icons with icons from the menu. Any chance of incorporating this feature into the PA.c Platform?

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Croatoan23
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Liberkey doesn't actually

Liberkey doesn't actually have portable apps (you can't copy folder of VLC like PortableApps allow; you need some exe files too). Because of it I now use Portableapps Smile and if I only need PDF-XChange Viewer I just copy that folder on usb Biggrin

But (it is always a but) I still use LiberKey menu (not apps, only menu) because it is better than Portableapps menu

  • double folders for better managing
  • description of apps
  • better searching, it searches description of apps too; yes, it is slower but much much better
  • MyApps folder and menu for my apps
  • resizing of menu

To summarize: Portableapps apps rocks but LiberKey menu is better Smile Portableapps review: 90/100 Biggrin If you need beta tester for version 12 just let me now Smile

John T. Haller
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Discussion

If you'd like to request features, let's keep them in terms of asking for them rather than listing the features of an illegal (mostly-abandoned) platform. Smile

As for some features:

- Double folders are mostly unnecessary as most folks use a combination of favorites, most recent, and search these days. It seems the whole world is moving away from nested folders in launchers (see basically every modern OS). We may add sub-categories at some point in the future, though.

- Descriptions of apps are already enabled in the PortableApps.com Platform (both stable and beta). We'll be adding in the ability to do custom notes in a future release.

- We're adding in searching on app name, description, sub-category, and custom notes in an upcoming release.

- There's no need for a separate MyApps folder with PortableApps.com as portable software in any format can be added. Since it's not a PA.c Format app it won't know what category/folder to be in by default so it will be placed in 'Other'. You can right click and place it wherever you like.

- Resizing of the menu is something that will likely be added in the future. It's not a major pain point at present as most people use favorites/most used plus search, meaning that extra space doesn't add much. We'll likely support alternate menu arrangements (moving all menu pieces around by themers) along with larger app lists (currently 20, maybe support 30 and 40 as well, for instance). We're also exploring alternate menu designs for better usability based on the way people actually access their apps (though nothing quite as different as, say, Unity).

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

Croatoan23
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No Disrespect Intended

They improved their launcher to hide their flaws with portability of apps. Like in games, even villans have some good abilities Smile

1. you are right, double folders are good for some people; I personally love organized structure Smile (like Firefox and Chrome goes to Internet- Browser); priority medium

2. & 3. Really excited for that. Can't wait Smile
I love short description of apps but would love that search also searches through longer description of apps (apps features in longer description) Smile priority high

4. Thanks Smile

5. it has low priority for me.

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