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QtOctave Portable 0.9.1 Development Test 1

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computerfreaker
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QtOctave Portable 0.9.1 Development Test 1

Application: QtOctave
Category: Education
Description: QtOctave is a front-end user interface for the Octave high-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations similar to Matlab.
It simplifies the use of Octave for user who are not familiar with the original, command line based version of Octave.

Download QtOctave Portable 0.9.1 Development Test 1 [54.3MB download / 183.9MB installed]

(MD5: 5d1f0edb6152a07bdb3631bfaeaa27d2)

Release Notes:

Version 0.9.1, Development Test 1 (2010-08-27):
Updated to the latest version of QtOctave
Updated to the latest version of the PortableApps.com Launcher
Updated to the latest version of the PortableApps.com Installer
Updated to the latest version of the PortableApps.com Format

Version 0.6.8, Development Test 1 (2010-04-08):
Initial release

computerfreaker
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Need some help upgrading

This is actually a pretty old version of QtOctave - 0.9.1 came out 2 days ago - but I can't figure out how to get the new build working. It keeps complaining that it can't find Octave, no matter where I put the Octave files.
Anybody know what's up or how to fix it?

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

Simeon
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did you try

setting the working directory?
If it cant find something, it smells very much like a working dir thing.

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computerfreaker
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Yep, I had to set the working

Yep, I had to set the working directory to get 0.6.8 working, and left that intact for 0.9.1. Although... you did give me an idea that's worth pursuing. I'll let you guys know how it works out.
Thanks!

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

OliverK
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Wrong application homepage,

Wrong application homepage, me thinks.

Path?

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computerfreaker
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The application homepage is

The application homepage is fixed now, thanks.

Not sure what you mean about path, unless you're asking about my 0.9.1 problem; I used Process Monitor to figure out where QtOctave was looking for Octave, then copied the necessary files and it now semi-works. All functions appear to be working correctly, but QtOctave keeps throwing a boatload of errors; I've added a comment to the 0.9.1 blog post, and hopefully the dev will get back to me soon on that.

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

OliverK
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Adding some information to

Adding some information to the system PATH was what I was talking about.

Thanks for fixing the app homepage

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computerfreaker
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Ah

Ah, I see. No, it doesn't look like QtOctave did anything with the system path; it just couldn't find Octave. Now, it can find Octave but a couple of other things are erroring out. The QtOctave-Win32 dev and I are talking about the problem, and hopefully we'll have it fixed soon.

Re: app homepage. Thanks for pointing that out!

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

aamiel
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2 little things

I was working on a portable octave quite a long time ago, then when I was going to post it here, freemat came out and I gave up on Octave.
Anyway, great job but you should take care of the .octaverc that a user may want to use (deal with it just like .octave_hist)

Second issue, is that octave remembers its packages with an absolute path. To solve this, either find where octave remembers this path and update it, or whatever needs doing. Or put "pkg rebuild" in App\QtOctave\Octave\share\octave\site\m\startup\octaverc everytime you detect the drive letter has changed.
This is what I would try but I don't know if this will work as it is the reason I didn't release octave here in the first place

Good luck and keep up the good work

computerfreaker
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Thanks for the feedback! I

Thanks for the feedback!

I wasn't aware of any .octaverc file; is it in the same folder (%USERPROFILE%) as .octave_hist?

I also didn't know that Octave stored absolute paths; I'll just stick "pkg rebuild" in octaverc, since that's probably the cleanest (and most flexible) way of doing things.

I don't think those problems are enough to qualify for a new dev test, though, since the installer's pretty big (>19 MB); I'll wait until I get 0.9.1 working, and add the fixes then.

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

aamiel
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details

The .octaverc is not generated by octave but a user may want to have it to run his own script at startup. This is user customisation. To keep it portable is may be good to deal with this file as well just like you do with .octave_hist (it is in the same directory). See there.

For the packages, as rebuilding the database can be slow on slow hardware, ideally you should only do it when the drive has changed by editing the share/octave/site/m/startup/octaverc file. If you can't, just do it everytime by keeping 'pkg rebuild' in the octaverc file.

