Outdated: PortableApps.com Updater 1.0 ALPHA 9

Updated Installer from Alpha 6 and made a complete renewed install. In both cases The updater GUI window says "Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.120- (local: MozFirefox 2.0.0.130)" and the checkbox is selected, even after unchecking, cancelling and restart.
Buggy database? Counting error? And: no real local firefox is installed (if that was meant, the portable FF is indeed 2.0.0.130).

I really like it now.
The auto-selection is good. The list is big/wide enough. The free space calculation is cool.

Just the ini needs an update to FF 13 and Peazip 2.

Definitely beta now.

Why did you make a new forum instead of using the old one. Now, the Development Test link must be changed, old links are obsolete, the old forum must be locked, and there is clutter with more than one topic for the same app. Still, congratulations on the update, it sounds like the best one yet! I'll just download and test it out.

Edit: Bug found. I have firefox 2.0.0.130, the most recent version, and it wants me to install version 2.0.0.120. I think you should program in a system to realize whether the version you have is higher than the version it picks up.

Edit: Also, the other apps I have, (7 zip, Joleem, Sudoku, and THE UPDATER) were not on the list. This may be a bug, or a feature put in on purpose, but if it's a bug, I wanted to let you know. Also, It would be very nice to be able to update my beta apps under development test.

Edit: Also, It keeps wanting to install the apps to C:\DOCUME~1\2013SV~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\Data\setup, when it should be installing to the portableapps folder in my documents, aka, where it's being run from.

Edit (again): And it still is not space compatible. I have to change the space in my documents to a _ manually.

The version number for eraser portable is 5.86.1.1 in the ini file, but the current official release is 5.82 rev 3, which the updater correctly downloads, but which installs with a version number of 5.82.0.2, prompting to be updated again.

Other than that, this is looking really good! Excellent app. Thanks

Edit:
Also Miranda Portable is now at 0.7.3.0 but the ini version seems stuck at 0.6.8.0

I don't have nothing to complain (perhaps that you aren't using the most recent version of the icon, but nothing more).

pt-PT fix:

LangString DESC_Section40 ${LANG_PORTUGUESE} "leva as tuas finanças contigo"
LangString DESC_Section41 ${LANG_PORTUGUESE} "o arquivador de ficheiros portátil"

I tried PA-Updater alpha 6/alpha 7. Thx for your work, Marko! Here are my comments:

1) The updater doesn't offer all Portableapps you can find at portableapps.com (for example: xampp-launcher, Pidgin-OTR). Why not?

2) The updater doesn't always offer the newest available version (for example: Firefox 2.0.0.12 instead of 2.0.0.13, Filezilla 3.0.7.1 instead of 3.0.8.1, Inkscape 0.45.1.0 RC1 instead of 0.45.1.0). I hope the database is generated automatically without the need of human interaction? This seems to be a possible SPOF. Base for the version check could be the sourceforge web page with the "latest file releases" (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=151265).

3) If a md5 check fails, the updater should offer to download the file from another mirror.

4) If the server answers with a "404 Not found" or "No such file" the updater should tell the user. A message "MD5 checksums do not match" is irritating for unexperienced users (for example: Inkscape)

5) How can I get a "silent" install of the apps (without splash screens and questions for install directory)?

6) I'd like to get offered the apps in development (alpha, beta, RC). As you know it can take a long long time until a ready to post app gets approved ...

7) The updater should indicate the language of the offered apps, so users can decide not to install an app in a language they don't understand.

8 ) The updater should offer language packs that are not automatically installed with the main app (for example: kompozer-langpacks).

9) Each newly installed or updated app should (if the user wants) be started once by the updater to configure it and/or to install add-ons.

10) If certain components are necessary to get the app working in the selected language, the updater should select those components automatically (for example: GIMP, Pidgin).

11) The space calculation recognizes the needed space on the stick, but not the needed temporary space on hd. So it can happen that e.g. OpenOffice installation fails. The updater unfortunately does NOT recognize such a failure and does NOT offer another try at the next run.

12) How can I combine the web database plus a local file for further apps?

On my system, WinXp SP2, 1280 x 768, the bottom of the Application ListBox and the top of the Description GroupBox touch each other. If the ListBox height was reduced slightly it could display exactly 8 entries instead of the 8 and 3/4s it does at present thus fixing two minor problems at one stroke.

I have Sunbird .80RC and it wants to download and install .70

I can understand not supporting Betas or RC but at least don't have it auto-select to install an older version.

Other than that, it's beautiful. A fantastic idea for an app.

Nobody locked the old forum yet...

I just downloaded and installed ALPHA7...
System setup includes Windows 2000, large fonts.

