New: Gopherus (Feb 14, 2023), Platform 24.1 (Feb 13, 2023)
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question to all who know and use(d?) both: with versions 1.5 and the soon
upcoming 2.0 getting better and better, and more configurable, is there
still a point for MOD R34, but cosmetics?
are there any important points that have not been ''taken over''? pro/contra?
what is you opinion?
greetings - heinz -
I have ditched Mod R34 in favour of 1.5,
Just waiting now for 2.0.
Can't see any point in having the Mod anymore.
I'm staying with R34 until 2.0 comes out, mostly because I'm running from a 320 GB USB HD with a lot of programs.
The ability to group/classify applications by categories is valuable to me. That is expected to be in 2.0 (when released), so I'll just wait until then to switch.
It was in 2.0 with the old versioning (under which the current release was 1.2 and the upcoming release was 1.5). I am, however, working to get categories into 2.0 instead of waiting until the release after (though it won't be in the 2.0 test released this week). It depends on how much time my graphics designer has next week.
Thanks for the quick reply and and update. BTW, I am experimenting with 1.5 on a much smaller USB stick to understand the changes that have occurred to date.
tks, that answers some of my questions, and confirms what
i thought: wait till 2.0 for a 99% job compared to R34 MOD.
but john, forgive me:
>> ... was in 2.0 ... old versioning ... current release
>> was 1.2 ... upcoming release was 1.5 ... categories
>> into 2.0 instead ... until the release after ... won't
>> be in the 2.0 test released ...
surely well meant, but you totally lost me there!
greetings - heinz -
We changed the version numbering due to the number of features introduced. Much as Firefox 3.1 was just changed to 3.5.
1.1: This was the last release
1.2: This was what was going to be posted in time for CeBit without renaming/hiding but as I'd added them plus PAF, new theme engine, etc, I relabeled this as 1.5 and released it on Friday
1.5: This was to be the next release in one/two weeks with renaming/hiding and theme switching and app start on menu start/exit. This is now being called 2.0
2.0: This was to be the release with advanced theming, categories, more customizations, etc. This was now going to be called 2.1, 2.5 or 3.0 depending on what we add
But, I'm pushing to get categories and advanced theming and such in 2.0 instead. It'll push the final release back a week or two but I think makes more sense rather than a longer dev cycle on these features.
WOW, now understood.
>> Live with purpose
but live with PrtblApps? looks to me as if it is 24/7 for you.
hope you have some time for other valuable things too.
greetings - heinz -
Mozilla did that again?! I remember back when FF 1.5 was originally going to be 1.1. Funny thing is, I don't see that enough features were added in 1.5 to warrant the huge jump. 3.0 -> 3.5 is understandable, based on my usage of the beta, but 1.0 -> 1.5? I didn't get it then, and I still don't.
Is it me or is the version numbering getting a bit arbitrary. I would suggest just upping the version with a .1 for every new release and upping by 1.0 for the next generation. Bumping to a 0.5 0.2 or is purely 'psychological' and doesn't serve any other purpose than that.
Like Winamp once skipped a full version number from 3.0 to 5.0 or so because the version 3 was THAT bad. Again a Linux version skipped a few version numbers to catch up to version numbers of other releases. Whether or not many or few functions are added should have no other effect than just bumping the version numbering logically. It's just a version number that could suggest you do more releases than you actually did. Makes me wish I could have gotten v1.2, v1.3 and v1.4 last year or so 
About your announcement (if that can be called that) of a 'test' version 2.0 (lets say an alpha or beta for the sake of argument), I noticed before your test versions have had 'this feature is excluded yet intended for the release'. Meaning you removed (?) an feature that was coming. Is there any reason why you don't include it? Or why you don't release a 2.0 at some time and when the 'missing' feature is added release a 2.1?
You might think people don't like regular updated versions to the menu, but I personally always welcome new versions with added features (ie 2.1, 2.2, etc) and prefer it above waiting longer for a version that has everything included (ie 2.5), if you know what I mean.
