I wanted to take a minute and apologize for the delays in the releases of the platform, the current official app updates and the delay in approving apps for 'official' status done by current moderators (Ryan, in particular) and other developers.
I've been waiting on certain financial and legal things to be cleared up behind the scenes in order to move the platform forward that haven't been resolved yet. And I'd been delaying app releases until those were completed and the multilingual enhancements I'd been working on were done. Each week it seemed like just another week and things would be completed, so I'd wait to avoid making users redownload and causing confusion in the released versions.
Unfortunately, days turned into weeks turned into months and now we have a platform that needs an update, official apps that are in need of an update, and additional apps that have been languishing in the forums despite being ready to go for a widescale public release.
I take full responsibility as the over-optimism in the completion of the legal and financial hurdles was my own fault, as was making the decision to delay certain releases and finalizing the PortableApps.com Format until they were done.
So, beginning Monday, I'll be posting updates to the existing official apps based on the current spec and posting the initial version of the PAF compliance list. We'll also be officially releasing many of the apps that have been sitting in the forums awaiting release for FAR too long. I'll also post a State of the Website update on Monday so that we're all on the same page in terms of what is happening and announcing at least one more forum moderator to help with the influx of new users and support questions.
Again, my humble apologies and, if we even start to go down this road again after fixing it this time, please harass me as soon as you notice it.
Kinda Regards,
John
PS - As there are many apps in many locations, please post a link to any "Beta" or "Development Test" releases in the forums that we should be including in this catch-up week of releases.
PPS - For any developers that would like to get their apps ready for an official release:
- Make a new release called "Development Test 1" (or appropriate number)
- Add in the Development Test Splash Screen which I just updated for development use
- Follow the current PortableApps.com Format spec 0.9.8 (as used in the latest Firefox)
- Use the current PortableApps.com installer 0.9.9.0 as used in the latest KompoZer Portable (the Mozilla apps are different) being sure to only alter code within the ";=== BEGIN: PRE-INSTALL CODE" style comments
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Great to here John.
I will update Task Coach, the author's added in a switch to keep the settings in the Data directory. It's been fine in beta, so I'll see how this release goes, and it would be nice to have that released if possible.
I posted some quick guidelines in the main post that you can follow to ensure it's up to date and release ready.
You can post the file to Ryan's site or anywhere and let Ryan know. He has release tech privs on the PortableApps.com SourceForge project. It can be posted on there before public announcement in the forums. Post it this weekend and we'll be sure to get enough testers to release it this week.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thanks very much John.
Yep, I've kept update to date on the paf and the small changes in the launcher.
I just made a small change to the Dev Test splash and the recommended installer base (KompoZer since it's much simpler than the Mozilla ones which use a license).
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
None of my apps are ready for primetime as I was waiting on the new scripts before I release. I've played around with the new installer script and my customization of it failed miserably (some error that I can't figure out yet since NSIS is failing on a line that is commented out. WTF?) Anywho, I'll get it sorted and let you know when my apps are good-2-go.
Ryan: I came close to asking your help with sorting out the error, but then I got pissed and deleted the whole thing. I'll give it another try this weekend and if I get stuck again, I'll give ya a shout.
I'm a little older than the general populous here so I was only slightly frustrated at the delay, but I have other things to distract me so I didn't really mind. I know the devs are only frustrated because they truly want to help people and have progress on PA.com to make PortableApps bigger, stronger, better.
{Group hug!}
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
Feel free to contact me on any of the following addresses:
rmccue@jabber.org.au (Jabber only)
[my name (starts with Ryan, ends with McCue), all lowercase]@cubegames.net (Email only)
cubegames[ta]gmail[tod]com (Jabber and (I believe) AIM only; email is acceptable, but my other email will get a faster response)
ryanmccue10@hotmail.com (MSN only)
(Side note @ John: Be fun to talk over IM, get my drift?)
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
that something is moving.
I understood that things werent going the way you wanted them to and I undrstand your reasons for acting the way you did but a year is a long time...
Its good to have clear rules about the paf specs as lots of people are asking and its hard to post something if the only thing you can say is "we're waiting too but you could check the latest launchers...". Now we can just quote you or lionk to this post :).
Maybe I even use this oportunity to get some games released for Aciago (and for all the other portable ego-shooters)
And we can start rumouring about the new mods identity...!
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
a lot Simeon...
Glad to read it...
[Double post deleted by moderator SL]
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report
This is outstanding. Thank you so much! Gotta love a good community, eh?
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." - Rick Cook
Great news. Thanks a lot!
cowsay Moo
cowthink 'Dude, why are you staring at me.'
sounds good. Now maybe Ryan will be happy he'll respond to my emails!
Great news John but you shouldn't have to apologize to everyone. This is open source software! Most people (well... at least I do) understand that you are not getting payed to do this. You have to also have a job in order to support yourself. So that takes up a lot of your time. And you are gracious enough to spend most (if not all) of the rest of your time developing these very high quality applications for everyone!
