Dear all,
I've become quite an adict to the Portable Apps system, and at the moment they are the main manner in which I interface to the net. I often end up using PFF and PTB side by side, and one of the little things that irks me is the way that they don't actually work together at all - rather they are just two separate apps who don't really know anything about the other. The main problems arise when you are trying to pass info from one to the other eg via http:, mailto:, ftp: commands etc etc. For example, when I'm using PFF on a friends computer, clicking a mailto: tag results in their outlook booting (oops, sorry!), and similarly an http: tag in PTB results in IE booting.. Neither are really all that desirable.
Now, there is a way around that - I can set FF and TB to be the default apps for those tags respectively, and that works well (at least in some cases). But there are of course issues that arise when you start messing with someone elses computer like that - it's a good way to loose friends. IF you're going to do it, the correct thing to do is of course to return the settings back to normal - but this can be easy to forget sometimes.
I have an idea to make things a little nicer and safer - think of it as creating a portableapps environment, which comes and goes with the apps, leaving no trace of its existence otherwise. I guess you could say that the launcher does this already, but I would propose pushing the boundaries out a little further.
Here's a first approximation of how some portable interoperability could be acheieved. The description can basically be applied to any of the portable apps, but here I am a little more biased towards the internet apps.
On startup:
1. Query the registry to find the current default application (eg for http, https, mailto, ftp, or whatever is relevant etc etc)
2. Save this info to disk (preferably in the profile)
3. Make PFF (or PTB) the default app.
On shutdown:
1. Retrieve the details of the previous application from the profile
2. Make it the default app
Protection against crashes:
Crashes present a problem, as the shutdown sequence may not run correctly, so some built in crash protection would be required. eg a variable stored in the profile saying whether the app exited cleanly last time it was run. If recovering from a crash, then steps one and two of the startup sequence should be skipped, but all else normal.
This could all be achieved by the launcher, but perhaps to start with its an idea of take advantage of the mozilla extension system. Is anyone capable enough at writing extensions to give it a go (I'm not unfortunately), so that people can give it a whirl and see what they think? It seems like a reasonably simple thing to code up...
I was wondering what people's opinion on this matter was. Good idea? Bad idea? Problems I've overlooked? Where does the portableapp cross the line, do too much to the host computer and become "evil"?
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I have wondered about this. I use Launchy with a custom xml file and a gen which makes the xml file
If you want it, give me a buzz
----
R McCue
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
That's a pretty good solution - I am using Launchy in Portable Thunderbird with the following launchy.xml configuration file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><configurations xmlns="http://launchy.mozdev.org/configurations">
<application>
<label>Portable Firefox</label>
<type>1</type>
<command>%GeckoDrive%\PortableApps\PortableFirefox.exe</command>
</application>
</configurations>
The use of the %GeckoDrive% key here is essential to making it work in the context of portable apping - the gets the drive letter that Thunderbird is running on, and then executes PortableFirefox, which of course is on the same drive, thus dealing with changes in drive letter pretty well.
Well done to all those involved! I like it!
Very nice!
R McCue, can you send me your launchy file? Thanks.
~nm35 {blog} {standalone apps}
It uses NSIS to generate the file then launches my home made menu.
Still has a few bugs
Therefore no
----
R McCue
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
If you want it, give me a buzzAt least let me have a look at it.
~nm35 {blog} {standalone apps}
I mean major bugs. Like crashing PFF 10/11 times.
Too buggy.
I will be finished soon (fingers crossed)
----
R McCue
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
Hello !
Awesome ... thanxX for this post Trevva, i was really fed up with the Outlook starting everytime i clicked on a mailto link.
i just created a "chrome" directory in my portable apps (Firefox & Thunderbird) with the Launchy.xml in and that worked like a charm.
@+...
This evening I happened across this article:
http://internet.newsforge.com/print.pl?sid=05/05/26/1525248
which describes how to override some of the default settings for mailto: links and the links in Firefox. It looks pretty straight forward, and quite promising when it comes to improving the interoperability of applications.
But the qn is, could we make this work for portable apps, where the drive letter is changeable? Is there any way to set a relative path in the prefs.js options?