Sorry if this is the wrong forum, but wanted you let you know that Gaim is not the only "portable" Internet Messager; Trillian Anywhere is available. Actually its a step-by-step on how to make Trillian run off a USB flash drive. It's a 25mb program vs. 9 mb for Portable Gaim.
It would be nice to see it as a true Portable Trillian, but there might be $$$ issues with Cerulean Studio.
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Another alternative is Miranda which comes readily portable and designed for small filesize.
I considered using it and making it available (compression saves about 40% size). But I can't even get a standard install of Miranda to work. The interface is also a bit clunky compared to Gaim.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
well whole miranda is a bit hard to change since it's main feature is PLUGINS and they can work very diffirent (like avatars, I think they have always same not-relative path)
Pure Miranda is very good for USB drive since it's always use files in it's directory (some skins for Miranda Plugins require some fonts installed though)
as for getting Miranda to work, with what exacly you have problems ?
as far as I do, I have miranda directory zipped using it on all computers I work (XP/ME, however on ME skins do not work)
btw. in your releases such as PortableFF, etc, could you upx'em files ?(DLL's and EXE's) this will save some space to
Embrace your dreams
I've tried getting Miranda to work a few times over the years. Never has. Downloaded, follow the wizard to setup an AOL account. Never connects. On a restart, 4 seperate popups come up yelling at me for not entering an IRC name, etc. At which point, I delete it and can't be bothered with it further.
As mentioned elsewhere in the forums it was FF auto-update VS 8 megs size savings. Auto-update won. FF always used to be UPXed and 7zipped... but it messes with the new auto-update system introduced in 1.5.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I upx'ed my firefox DLL's and EXE and it looks like it's working fine (but I have not a chance to update firefox itself with auto-update yet ... we will see)
as for Miranda, it has not wizard, you just extract Miranda( miranda-im.org), put plugins in directory (be sure getting newest plugins from official miranda site) ... I am using now ICQ/GG/Tlen/MSN/GoogleTalk protocols (haven't chance to test IRC yet) but all works fine (apart at work where many ports are blocked)
Embrace your dreams
As I mentioned, it's auto-update. Sure, it works fine in use when UPXed. I know, I've been UPXing the app for over a year. When UPXed, though, the small updates of a few hundred K that can happen with the 1.5 series, like what happened with RC1 to RC2, etc, will fail. They'll download, go through the process, fail, and then download the full 6MB version, at which point FF will be uncompressed, anyway. A pretty big hastle and it looks unprofessional. And, in the end, it doesn't buy you any space savings since most people will let it auto-update from this point forward.
As for Miranda, with or without the wizard, even configuring the options, I can't get it to connect to AOL IM. And it just keeps spitting up popups saying it isn't configured right, needs an IRC name, the MSN name is invalid, blah, blah. I haven't even told it I have any of those accounts. I have little patience for behavior like that.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
well, generally it all depends on plugin developers, of course it could be more friendly ...
this is what I've done with Miranda:
as for MSN you have to put whole address like: xxxxxx@hotmail.com as login
IRC require to fill 2 panels: "Default Network" and "User Info"
all rest is unchanged from default
Embrace your dreams
I didn't want it to use IRC or MSN. I never even told it I had an account. And it just kept popping up errors.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
That's strange that you're having troubles with Miranda and AIM. I've been using Miranda for the past year or so using both IRC and AIM (robloach3 is my AIM name) with no problems. You might be behind a strict firewall. I know I had to change the port a bit to connect to IRC.
As for the interface being clunky, I prefer the Classic user interface as opposed to the Multi-Window interface. Just go to plugins and select clist_classic.dll as opposed to clist_mw.dll.
Here is a screenshot of what I have setup. Connected to IRC, Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ and Jabber (GTalk), all at once. It's what pops up when I move the mouse to the far right of the screen. And, it only takes up about 11MB of RAM
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Rob Loach [Website] [Projects]
I haven't yet seen Miranda, but as for an interface, trillian make gaim look like monkey poo. I'm not sure if you're focusing on exclusively open-source apps here, but if not, it would be nice to see a section for trillian (basic, since that's free for personal use) or perhaps a link to the trilliananwywhere site. I'm not sure if cerulean would mind someone pre-packaging a portable copy of their latest freeware. Hmmm.
If the program won't startup in less than 5 seconds for an instant messenger, it has too much crap inside. I love portable Gaim