I am not very proficient with octave so maybe some other people may spot something wrong...

aamiel
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Packages paths are stored there

\QtOctavePortable\App\QtOctave\Octave\share\octave\octave_packages

So I guess the launcher.ini should be something along the lines of:

[Launch]
AppName=QtOctave
ProgramExecutable=QtOctave\qtoctave.exe
CleanTemp=true
WorkingDirectory=%PAL:AppDir%\QtOctave
WaitForEXE=qtoctave.exe
WaitForEXE1=octave.exe

[FileWrite1]
Type=Replace
File=%PAL:AppDir%\QtOctave\Octave\share\octave\octave_packages
Find=%PAL:LastDrive%
Replace=%PAL:Drive%

[FilesMove]
settings\.octave_hist=%USERPROFILE%
settings\.octaverc=%USERPROFILE%

[DirectoriesMove]
settings\qtoctave=%USERPROFILE%\.qtoctave

Although there is still the issue of having the right octave_packages file to start with. Maybe just recommend to run pkg rebuild on first run.

Chris Morgan
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Some issues

[Launch]:AppName should be avoided where possible (refer to the manual). Also when things are at their default values - like [Launch]:CleanTemp=true - they should be omitted. Also [Launch]:WaitForEXE=qtoctave.exe is a useless value which will never be read - only WaitForEXEN are read. And it's waited for anyway as the file name of ProgramExecutable.

A note about octave_packages, if it's drive letter updating you're concerned about you don't need to worry: on first run it won't have a drive letter and so it'll give the last drive letter the current drive letter and thus skip replacements on it. If that's not what you're worrying about, ignore me on that point Biggrin

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aamiel
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Thanks

Thanks for pointing the errors, I just took the launcher that was there and added a few lines, I didn't check it, and I am obviously not as familiar as you are with the launcher anyway.
The problem with octave_packages is that at the moment on first run it points to "C:\Archivos de programa\Octave\libexec\octave\packages\"
until you run pkg rebuild at which point it will point to the right place as an absolute path that needs updating when the drive letter changes.

Chris Morgan
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Format?

You may be able to fix this with a FileWriteN ConfigWrite. Could you please paste the contents of some of the file? I think you may be able to do something like this:

[FileWrite2]
Type=ConfigWrite
File=%PAL:AppDir%\QtOctave\Octave\share\octave\octave_packages
Entry="octave_packages = "
Value=%PAL:AppDir%\QtOctave\Octave\libexec\octave\packages

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computerfreaker
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hmm, looks like I neatly

hmm, looks like I neatly screwed that launcher INI file up. I'll fix that in the next DT. Thanks for pointing out those errors!

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

sawjew
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Thanks

I suggested QTOctave some time ago and I am glad someone is finally taking it up. I have been using a portable version of QTOctave 0.7.2 for quite a while now and it works well but it is not truly portable as it leaves configuration files in the user directory.

I would help with testing but I don't want to go back to 0.6.8. If you get 0.9.1 up and running I will gladly test it for you.

The other one that is worth looking at is Xoctave http://xoctave.webs.com/

I have been using this on my computer for a while and it appears to be very stable and a good MatLab clone.

Cheers, Steve.

computerfreaker
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Thanks for the feedback! I

Thanks for the feedback!

I tried getting 0.9.1 to cooperate awhile ago, but didn't have any luck with it. I don't have access to my usual dev machine now (I'm running off my USB stick and a clunky old computer), but I'm willing to give it another shot anyway. I'll probably try it in a few days.

XOctave looks pretty darn good, and it's probably easier to work with than QtOctave as well. However, it looks inactive - there haven't been any releases since November 09, and there haven't been any forum posts for 3 weeks. Do you know if that's still alive?

Thanks again!

computerfreaker

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sawjew
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Xoctave

According to the forum on the Xoctave site he is going to have Xoctave 2.0 ready for release very soon. He said in a month or so about a month ago so it may be worth watching.

I really like some of the features of QTOctave but Xoctave seems to be a more tightly integrated app.

They both use Octave so the core functionality is the same.

Cheers, Steve.

computerfreaker
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OK, I'll keep an eye on

OK, I'll keep an eye on XOctave and see if anything happens. Until then, I'll keep working on QtOctave.
I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do to get 0.9.1 working; I just need to see if that will work. I'll see if I can find time for trying that today.

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

computerfreaker
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Updated, 2010-08-27

Updated, 2010-08-27; see above for details.

"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."

krogan
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sound when i open QtOctave

I keep getting a ping sound whenever I open QtOctave.

K.G.

tal
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is QtOctave is a dead project?

I can't access to old website.
I have seen another website of QtOctave
found also windows binary to Octave

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