considering the focus here is simplicity and lightweigth, I dont understand the concept behind putting a splash screen that starts up as a separate processes and remains there after the portable app has booted.
Can I bypass it and go straight to the main app without affecting the portable functionality?
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on BlueSky
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on Twitter
Heh, the launcer (AppNamePortable.exe) is not just to show a splash screen. The splash screen is for instant user feedback as some applications load slowly on slower USB drives. You can disabled them if you'd like by copying Other\Source\AppNamePortable.ini to the root directory and setting DisableSplashScreen to equal true. The launcher (AppNamePortable.exe) it what makes the application portable. It copyies files to and from the PC, or the program directory to the settings directory for data backup. It'll backup local registry settings and take care of the portable ones, etc.
Ok, I just figured since most of the apps are open source the portable functionality was edited into the application's suorce, hence my confusion about the splash screen. Just anecdotically, what would happen if I executed the actual application bypassing the "portable" exe?
Does this mean that if for example Miranda releases a new build, all I need is to download the new installation and place each file where it would replace MirandaPortable's files?
We don't modify the base applications at all, we simply write the [AppName]Portable.exe launchers to handle backing up local settings and putting portable settings in place, then restoring local settings on close.
In most cases something like that should work, but sometimes the base app goes through a significant upgrade and things change with how settings are handled. In those cases, the launcher has to be rewritten to handle the new configuration.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
You'de have a regular application stuck on your flash drive. It may or may not work, but settings would be left all over the PC.
Yeah, you can updated the App\Miranda binaries yourself, but sometimes it causes problems.
It depends on the app. Some apps are UPX compressed to save space. In Miranda's case, both the Unicode and ASCII versions of the app are included (just in case you end up on a Windows 9x machine). Some apps also have special configuration options set (Miranda, I believe) or config files added (FileZilla, for instance). You can usually figure these out if you know the apps well. For most users, it's recommended to just wait for the update. We make a point to get apps updated within about 2 days of when the base app is released unless there are major changes that require a public beta test (as we did for the updated GnuCash and Task Coach which are being released tomorrow).
Oh, and welcome to PortableApps.com
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!