Having said that I'm glad PortableApps menu is being improved. (Are the old MOD developers still alive?) And a final note, really... this week???
PS. I noticed in the latest release that after doing some things that switched resolution, the menu still appears somewhere on the screen and still not reset to the bottom right corner. Can the next version check before starting up the bottom right corner and re-set that value. I keep dragging the menu back several times each day and thought this would be very useful.
Thanks and keep up the great work!
Skipping to a .5 or a from a 1.1 to a 2.0 when a lot of features are added makes sense and is a basically accepted practice. Firefox is currently doing it with 3.5 (which was 3.1). Yes, it's psychological, but most versioning is.
Some features were stripped out because they either were not ready and we didn't have enough time to fully test them before the CeBit release deadline or the translations weren't ready and it wasn't really nice to have random things shown in English for someone who has their menu set to Farsi and doesn't know English.
As to the resizing of the screen issue, I'll see if we can hook and have Windows tell us it's going on and store the location before/after the screen size change. It would just be a one-size thing to account for games, really (since that's the primary issues). So, it could, say, notice when the resolution is about to change and temporarily store info (we were at 1280x1024 and the menu was at X=500 and Y=600) and then just let itself be moved by the switch and then on the next resolution change when it noticed it switched back to 1280x1024 if would reposition itself to where it was... I think that'd make sense.
Versioning isn't completely illogical. I mean I used CVS and SVN for a while and I always used neat increases for my releases. I don't want to have people feel they missed out on several versions or something like that. To me it just gives the feeling that people released more versions than they actually have, to make it look like a more matured product with many releases. Firefox skips a .5 and then others feel the need to jump on the bandon wagon, lol. What about 'Portable Apps 2010', that sounds cool too Of course it's just a number to communicate to the users what version they have versus what's available currently. Just wonder how far that can go? When you make another version with many new features, are we gonna get a v2.10 then v2.11 followed by a v2.25? Oh well, most important thing is a new version
I can understand some of the reasons of leaving out features, especially in the cebit version. That one might be rushed I think (as a test release was put out when cebit was already underway). We certainly don't want people seeing English where a translation would have been necessary. Most people know English though, as they are teached in school, but indeed it would not look very polished would it now.
About the resizing; I think just when you click the icon and the menu was located 'bottom right' it just does the calculation to bottom right. Personally I don't see the purpose of having the menu on an arbitrary location other than maybe the four corners and center of the screen. Anyway it's important to say the menu always minimizes to task bar after I used it and virtually never have the menu visible during switching of resolution. Going to a smaller resolution is always okay, but after the switch back. Well I'm glad you'll look into this issue, thanks.
It was a WHILE between 1.1 and the current release. And it did add some important features. But not quite enough to go to 2.0. So, 1.5 was a nice compromise. Normal people realize how it all works even if it does irk a few purist techies. They'll deal. I don't know of anyone who's thought "OMG I missed v 1.4... the horror".
As of 2.0 we'll be revving regularly with point releases. I need to post in the forums about the versioning of the Suite vs the Platform as they'll need to stay relatively consistent.
And many people DO want to be able to move the menu wherever they want. I'm not gonna remove that feature to make it easier for us to handle resolution switching for games. It doesn't matter whether the window is shown or not, Windows moves it all by itself, so we need to move it back.
John T. HallerIt was a WHILE between 1.1 and the current release.
If I may ask, why the sudden rush to update? It seems like PAM 1.1 came out some time before 2008, and then R34, following several point releases (e.g. R30) came out in February or March of 2008. Then, nearly a year later, we've got 1.2, 1.5, 1.5.2 (which, I realize, is mostly bug fixes), with an upcoming 2.0.
My first thought was that R34 has a ton of features that PAM 1.1 didn't and that PAP 1.5 and 2.0 are created to "catch up", but then I saw how loyal people are to the official menu. Staying official is more important to a lot of people than extra features, even when those features are really cool.
But I know R34 doesn't impress you much or even at all, or so it would seem. The kind of loyalty the forum regulars show for the official menu is understandable, and I've seen it before in other projects. As much as I appreciate it, I don't understand the rush to update the platform. Just out of curiosity.
We'd always intended to add many of the features that were in, for instance, the MOD menu like categories. We did want them better thought out, though (tied to the website categories by default as a good start point and not storing their settings inside the app directories). But things were rather distracted for a while mainly due to the business side of things.
Some of that has cleared up... and some of the deals we were working on have fallen through due to the economy... and others are springing up to take their place, so we're working to get in all the features that we'd always wanted to include, the ones others have suggested, and the ones that our hardware and software partners will need.
R34 has three main purposes as far as I can tell:
1) You can rename apps, so you can strip "Portable" from everything, for example.
2) You can hide apps, as an alternative to removing them, e.g. OpenOffice and its 5-7 icons.
3) You can make folders.
PAP 1.5 now does #1 and #2 and works great for people using a dozen or fewer portable apps. If you have more apps than the menu can hold without scrolling, folders are really cool.
After the PAP comes out which supports folders, it'll just be a matter of taste. If you switched to Firefox from Internet Explorer because tabs are cool, did you switch back when IE added tabs? Not a perfect analogy, but serves to illustrate the matter of taste.
Also it should be noted that there is a subtle hostility towards R34 by the PAP developers in some situations, so keep in mind that the former isn't supported or even well liked by some. It's like talking about Windows on a Linux forum. What you use is your choice but they don't want to hear it.
The only issue was with people recommending it to less experienced users without the caveats (that it's unofficial, has some known bugs, is not supported by PortableApps.com and upgrades to the newer PortableApps.com releases may not handle the MOD properly). Since the MOD has the PA.c name on it, many people assumed it was a real PA.c release when it was not. Some people wanted to recommend it without those clarifications and bristled at the idea that making them was warranted.
>> there is a subtle hostility towards R34 by the PAP developers
>> in some situations
well, never knew this. actually thought they were all pulling on
the very same string, at the end: promoting portable, free and open
source software.
sorry to hear i was wrong.
greetings - heinz -
Good point about branding; in modifying your menu they should have at least put their own name on it. And you were right, earlier (here? another topic?) when you said that it should have used its own directory. Now that I think on it, how hard would it have been for the installer to 1) make a copy of the PAP directory and append MOD or R34 or something, 2) mod that, and 3) point the .exe at the root dir to the mod dir? Then, R34 still gets established as the default menu, your menu gets left alone, and when the end user installs the next PAP version from PA.c, it updates PAP and sets itself as the default menu, and R34 shows up as a program on the official menu. Seems like that would have been a smarter way to go about it. On their part, I mean.
With respect, especially as the official PAP is getting some good updates, I will try to recommend the R34 menu less, except where the official menu just won't work (e.g. non-PAF apps where the main .exe is an extra level down, e.g. Unreal Engine 1 games), and I imagine these situations will become less and less as we approach PAP 2.0 and beyond. And when I do recommend the mod, I'll be sure to point out that it is unofficial and unsupported here.
Well, i've been using the R34 MOD for a long time, now and today i tested the official 1.5.2 menu.
So where are the main differences?
In R34 you have FOLDERS and an INTUITIVE "Options" menu.
When clicking on it, you can change everything directly.
In 1.5.2 i'm missing the "Add External Program" option.
You simply cannot add any external tools - .exe-files are not shown in the file-requester.
What's NOT working in R34 is the "Documents' button.
It won't open "Music, Video etc." - In 1.5.2 this works well.
Let's face it, 1.5.2 is on a good way, but right NOW R34 is by far better.
But that's just MY opinion. 
You can add any apps you want to the PortableApps.com Platform. You just have to place them in the right location. It's explained in the second paragraph here:
https://portableapps.com/support/portable_apps_suite#addingapps
John, both PAP1.5 and R34 (sorry for the shorthand) pick up any apps that conform to the standard 'executable in the top level of a folder next to the menu program's folder'; and that is the way it should be. But the R34 also has the ability to navigate to any executable, regardless of location, and add that to the menu. This can be helpful when you have a non-paf application that puts its executable in a 'bin' folder under its main folder. It is also handy if you don't have the technical skill to code a launcher to a not obvious location. I think the ability to add similar manual entries to the menu in addition to the automatic recognition would be a useful enhancement to an already powerful PAP.
I have Gawk (a programming language) and R (statistical package) on my portable drive that store their executables where PAP (and R34) don't pick it up automatically. Neither of these is likely to ever be popular enough to be PAF'ed; but they remain useful to me. I'd rather not have to use two menu programs when one should be sufficient (and I'd rather that one be PAP).
The ability to do that is also coming in 2.0. It will be discouraged, though, since almost none of the apps that you have to do that with are actually portable (they may 'just work' though).
Thank you.
But not everybody needs stealth portability.
Deus Ex is another example. Not only is it not open source, but it's not free. No way is PA.c going to officially support it. And that's fine. But the fact remains that it does work perfectly fine off a USB flash drive with a couple caveats (the more important of which could be solved with a launcher, though), but by your definition it "just works". And "just works" is fine for some people; put between having something "just work" and not having that thing at all, I see no harm in choosing the thing that "just works", as long as there's no illusion that the app isn't stealthy to PA.c standards.
And as always it's good and honorable that PA.c strives to a higher standard, and thank you for maintaining that, but at the same time that standard may be too high for some peoples' needs or the needs of applications that they need that "just work".
I've switched to PAP 1.5.2 for now, and while the scrolling doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would, what gets me is the (lack of) organization. I'm seeing a lot of apps staring me in the face that I almost never use. I have them on my drive because they're small, take up a negligible amount of space, and they serve an occasional purpose, but I'm so used to seeing four folders, and Firefox, and Notepad++. As USB sticks get bigger and bigger, and the bigger ones get cheaper (I just priced a 16GB Corsair Flash Voyager on Newegg for $35 shipped but with a $20 mail in rebate, and I would have bought it if I had the money) it becomes trivial to pack everything along, and as such, categories/folders is becoming a much more important feature to want, than when 512MB-1GB sticks were all the rage. But I do know that the feature is coming, so that's cool.
Small comment about the 'just works' thing. Although the user of that version doesn't care about cleaning up after itself, I would not want people on my PC running non-portable software from their drive.
Several reasons... They might mess up any locally installed version of the app on my PC, might leave their settings, temp files and whatnot on an undisclosed location on my PC and they possibly might change my PC's settings or registry, in best case polluting the registry ad worse case messing up my own settings and registry.
While the person running his non-portable app would be happy as it just runs fine, I would be less happy as there's no way of telling what was left behind and changed on my PC just by running these apps.
So I always suggest a carefully prepared launcher for any 'just runs' application to make sure it cleans up after itself.
I'm going to argue semantics to counter some misconceptions. Just to let you know that I'm speaking theoretically as we have to propose a few what-ifs to adequately debate something like this.
First, the assumption that the PA.c launchers are 100% stealthy. They are not. Play a DVD (DVD-Video, not files off a DVD-ROM) with VLC Portable and you'll find a 'dvdcss' folder left behind which neatly lists every DVD-Video it's played. So either way you have no way of knowing what was left behind (unless you take snapshots of your registry and analyze the differences).
Second, the assumption that the PA.c launchers and their apps won't mess up your computer anyway. VLC has a bug that nobody's been able to figure out for weeks where changing the image format (for screenshots) from PNG to JPG and/or changing the destination directory (which defaults to the local My Pictures folder BTW) causes a crash of the media player when attempting to take a screenshot.
Not knocking the apps here but to assume they're 100% stealthy and 100% free of errors where the non-PA.c portable variations are quite the opposite - even though that isn't exactly what you said but rather carrying it further - is illogical. If an app is well coded or poorly coded, portability and stealthiness aren't going to add or subtract much, they'll just make the process smoother.
Third, paranoia can be taken pretty far, and I would assume that an early stage of paranoia-induced PC securing would be to lock out USB flash drives. You can lock down a computer pretty good now. Restrict it to only use certain applications and nothing else, restrict network traffic only to approved computers and Web sites (e.g. the company/school intranet), etc., and allowing flash drives at all, and portable apps from here or otherwise signifies more trust than is possibly capable of someone worried about the difference in registry and local disk/temp file writing between a portable app and a PA.c portable app.
It can really go both ways, and JTH's inferred advisement to stick with the PA.c portable apps and their stealthy launchers is well-meant, especially for newbies, hence the hypothetical nature of my post.
I must interject at this point to clarify one thing.
I have No idea what you mean by "stealthy"
Portableapps are Not, Never have been, and don't claim to "Stealthy"
I am using the word "stealthy" in the sense that it has been used at this site for a couple of years. From reading your posts I have No idea what your definition of Stealthy is?
We claim that personal data is not left behind, and if you have found a bug in that, that is fine. But even if Absolutely No Personal data was Ever left behind at Anytime, under Any circumstances, we would Not claim to be "stealthy".
So I would have to ask you at this point what does "Stealthy" mean to You?, and where did we ever say that that is what it means to us?
By the definition we would use, You would Never even know that PortableApps had Ever been run on your machine, Period.
Please, understand, I am not being nickpicky, THIS IS what STEALTH means to many people, and we do not and have never claim that our apps are stealth, nor do we intend to.
Sorry, but you did want to argue "Semantics and misconceptions" and your misconceptions on Stealth do confuse the matter,
Respectfully submitted,
Tim
I only use the term 'stealthy' in prior context, e.g. that it's more portable than an app that 'just works'. JTH's last post in this thread for example, says that apps with the launcher are 'more portable', in which case I swapped in 'stealthy'.
Portable is portable. If I can run it from its installation CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, it's portable. If I can run it from a USB flash drive, it's portable. Some would argue that that isn't entirely accurate and that PA.c apps are even more portable. I'm not judging the accuracy or lack thereof of that statement as I am not a programmer; I merely intend to speak in context, and 'stealthy' makes much more sense than 'more portable'.
Is it even possible for an app to erase all traces of itself? Because I do know that all apps that run off my stick get registered in the following registry key, and this includes PA.c apps as well as apps advertised as portable (e.g. CCleaner) and apps I've put on my stick that 'just work':
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\MUICache
Sorry for the confusion. I just wanted a better term than 'more portable' since, if you ask me, all the apps on my USB drive are 'portable'.
I think..emphasis on Think... the standalone EXE app called CleanAfterMe could help clean this out. Doesn't makes Apps stealth I don't believe but helps to minimise footprints I believe.
I'm not talking about the registry entry that has the name of the last executable that ran on the PC. That's gone when I started another application on my PC.
I'm also not talking about an incidental crash. In that case the user will restart his application and after closing it will clean up after it self, and it might have done in the first place anyway as it's the launcher that cleans up, not the application in many cases.
Its not about paranoia but an attempt to keep local and 'portable' versions not interferer with the local settings and keeping registry and local files a bit clean. We all know that Windows with 'local' applications accumulates a lot of registry entries and files after a while.
With v1.5/2.0 - is there still a point for MOD R34 ?
yes, since official PAP 1.5.2 has
No, if development progress of PAP is kept on that high speed as within the last four weeks...
In the meantime default theme can be altered easily with even little knowledge of GIMP´s howto..
You made a good case for R34.
There's one argument left: R34 is available.
(I'm so tired about those discussions why it's better to wait some months instead of trying out this buggy, unsupported and dangerous Mod like 0,02% users did.)
Were't there a tonload of skins available for it too?
This was by far the most amusing thread I've ever read in the PA.c site:-P. I never thought that there was such strong feelings with respect to loyalty to PA.c and need of functionality.
Speaking from my experience however, I have been a user of PA.c for around 5 months, and around three of those were time spent with the R34. I switched to the R34 as soon as I discovered that it existed, solely due to its ability to categorize apps and its skinning capabilities.
I loved the R34, but the sense of trust and loyalty that PA.c has maintained was lacking.
As soon as the 1.2/1.5 menu was released, I switched; although I was not able to categorize apps. (I think I lost where I was going with this; whats my point again?)........
...Oh yes, although the main purpose of using the PAP was functionality, and despite the lack of features in the 1.2/1.5 when compared to the R34, PA.c managed to lure me back into their hands; and again its the trust and loyalty they have managed to build up in their users.
But if it was not for this trust, I would unquestionably return to the R34 until PA.c managed to completely substitute the R34 menu. As a result, I recommend using the R34 menu until the 2.0 PAP is released.
However, forum policy requires me to mention:
The R34 menu is an unofficial (not to mention slightly buggy) fork of the PortableApps.com menu and is unsupported by PA.c
Regards,
SilentWalker.
to my impression there wasn´t a lack of loyalty to official PA.c Site or the menu.
A lot like me never gave up PAP, but since PAM development took a long break (there were a bunch things to do, finally all by John Haller..thanks for all your efforts, John) a lot of R34 users took the fork to try out a lot of functions (on the long way a lot of them are just gimmicks ...See the in my eyes ridiculous discussion on changing the tray icon -> but for companies building a licensed package of PAP as giveaway or somewhat "office drive", of course with their own icon.. ) - we merely felt as cousins to the PA.c official family, always ready to contribute. And the main features remaining to be build into PAP are listed above. I never felt hostility against the mods... and there´s a lot more here than just an obstinate debate on which platform should start the apps..
Recommending R34 to newcomers ? I (hope)believe its time will be over soon..-though I´m used to my own and some of Mr.Elchbaus lovely themes... Today I switch to and fro and hope that the next release will come soon...but you know: it´s done when it´s done..;)
Most impressive to me is the fact, that there´s a great community withstanding the common opensource disease (-> building 2.365.257 forks and finally burying the project); even fork users/developpers seem to hope that official PAP could include all essential functions and forks are just a contribution to PA.c development..
And i forgot to mention, a many thanks John and everyone else who has worked so hard to make PA.c what it is today.
We know that everyone here, me for one, can be impatient sometimes, but that's human nature. They're happy when they get what they want. Well we're getting what we want....just not right now. As one person's sig. says, "The wheels of John grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small."
So great work guys, keep it up.
A PA.c fanatic,
SilentWalker.
I still don't understand the second half of that quote, "but they grind exceedingly small"... I mean, I know it's a metaphor, but I can't seem to figure out what it's supposed to mean.
It is paraphrase of an ancient saying.
It refers to the grinding wheel of a miller.
When you want to grind exceptionally fine flour the grinding wheel turns slower and for a longer period of time. If you allow the wheel to turn faster for a shorter period of time you get very course flour.
I originally heard the quote in reference to God;
The wheels of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small
It might take time before God judges you, but when he does, the smallest details will be revealed.
Other good concepts are:
Good things come to those who wait.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Measure twice, cut once.
Time will out.
Tim
Since we've started a list of proverbs:
If you have integrity, nothing else counts.
If you don't have integrity, nothing else counts.
Don't forget:
"No matter where you go, there you are"
and
"Its a small world but I'd hate to have to paint it"
There are at least two major features that MOD54 has that are missing. I cannot use PA without the categories feature. I really thought that would be in this release. I also make use of MOD54's launch on startup feature.
Paul
MOD54 that's a new one on me.
No, not being sarcastic, just a brain fart
Paul
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