• On-ScreenKeyboard Portable 1.0.0.0 --> (local:1.1.0.0)
  thinks... hmm... it's trying to downgrade me.
• CommandPrompt Portable should be Command Prompt Portable
• On-ScreenKeyboard Portable should be On-Screen Keyboard Portable
• The Description fieldset's title ("Description"), its background (grey) slightly overlaps the component choice box. This may be an NSIS problem, I don't know. But when you scroll down, it loses it! The component list doesn't refresh it, so you get an extra grey line! It must be Christmas time!
• An extract from the GPL, in the terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification:
  

  5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it.

  The upshot of this is that the updater should not require you to accept the GPL.
  From PortableAppsUpdater.nsi, I think that you should remove the lines which deal with the license stuff, in other words, the following lines (line numbers are from ALPHA7):

  83   ; == License page ==
  84   !define MUI_PAGE_CUSTOMFUNCTION_PRE Pre-License
  85   !define MUI_PAGE_CUSTOMFUNCTION_LEAVE LicenseLeave
  86   !insertmacro MUI_PAGE_LICENSE "..\..\Other\Source\License.txt"
  87   
  
  180  var lpage
  
  641      ;=== read the parameter for license page
  642      ${GetOptions} "$CMDLINE" "/NOL" $R0
  643      IfErrors noskip6
  644          StrCpy "$lpage" "false"
  645      noskip6:
  
  919  Function Pre-License
  920  StrCmp $lpage "true" +2
  921      Abort
  922  FunctionEnd
  923  
  924  Function LicenseLeave
  925      WriteINIStr $EXEDIR\Data\Settings.ini "Show" "License" "false"
  926  FunctionEnd
  927  
  
  931      StrCpy "$lpage" "true"
  
  1153     ReadINIStr $0 "$EXEDIR\Data\settings.ini" "Show" "License"
  1154     StrCmp $0 "" +2
  1155     StrCpy "$lpage" $0
  

  I think that that should do it.

I think that that should do it for today!

I noticed you still haven added the feature to configure your proxy manually. Websence keeps blocking my downloads. Also, spaces are still not supported. When downloading the installers, I still have to manually change \My Documents\Portable apps to \My_Documents\Portable_apps

Could someone point me to where I can find information about setting up a server repository, please. I don't remember having seen that information in any of the PortableApps.com Updater 1.0 topics, yet. Thanks!

I just installed the application, and once I started it, I received the error message :
R:\PortableApps\PortableAppsUpdater\Data\updater.ini not found! 1033

So I decided to create this file, restarted the application, and then the file disappeared.

Any idea what's happening?

Thanks!

hi,

I mean this wget option (this is only an example)
--user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; de; rv:1.8.0.7) Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7"

So for the proxy this looks like wget is a Firefox browser.

Marko:

I'm not certain about why you can't have spaces in the temporary install directory (is it a WGET limitation?), but you can use Wordfind from Wordfunc.nsh to find the spaces instead of doing it yourself in the code...

so...

  ;=== compare value of ini fileCall the CheckForSpaces function.
  Push $INSTDIR # Input string (install path).
   Call CheckForSpaces
  Pop $R0 	;=== The function returns the number of spaces found in the input string.
 
  ;===  Check if any spaces exist in $INSTDIR.
  StrCmp $R0 0 NoSpaces

can be replaced by...

;=== compare value of ini fileCall the CheckForSpaces function.
;  Push $INSTDIR # Input string (install path).
;   Call CheckForSpaces
;  Pop $R0 	;=== The function returns the number of spaces found in the input string.
; Can do this with ${WordFind} of wordfunc.nsh.
  ${WordFind} "$INSTDIR" ' ' "*" $R0
  ;===  Check if any spaces exist in $INSTDIR.
  IntCmp $R0 0 NoSpaces

...and you can ditch the "CheckForSpaces" function. Just make sure you put the following in the headers:

!include "WordFunc.nsh"

!insertmacro WordFind

Thanks for your good work on this!

[Double post removed by moderator SL]

I know I've said it before, but I think it'd be a good idea to add this to the PA Subversion (assuming you have write access, I'm pretty sure you do because I think I do).
I could work on it a lot easier if this was done, as at the moment, I'm tempted not to touch it.

I'll take a look at it and see if I can't figure out why it breaks.

I have just installed this and immediately got into an infernal loop, install, update, new update, install... yada yada.

I cant remember how i broke out of it but it appears to be OK now.

Thought1 - Spaces... now dont shout, i understand you dont like them, cant use them however, the default install path that is displayed, is a dos truncated version of a path with spaces! So could you not just resolve the path into its dos equivalent? ie for /documents and settings/, use /docume~1/

Thought2 - Installed vs Available apps. Is it possible to colour code the apps that are installed?