Thank you for all you hard work John,
Bensawsome
iLike Macs, iPwn, However you put it... Apple is better ^_^
"Claiming that your operating system is the best in the world because more people use it is like saying McDonalds makes the best food in the world..."
the legal issues are not all your fault and everyone here at PortableApps.com know that you are doing your best to bring us the best apps possible for our computers. I think that you are ding a great job, especially beause you are doing all this for the open source community, not for profit.
Great Job and keep up the good work!
Thanks again!
P.S. If you need an extra Moderator I am available, Scout's Honor
would like to make a proposal for a new blog on the site called 'Upcoming', with write access for all of the devs, so that people can see what is in the pipeline. By this I mean that developers would post about upcoming apps and updates for apps there before they were released, so for example Ryan might post that he was going to try and portablise Codelite and people could leave feedback and duplicate effort would be avoided. It would also be a place for me to post updates about Toucan, for example, and John to post updates about the platform. So what do you guys think?
P.S. Are there any other people with release tech privilages as you and Ryan seem to be pretty busy at the moment and I would love to get a new Toucan pre-release out?
a lot people would appreciate that.
We already have the list over at Ryans site but its better to have it here.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
If that blog ever exists, I'd like to see it reside at the link in the devtest splash or point to the blog page from that URL because right now you get a 404 error. You just KNOW some n00b is going to try to browse that URL sometime in the future (another n00b besides me that is...
)
That said, I'd like to see http://PortableApps.com/DevelopmentTest point to something that will give the user a clue of some sort.
EDIT: The URL above points to something now. Yay!
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
How about a place where people can list the status of things they are working on. A place where John could say "Here's what's on my plate, and you can see that revising the platform is five or six slots down. Can't do much until I finish the top few, and they're taking longer than expected. Current ETA four weeks." Or you (Steve) could say "The latest version of Toucan is in development, if you'd like to help with testing go [here]." Or whatever.
We could name the blog "It's done when it's done."
MC
like the sound of that a lot, especially the name!
Then we won't have to worry about all unknowingly doing the same applications at once, cause that's just stupid.
predict that on Tuesday, your legal stuff will be sorted out, causing the confusion you were trying to avoid
__
chris
It is not your audience's responsibility to puzzle out what you intended to say; it is your responsibility to express yourself so clearly that no one with a modicum of intelligence and good will could possibly mistake your meaning.
No need to apologize, your phrase of "it will be done when it's done" can also be used as "what can be done will be done". There's really no need to apologize for what you can't do. We (PA.com members) are here for you and not the other way around. But anyways, glad to hear all this great news. Thanks.
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." -- Robert Frost
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: baby ain't mine." -- Adam Holguin
John,
You really scared us back in October (I think), when there were no more updates for a month or so. But it was great that you came back on and let us know it was alright. Roadmaps in software projects change unexpectedly all the time, so I empathize with your situation.
Don't worry though, we're still all waiting in anticipation for the big release of the new platform and apps. Keep up the good work, the portable apps platform has come a long way and survived the long haitus of updates!
/sylikc
Glad to hear that there are changes on the way. I'm looking forward to all the updates. Above you asked for links to apps already in beta that should be released/updated.
InfraRecorder
WinMerge
i know Ryan also did Rocks'n'Diamonds portable. I made an enhanced icon for it because the largest I found online was 48x and just looks crappy in splash screens. This image should look identical to the original but it is 256x instead and can easily be shrunk for the splash screen.
http://www.nascent-project.org/zachhudock/images/images/my_images/rocksn...
All of Ryan's other apps.
Patrick's are looking good, but all were just recently updated, but plan to look at those soon.
Thanks for all the hard work.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
... for this statement and all the energy, time and money You've invested to PortableApps.com.
If the specs and the other stuff will be online I'll be happy to offer some more tools and Apps for PortableApps.com.
Regards
Marko
Paid for Software more or less?
What You need is OSS!
Thanks for the update!
GnuCash Portable should be ready to go. It's using the specified appinfo & installer versions. If at some point you need a scalable graphic for the splash you can grab it from here.
formerly rayven01
FretsOnFirePortable is ready to go all that i need is a splash screen.
Please search before posting. ~Thanks
John, you said that we should
Use the current PortableApps.com installer 0.9.9.0 as used in the latest KompoZer Portable (the Mozilla apps are different) being sure to only alter code within the ";=== BEGIN: PRE-INSTALL CODE" style commentsBut I have to alter the === BEGIN: BASIC INFORMATION too. Otherwise the name of the program ain't right
And then I have to remove the ;=== BEGIN: PRE-INSTALL CODE parts so it doesn't delete Kompozers files.
Is that right?
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Are you a mod now? (your name changed)
EDIT: Nevermind, I saw the other post. Good job!
Yes he is but that doesn't allow him to make a name change that there was curtesy of JTH
your friendly neighbourhood moderator Zach Thibeau
I said those style comments. There's a begin and end on em.
Basically, that's what'll be edited. The other stuff... the meat of the PortableApps.com Installer, stays untouched. In a later release, you won't need to code or use NSIS at all unless you have PRE/POST install code.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I know they have an end, I was just too lazy.
And thanks for the clarification. Looks like I misinterpreted the "style". Maybe I should start attending English courses again...
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
If everything is up to date, what will I have to look forward to??