I've been considering bringing back the pre-packaged suites on a limited basis. As apps have proliferated and gotten more complicated, there would be some limitations to minimize time spent packaging and supporting them. The suites would be in English and designed for new installs only. This allows me to forgo having to code in the installer upgrade code for every app on every release and not try to package tons of different languages. The suites would be updated on a monthly basis and versioned appropriately (PortableApps.com Suite Standard 2018.12, for instance). The suites would not be updated mid-month, so no constant treadmill of updating every time any of the contained apps are updated. The suites would likely be open source apps only to save on download bandwidth, that way we can host on SourceForge for free.
Thoughts on the usefulness of bringing suites back in this fashion?
Note that this will be in addition to the addition of automated suites within the PortableApps.com Updater/App Store allowing you to automatically select and download/install a whole suite of pre-selected apps.
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I think this is a great idea for those who would rather set a setting once and allow the Updater to handle the rest automatically.
Plus it sounds like this will reduce the work load on your end as well.
Thumbs up.
daemon.devin
This would increase the workload, but not by a ton. It would have no effect on the end users once installed as they'd still update with the platform's updater. It's mainly to allow those with limited bandwidth to download their initial app set somewhere with more bandwidth or who want to take a suite with them to install somewhere with limited bandwidth at friends/relatives.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Provided there is a minimal increase to workload, and a minimal number of apps included (most popular OSS, perhaps?), I would suggest we go forward with the suggested pre-packaged suites, however use it as a trial run of sorts - if the demand is not there, we stop providing them.
I'm going to monitor the downloads of them. I'll likely just do something similar to the old "Standard" package as the apps used in the "Light" package in place of OpenOffice are no longer maintained on Windows (AbiWord, Gnumeric).
Side note: As tempting (and illegal) as an 'every app' suite might be, it would be 22.5GB on disk meaning the download/installer would be somewhere between 5 and 10GB.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!