There is one thing I miss in the otherwise great PA :
Although being able to add non-PAF-format apps to the PA-menu, it is really a pity they must be placed in the same directory as the PAF-ones.
I really dislike that they are mixed up the more some also use "Portable" in their program and/or directory-name.
And "Refresh Icons" doesn't go deeper than 1 directory-level so it's impossible to put them in a user-created "MyApps" directory in "PortableApps"
It would be great if
- either a standard MyApps location would be added next to PortableApps
- or a standard MyApps location would be added into PortableApps + "Refresh Icons" going 1 level deeper
- or the possibility to specify a MyApps path in the options + "Refresh Icons" scan that path too
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As you can see in the PortableApps.com Platform Bug Report and Feature Tracker, this is listed under "Upcoming Features" as "Ability to manually add apps from other directories".
John hasn't been able to release any updates for 11 months, and there is a massive list of 'Upcoming features' so I doubt this will be in the first set done, though I hope I'm wrong.
I'm wondering what purpose having a separate folder would serve. All your portable apps will work with the PA.c Platform and all our apps will work without our platform as well. The PortableApps directory is just a directory for all your apps to go in just like Program Files would serve on the local machine. If, for some reason, you want to keep all your non-PA.c Format apps easily identifiable, you could give them all an _DirectoryName or similar pre-fix so they're all next to each other alphabetically.
As for organizing apps, the thinking is to let you have categories in the menu itself and not care about what folders the apps themselves are in, so there's no plan to have the platform scan deeper sub-folder wise from that respect. The platform is being updated to scan deeper for apps that don't have an EXE in their base folder, though.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
That the non-PAF apps do work, I know that.
But having to depend upon categories in the menu to identify manually added apps is a step too far. It's a lot easier to open a directory and see those (in their own directory) at once, all together. As an example when a quick check needs to be done if a program was added manually and might need updated manually.
Out of the 3 possible options I described, only 1 was talking about scanning deeper, so why focus only on that one ?
Concerning "The platform is being updated to scan deeper for apps that don't have an EXE in their base folder, though.", which is equal to option 2 I mentionned, doesn't work. I just tested it once more.
Personally, option 3 would be the most flexible, allowing users to organize themselves the way they want to.
I focused on the deeper scanning option because that is the only thing currently planned in the immediate future. It is not yet implemented.
If the goal is to determine which apps are manually updated so you know to check on them to update them, just pull up Help - About and select the Apps tab. It'll detail out all your apps, first those in PortableApps.com Format followed by those that are not in PA.c Format, listing out the appropriate sub-directories for every non-PA.c Format app. This makes it easy to determine at a glance what apps need manual updating without needing any sort of special manual directory configuration.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I agree with the issue, I also have to start looking what is manual for updating.
The issue is that there are paf installers I used that didn't' come from paf apps catalog but from people who created paf installers and therefore those don't get automatic updates.
What i do is I name every manual app with '_' at the start but that also doesn't solve the apps that came with paf installer but didn't come from the paf platform catalog so I'm stuck with same issue.
So in addition I run SUMO which helps a bit, but it is not a platform solution.
Having 2 folders would really help and really give a quick picture on what is manual and needs manual updating.
LibreKey has that feature and I really like it to be here as well.
I too run some apps that either I made portable by me or are portable by design
What I did was create a new category in the menu then I moved all of them into that category so that I just click to open the category and they are all there
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