I run PortableApps from my harddrive, and for various reasons, the suite is installed to a deeper path, not a root directory.
This leads to a small annoyance: Every time I run a PA installer, it's unable to locate my PA root. The installer then suggests simply (e.g.) "\Notepad++" as the installation directory, which won't work. I need to edit the path every time.
I propose that the installer is modified to also support an environment variable for such a use case. In my case, I would set this as, e.g.
PORTABLEAPPS=C:\cygwin\usr\local\bin
at the system level.
I'm aware that I can fix it with e.g. "subst p: C:\cygwin\usr\local\bin", but I really dislike littering my explorer windows with drive letters which I hardly use.
Anyway, I realise my use case is rare, but I thought I'd bring it up.
Cheers,
Robert
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You can specify the path. See this post for more info.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
The only location "technically supported" location is the root directory for installs of the Platform. Longer directory paths can cause issues for some apps like OpenOffice.org. I debated adding an environment variable to the already-running platform, but that would cause issues with people running multiple instances (which many people do). You can have the path automatically passed by running the installers from the menu (Options - Install a New App) and this will tell it where the platform is. But the Installer's auto-detect only detects root installs right now. There will be another option in the next release that makes it easier to install from non-standard paths. More details will be posted when its ready.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thanks for that!
I haven't noticed any issues with longer paths (even OOO), but will keep it in mind.
I hadn't considered the multi-instance use case - clearly a valid point. However, I maintain that the environment variable should just be an optional convenience. If a user sees no need for it, the current scheme is just fine. If users (like me) use it, and try multi-instancing, we'd be on our own.