Thats all for now

Downloaded Alpha 7 and re-installed it. The proxy auth issues I reported at https://portableapps.com/node/12584#comment-78020 are gone.

I had to completely remove the portableapps/portappsupdater directory. I would guess it's because I had changed some of the settings.ini and .wgetrc files, and the 6 -> 7 upgrade preserved them. Unfortunately I did not think of that before testing 7 the first time.

Great work - this is the app I've been waiting for since John's first update

Updater today only seems to find one of my installed files, ClamWin (and is asking me to update to an older version. (.93 to .92)

None of my other apps:
Firefox
OpenOffice
Notepad++
PokerTH
Miranda
Mines
Soduku
Sunbird
VLC_Viewer
WinDirStat

have any Versions in the (local:) section. Of those not seen, Notepad++ is the only one which has the default install directory. (ClamWin also does)

If the apps is simply ignoring the others as they are up to date, it would be handy if it showed the Local Version anyway as at the moment, this is the only way to tell they are installed within the app.

Marko, I have seen you don't have any scripts for the Updater executable beyond the installer. Well, I would like to review the pt-PT translations before they land on a Beta (not grammar, but see if the context is right). So... could you add (even if unstable) versions of the updater to the svn so it is possible to test them?

And could someone provide info on how to download the files easily trough SVN to a SVN newbie?

You're doing a great Job on this. I haven't been testing it super extensively but I have bee using it to update all of my apps. It seems to work very well for me I haven't run into any problems. I do have two suggestions though. The first is the icon doesn't look very perfessional to me. A cleaner icon would be good. Another thing is the list is a little confusing. Currently the menu options are: AppName, New Version #, (Local) (what does local mean?). What I would like to see is AppName, Old Version => New Version. Also if I don't have the app installed but I check the box will it install the app??

Database error
I:/PortableApps/PortableAppsUpdater/Data/Updater.ini not found! 1033

Uhh, macro? If you update your program, make a post so the topic is moved to the top

No what now?

I get this message every time since i did a fresh install

4 Things:

#1
OK so i do know what it means, but i disagree.

If you dont tick the 'Only Installed' then this becomes a great way to install new apps without having to go to the website. It is also a good way to find out what version of apps are installed without starting them all up manually.

In my humble opinion, the message should be a little more friendly and should still be an option (or at least an option depending on your settings) EG:

No Updates Required
[Continue] [Exit]

What does everyone else think?

#2
I have ticked the Show options Dialogue, but this message box and its resulting closure is stopping me from seeing it, its there in the background but disappears with the message box.

#3
It asks me what language i want to use EVERY time i start the app. I suspect this is due to the choice not being written to file as the app doesnt fully start (see #1)

#4
The options tend to be a bit daunting, the average user may not know what database your on about much less where they should put it. (Maybe "if blank" ../portableappsupdater/data)

Also at the bottom are several options to show or not to show certain dialogue boxes. Not all of there names make it obvious what their functions are... Would expand but cant get back to the options window at the moment (see #3)

Apart from not being currently Useable - Love the app

The new Updater looks great. It turns out the pt-PT language is Ok. I like the option to update only new apps from the beginning.

Keep on with great job, is all that I have to say.

Alpha 8 is SWEET Marko. I really like proxy support, as well as a custom location for the downloaded packages and option for no delete, as I like keep them myself. I will be using this instead of manually downloading now.

If I see any bugs or anything, I'll be sure to let you know.

The interface should be as unobtrusive as possible and instead a user gets hit with an advanced options window as the first screen. The advanced options should all be hidden by default.

I'd actually recommend having it as a page after welcome. When clicking next from Welcome, it attempts to connect directly... if that fails, attempt to get the proxy from the registry. If that fails, head to the manual proxy page. The ability to hide welcome, etc shouldn't be on that config page... just in the INI is fine. Same with the advanced wget options, database location, etc. The interface should have options for 99% of users. The 1% of advanced users can use config files (just like about:config in Firefox, etc) rather than cluttering up the interface and confusing regular users.

FOOTNOTE: Sorry if the above sounded crotchety or personal... the updater is coming along very well Just the initial user experience needs some polish before we call it a beta.

Where is the Help.html file?

1. If you are going to embed the installers in the system data folder, (Which the average user may not know aqbout) or even if it's stored anywhere, I thing they may want it to be deleted by defalt. Especially if they run it on a public computer where they cant remove it.

2. Make a tool bar or check mark for advanced options. I dont want it at start up.

3. Database error
I:/PortableApps/PortableAppsUpdater/Data/updater.ini not found!