Howdy!
My name is TeX HeX and I'm the developer of a tweaking application. We are currently evaluating the possibilities of making our app "portable" and thus came across this site. We thought it might be a good idea to ask the people that are dealing with portable apps already what they would expect from a portable version.
Please excuse if this thread is in the wrong forum, but since this is not really a development topic nor about an already existing program, I thought that "General" would be OK.
If I understand it correctly, most users don't have anything against a portable app that copies several files and registry entries to the computer when launching the portable app _AS LONG_ as it ensured that after the use of the app these files and registry entries are removed?
Also, most users still own "plain" USB Storage devices, U3 is considered too expensive while Ceedo is not considered a must have? That way, it would be the best if we provide an application that is self-containing portable and does not relay on external DLLs etc. like U3's DAPI.dll.
However, users of U3 or Ceedo expect to also install the application through U3's "Software Central" and Ceedo's "Add Programs" and have easy access through U3 or Ceedos launch menu.
If I get things rights, to be listed on this site the application you app needs to be self-containing portable and U3 requires you to create a special ZIP file with detailed instruction for U3? Does anybody know what to do to be listed on Ceedo's "Add Programs" list?
Thanks in advanced.
TeX HeX
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Yes, but to be truly portable it shouldnt affect any files on the host computer. Could you save it to an INI and possibly have command line switches for the rest?
External DLLs should either be in the same directory if needed.
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R McCue
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
To me and most users of this site, "Portable" means no files or registry entries are written to the hard disk. Either the settings are saved within the program itself or to a INI file or settings file within the applciation folder.
Yes there is Registry Rapper that can make a program portable, but I designed that because programs were not saving their settings to INI files or such and were placing them in the registry. It is just a bandaid fix, pretty much. Programmers need to start coding for portabilty before that bandaid will not be needed anymore.
Also it needs to be able to handle relative paths so the application folder can be anywhere on any drive in any folder and still work perfectly.
This is what I consider protable, but there are others that are a bit more lenient than me.
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Deuce {The Core}
"Portable Software: Just the beginning.
Deuce
Portable Software: Just the beginning.
Bandaid is a trademark.
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R McCue
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
Actually, the trademarked term is "band-aid" and it's pretty close to becoming completely genericized. No sense trying to stop it at this point; such attempts are futile.