I'm an enthusiastic user of PortableApps and I'm trying to get a better understanding, in simple terms, of how the system works. The "What is a portable app?" page appears self-explanatory for a single app program but it's only after reading bits and pieces of various threads that I get the impression that personal data may be left behind if a PortableApp is not used within the integrated PortableApps menu. If I separately run a PA.exe file without using the menu the program works OK so I'd be grateful if someone would be able to explain in simple terms what the menu does other than acting as a launcher.
New: Kanri (Oct 9, '24), Platform 29.5.3 (Jun 27, '24)
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Each portable app has a launcher that sets things up to make the app itself portable. The launcher takes care of the housekeeping that isn't seen but gets left on the host computer by the app.
The menu is really just a list of the program launchers you have, and lets you click on one. So I guess you could say that it makes it easy to launch the launchers.
If you are so inclined, you could ignore the menu and just use a explorer replacement to go into your device and manually click on the program launcher that you want to run.
That's sort of like eliminating ALL of the icons on your Windows desktop and using Windows Explorer to find your programs so you can run them - every time - with no shortcuts to make it easy.
Jim
neutron1132 (at) usa (dot) com
that things are left behind if the Application is used without the menu?
Cause its not true.
The menu just makes it easier to launch the Application, has shortcuts to the documents/music/pictures folders on your drive and has a neat backup program built in. But even the backup program works without the menu so they really are independent.
There will be a stronger integration of Application and Menu with the ext version but all the Applications will continue to work without the menu.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Thanks for the information. It has clarified some of my misunderstandings. I had mistakenly thought that the PortableApps system was somewhat rigid because it appeared to me from the website that everything may be fully integrated within the PA Platform and menu in the same way as, for example, some MS applications are integrated into the Windows setup. For my use, it's nice to know that it appears there is the flexibility, for example, to temporarily copy one of my installed PA's onto another drive and run it from the exe file without having to install the PA platform on the other drive first.
I don't have too much confidence in my knowledge of this sort of stuff so just to clarify a bit more. If the PA menu is a launcher of exe files then I assume if I install the menu and PortableApps on my C drive I could use the menu to run any other app, whether portable or not, if I place the app's exe in a folder in the PA directory and click 'refresh apps' or does this only work for apps which are portable?
The Menu will pick up every executable which is in a folder inside the PortableApps folder.
Regarding the copying around:
For some portable Applicationss it is important, that the path to the Application doesn't change except the drive letter. Some Apps like Notepad++ have an algorithm which adjusts the drive letter to the new one. So if you are on one PC and your USB drive is named "G", you open a file on your drive with Notepad++ and then move to another PC where your USB drive has the letter "E", your "recently used files"-list gets updated so you can still access the file on your drive via the recently used files-menu.
This means that if the absolute path to an Application changes, some settings might not work any more because only the drive letter gets updated and not the whole path.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate