PortableApps.com Platform 1.5.1 Release Candidate 2 (PA Installer hangs, Locale issues aka Task Coach crash, etc)

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March 11, 2009 - 2:49am

John T. Haller

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PortableApps.com Platform 1.5.1 Release Candidate 2 (PA Installer hangs, Locale issues aka Task Coach crash, etc)

I have posted a release candidate build of the 1.5.1 platform. The following issues are being addressed:

1. PortableApps.com App Installer hangs

First off, this should fix the issue where app installers hang on "Refreshing PortableApps.com Menu" on some systems. This is apparently due to some errant app on said systems which is accepting certain windows broadcast messages and not responding. So, we need to update both the platform and the installers to fix it. The 1.5.1 release causes the existing app installers not to refresh the menu (avoiding the issue) and will pause and wait if you run them from Options - Install a New App. New installers which fix the issue will autorefresh the menu and will let you continue using the menu if you run them from Options - Install a New App. The updated installer should properly refresh both 1.5 and 1.5.1 on all systems without hanging.

An example of the new installer to test (MD5: c7e32d01eb704c0d359f099ec44f12d4):
https://portableapps.com/temp/Cornice_Portable_0.6.1.2_INSTALLERTEST.paf...

With the source here:
https://portableapps.com/temp/PortableApps.comInstallerFIX.nsi

2. Locale Bug / Task Coach And Other App Crashes or Fail Language Switch

The second bug fixed is the locale bug where apps like Task Coach would crash if the language is set to certain languages that use 5 character codes in glibc. For example, if you set it to Chinese, it'll crash. This was due to locale files that incorrectly used zh_cn for chinese instead of zh_CN. Some apps also do no switch back to English due to the locale file containing en instead of en_US. All of these have been fixed in the 1.5.1 release and things should be working again.

3. Platform Auto-Closes And Cleans Up On Unsafe Eject (NEW IN RC2)

If you unsafely eject your drive, the platform will auto-close and swap your wallpaper back without getting stuck trying to write its config file.

4. German Backup Crash Fixed (NEW IN RC2)

The bundled backup utility would crash on backing up when in German.

5. Partial Read Only / Live Support (NEW IN RC2)

The Platform should work properly from a read only device with the exception of app rename and hiding.

6. No SysTray Support aka BartPE Support (NEW IN RC2)

The Platform will no longer crash if there is no systray on launch. When the menu is minimized, you can relaunch StartPortableApps.exe and it will reappear. This should allow use with BartPE. Can anyone test this?

7. Better Hover State, Scroll Full Page, Explorer Window Position (NEW IN RC2)

Hover states on PAF apps exclude the package version (more user friendly). The scroll buttons now scroll a full page (you can still scroll single apps with the arrow up and down keys on your keyboard). Explorer windows for Documents and other window positions are now remembered on a per-machine basis.

You can get 1.5.1 Release Candidate 2 here (MD5: c9b4ad761922f78489605a581fe88a63):
https://downloads.sourceforge.net/portableapps/PortableApps.com_Platform...

and the source here:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=151265&package_id...

Please test this out with both the new installer above and the old installer from recent apps both running them solo and through Options - Install a New App. Also please test the new installer on the existing 1.5 release.

I'd like to post the final of this tomorrow (Thursday), so please test and post your results ASAP, especially if you saw app installer hangs earlier.

Thanks
John

March 11, 2009 - 8:58am

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a short test

..not going off road:
winXp SP3 domain user account - en Platform

platform 1.5.0 + Cornice test installer install via options and the installer itself works -lang switch to german without complaint

platform 1.5.1 ditto

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisici elit, sed eiusmod tempor incidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis .." Friday Next -
"May The Schwartz be with You!" Yogurt the Yoda

March 11, 2009 - 11:56am

Steve Lamerton

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Works

fine, as did 1.5.

March 12, 2009 - 12:18am

domecc

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Task Coach is ok, but can't load Cornice_Portable_0.6.1.2

OS: WinXP SP3 Simple Chinese
PortableApps.com Platform 1.5.1 RC 1 Install: USB ROOT

Now, Task Coach 0.72.1 can be loaded from menu.
However, when I loaded Cornice_Portable_0.6.1.2, no matter what version of installer, there was only Splash screen, nothing happened.

March 12, 2009 - 12:19am

John T. Haller

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1.5.1 Release Candidate 2

Adds in fixes for Backup crashing when in German, unsafe eject handling, start of read-only use, possible BartPE compatibility and some fit and finish updates. I'd like to roll this out tomorrow morning NY time (about 9 hours from now), so please get on it and test it. If anyone has access to a physical Win98 install, please ensure that the unsafe eject handling doesn't crash (it may not work, but it shouldn't crash).

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

March 12, 2009 - 12:52am

Bruce Pascoe

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Hmm.

Seems to work great (it even appears to have fixed the systray issue I was experiencing with 1.5), except the full-page scroll is really confusing. Without a sliding animation, it's hard to find your bearings again after the jump...

Oh, and for some odd reason the menu is appearing with the bottom partially buried under the taskbar on my 1024x600 netbook display. Shouldn't the top be cut off in that case instead, not the bottom?

March 12, 2009 - 11:33am

(Reply to #6) #7

John T. Haller

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Check

I think it's assuming it's close to the top of the screen rather than the bottom. We'll be specifically dealing with the oddball 1024x600 resolution soon. We hadn't supported 600px heights before because 800x600 had greatly fallen out of favor (especially among techies who use portable apps) and nearly all publicly available PCs are 1024x768 or higher. 1024x600 has come as a bit of a surprise (still only 0.4% worldwide) and we'll have to make some exceptions for it (though some software makers very well may ignore it).

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

March 12, 2009 - 2:26pm

(Reply to #7) #8

Bruce Pascoe

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I just checked PortableAppsMenu.ini after upgrading to 1.5.1rc2, and for some reason the default vertical alignment was set to Top. I changed it to Bottom and now it's fine.

Also, any acknowledgement of the full-page scroll issue? A full-page jump without a scrolling animation is very difficult to follow.

March 12, 2009 - 2:53pm

(Reply to #8) #9

John T. Haller

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Try This

Try this quick build:
https://portableapps.com/temp/livetests/5/PortableAppsPlatform.exe

Put it in X:\PortableApps\PortableApps.com (you can rename the existing one to PortableAppsPlatformOld.exe)

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

March 12, 2009 - 3:06pm

(Reply to #9) #10

Bruce Pascoe

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That's better

The only complaint I have now is that the menu flickers too much. It can still be tough to follow the scroll at times due to the flicker (which is much more noticable on my netbook than my desktop), but it's still much better than an instant jump.

Any way you could do double-buffering on the menu to eliminate the flicker?

March 12, 2009 - 3:11pm

(Reply to #10) #11

John T. Haller

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Nope

I can't reproduce the flicker (at all... none) on my desktop, laptop or even over a remote desktop connection... nor could the 5 other people who tested on IRC... so it must be the absolutely anemic integrated graphics included in most netbooks. I think I'll ditch the animation for now and we'll expose it to a wider audience for the next release before stuffing it in. The scroll purposely only does 19 spots so that app that was on the bottom before you scrolled is now on the top as a point of reference. Kinda like how Firefox keeps a little bit of what was on the bottom on the top when you hit space to scroll the whole page.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

March 12, 2009 - 3:16pm

(Reply to #11) #12

Bruce Pascoe

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...

It still flickers with a better graphics card, just not as bad or as often. I noticed it from time to time before. But I agree the animation should wait until 2.0 You just can't do scroll animation without double-buffering; no matter how good the graphics card is.

March 12, 2009 - 3:18pm

(Reply to #12) #13

John T. Haller

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Nothing Complicated

It's actually nothing complicated. It just swaps each icon down one and tells the first icon to repaint which invalidates that section of the form. The rest of the menu shouldn't flicker. There's no option to do anything more advanced within an environment like Delphi, really.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

March 12, 2009 - 3:21pm

(Reply to #13) #14

Bruce Pascoe

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...

Hmm, no double-buffering option for forms like in .NET WinForms?

March 12, 2009 - 3:29pm

(Reply to #14) #15

John T. Haller

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Hah

What do you know... you learn something new every day. Delphi does have this ability. Try this build which double-buffers the form:
https://portableapps.com/temp/livetests/6/PortableAppsPlatform.exe

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

March 12, 2009 - 4:03pm

(Reply to #15) #16

Bruce Pascoe

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Perfect

Now if the vertical alignment would stop resetting to Top (I've changed it back to Bottom twice already, but the .ini setting keeps going back to Top every time I run the PAP) it'd be flawless!

March 12, 2009 - 6:24pm

(Reply to #16) #17

John T. Haller

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Fixed

That will be fixed in the final release. Your screen is so small that it would be at the top and the bottom and before it checked top first. I switched it to check bottom first.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

March 12, 2009 - 6:31pm

(Reply to #17) #18

Bruce Pascoe

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Okay, but

if I change the setting manually, it shouldn't keep resetting it based on the size of the screen I happen to be using at the time. It should respect the settings I chose so that if I then move to a computer that does have a higher resolution, my preferences are respected.

That was my issue--when I set it to Bottom in the INI, PAP kept changing the INI setting back. I don't care if it adjusts the position at runtime based on the screen resolution, I just don't want it then modifying the INI!

March 12, 2009 - 6:46pm

(Reply to #18) #19

John T. Haller

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Nope

Those aren't manual settings, those are used by the menu to remember where it was on the screen and are written out on each exit. There is no manual setting to set it where to set on launch for each launch.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

March 12, 2009 - 10:50pm

(Reply to #19) #20

Bruce Pascoe

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Oh, okay

I think some glitches might still have to be ironed out of it, though. Based on the current behavior, if someone moves the menu to the top and then runs it on a machine with low resolution, it will be reset to the bottom the next time they run it on the original machine... and like you said about my mouse-scroll suggestion, machine-specific settings shouldn't be allowed to influence the portable settings.

March 12, 2009 - 4:18pm

(Reply to #20) #21

José Pedro Arvela

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Works fine here

Running on WINE 1.1.16 the arrow scrolling runs greatly and smoothly. I see no flicker at all.

Blue is everything.

March 12, 2009 - 12:27pm

#22

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Works for me as it did before

funny thing:
using the setting hide desktopicons=true
hitting show desktop on quickstartbar
closing the platform -> desktop icons stay invisible
only solution: ejecting the drive, restarting the platform
icon reappear after closing the platform

I know this is no OMG serious bug, and I love a tidied desktop, so this setting should be kept, but I thought it should be mentioned

And I found a flickering platform, when starting Stellarium 10.1 in a smaller window, so you can see the platform, mouse over the platform leads to a flickerung platform...

March 12, 2009 - 10:45pm

#23

paulf

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Works Fine On My Machine

John:
Platform 1.51 C2 works smoothly on my computer {XP SP3}. I tried it with Cornice as well as Clam and OpenOffice.
No hangups on refreshing the icons, etc.
Paulf

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