7. Plugin Installers

In addition to standard installers, the PortableApps.com Installer can be used for plugin installers to add files to a portable app. This is accomplished via a file called plugininstaller.ini within the Other\Source directory. This file can contain all of the entries within the appinfo.ini and installer.ini files described above combined into a single file. One addition to the file is within the [Details] section where an entry called PluginName= is made. This should be the name of the plugin, for example: Adobe Flash for Firefox Portable. The [MainDirectories] removal options all default to false for plugin installers. If an EULA is needed for the plugin, instead of EULA.txt or EULA.rtf, the files PluginEULA.txt or PluginEULA.rtf should be used.

To create a plugin installer, create a directory layout similar to the portable app that the plugin is used with including the App, App\AppName, Data, Other, etc directories. Then place only the files to be included in the plugin installer in their appropriate location. The App\AppInfo directory should be empty as it is used only by the main app. Any custom code should be in a file called PortableApps.comInstallerPluginCustom.nsh. Finally, create a file plugininstaller.ini with the entries that would normally be in appinfo.ini and installer.ini above and compile as normal.

Additionally, a CommonFiles installer, which will install to X:\PortableApps\CommonFiles is possible by adding an entry PluginType=CommonFiles to the details section. This is for use with specific plugins that are used by multiple apps (Java, for example) as designated by PortableApps.com. In this case, The [MainDirectories] removal option for App is set to true by default and will remove the entire X:\PortableApps\CommonFiles\AppID directory (which is usually desired for CommonFiles plugins.