Greetings all. I wanted to post a quick and dirty status update since it's been a while since there have been any official updates on some of the goings-on behind the scenes at PortableApps.com.
Hardware Partnerships
Currently, a majority of the work behind the scenes has been towards working with prospective USB hardware partners. There are a few reasons for this. First off, to ensure that another proprietary software platform doesn't become a major player in the portable software space. We don't want to have to deal with another U3-style situation happening. Second is to ensure the ongoing financial happiness of PortableApps.com. As most regulars know, the site has been mostly funded out-of-pocket where donations and ad revenues haven't quite paid the bills for hosting. And all legal bills have been out-of-pocket as well. But that won't be the situation for too much longer.
Commercial Software
On a related note, we've been working on finishing up the legalese on having PortableApps.com Format open to commercial software. This won't affect the open source nature of the platform, format, installer, etc at all, it's just to ensure that commercial software has a place in our portable world. Without this, commercial publishers would have no choice but to either package things in their own proprietary format with their own installer or zip file and a unique directory and file layout (bad) or go to a proprietary platform like U3 that supports commercial software (worse). So, we've got a way for commercial software to work in PortableApps.com Format and to make it self-funding from a legal and technical standpoint, so it doesn't need to take anything away from our open source platform or apps.
Release Team 2: This Time It's For Reals
Now that some time has past, I'd like to reform the release team. I know the first round didn't really get off the ground partially due to disorganization. But it was also due to me not circling back and finishing up the structure and direction ahead of time. So, this time, I'd like to ensure that we start things off right. The goal of the release team will be to usher apps from development test status to pre-release status and then on to official release status. All current developers and active users who have contributed in the forums for at least 6 months are eligible. The team itself will elect a team head. A commitment of at least 6 months is needed and of reviewing at least 1 app per week, though the team itself will be able to select their full guidelines and adjust this as necessary.
PortableApps.com Launcher (and Custom Launchers)
As many developers know, the PortableApps.com Launcher is nearing completion for official use with apps and Chris Morgan has been putting a lot of work into it. The PA.c Launcher is a new-style INI-configured launcher that makes portablizing most apps a breeze. Most official PA.c releases, including nearly all apps I maintain, will be using this new launcher.
Previously, I'd made statements that custom launchers would no longer be permitted, as a result of this new launcher. I am, however, reconsidering that stance based on feedback from some of our own developers. That main reason for using the PA.c Launcher is to simplify development, testing and updating of apps. Many times, a dev will do a custom launcher for an app and say they will support it for a given length of time. But, once officially released, they will not keep it up to date with format updates, launcher enhancements (optional ini entries, bug fixes, NSIS updates, plugin updates, etc) and the like, meaning that it is left to me or other staff to do it. Using the PA.c Launcher will make this process much easier.
Some developers, however, have stated that they like being able to do custom launchers and be able to work on code themselves as a learning experience. Ideally, these developers would be willing to come on board and hack on the PA.c Launcher itself as well as the installer, updater, platform, etc as they are added to the Mercurial repositories next month. But, even if they are not, I think it may make sense to let developers continue hacking on their own custom launchers as long as a few conditions are met. Namely, that they'd agree to update their portable app within a few days of a new release of the app itself. That they'd agree to include an up-to-date list of the portablizations made by their launcher within the readme.txt (registry entries, appdata, etc). That they'd agree to use the same portablization techniques (like storing backed-up registry keys and appdata entries in our upcoming standardized locations, store the drive letter and paths in standard INIs as we do with other apps, etc). And that they'd agree to do this for at least 6 months from release. This would be done with the understanding that if they were to be unable to support the app ongoing in the future, that we would probably switch it to a PA.c Launcher if we had to take it back over in-house.
I think this is a fair compromise and should help with some of the objections. This will make testing more of an issue for the testing team, since they will need to more-individually test custom launchers as opposed to the PA.c Launcher which will be getting more thorough testing throughout several apps. But I'd love to hear other opinions on it, both for and against, before making any final decisions.
2.0 Progress
2.0 progress is still coming along. New artwork for the installers and launchers has been completed. As has additional artwork for the updater. The final menu chrome and default themes should be completed by tomorrow evening. This should enable Beta 5 to drop shortly thereafter. Beta 5 is built in Delphi 2010, which allows us to use full Unicode for all localizations, though it will no longer work under Windows 95/98/Me. (An announcement to that effect is being posted tomorrow for the few users still using it)
As part of the 2.0 release, we'll be revving the PA.c Format and Installer as well. The installer is being updated to better work with the platform's built-in updater. The format is receiving some minor tweaks along the same lines as well as more details on the PA.c Launcher. A good percentage of our apps have already been rebuilt offline in preparation for this and the rest will be completed and posted shortly.
This is also the reason for the slowdown in releases and the temporary hold on accepting new apps into the directory (like Eclipse, Private Browsing, XN Resource Editor, Revo Uninstaller, Scribus, Database Browser, etc, etc). Fear not, as the floodgates will soon be opening.
Website 2.0
As with everything else, the website is getting an update for 2.0. Part of this will be graphical (with an updated theme to match thew 2.0 menu). Part of this will be content (new homepage that better summarizes, addition of How-Tos, etc). Part of this will be functional (new content translation system making site-wide translations much easier and alleviating the need to update each language page of a given app individually when there has been a new version released). I'm still debating between de.portableapps.com and portableapps.com/de style URLs, though.
Email Overload
As a couple of developers and publishers have pointed out, I'm currently a bit overloaded email-wise. If you, as a developer, have dropped me a note in the last several months and haven't received a reply, I am sorry for the slowness. For developers who have written without receiving a reply, if you need a response sooner rather than later, please re-send your email with the word '[Developer]' in the subject and I will respond within a day or two. If you don't, please wait a bit longer and I'll get to it within the coming weeks.
Some Personal Events
I've been a bit away from the forums, IRC and email over the past few months due to some family issues I've been attending to. Multiple family deaths, multiple family hospitalizations as well as the death of a beloved pet wound up consuming a large chunk of my time and energies. If I've been a bit off or failed to respond to an email or IM, please accept my apologies and know that it's been nothing personal, just that life can sometimes do that. I'm back full-time now and am throwing everything into 2.0 (platform, installer, format, site, etc) and moving forward. I'll be on IRC every day and watching the forums more closely, so if there's something you'd like to chat about, something you feel needs addressing or feel has been falling through the cracks, just let me know.
Next Steps
As mentioned, we'll be taking applications for the new release team. I'll post a forum thread for it tomorrow (well, later today). If someone else would like to take it upon themselves, feel free as well. The 2.0 updates to the installer and format will be posted in the coming days, as will the final 1.6.1 release of the platform/suite and the next beta of 2.0. Although some devs have gotten to see the previews of the new look and functionality, this will be the first general availability of many of these new bells and whistles and we're all looking forward to what you think.
Now, let's get back to changing the world, one USB drive at a time.
Kind Regards,
John
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this is great to hear John, looking forward to it all!
Edit for content:
I think this should be shorter, say 3 months. Given that we have such a large proportion of students here I think 6 months is a lot to ask for. A head is definitely a good plan though, having someone with the authority to push things through is I think needed in a team like this.
Seems fair to me, I think that custom developers would also have to be aware that because they are using a custom launcher their app will take longer to release and may be pushed down the queue in favour of the simpler to test standard apps.
I'll do this in an hour or two
I think If the release team head is someone with a really deep knowledge of PortableApps and the process, a 3 month minimum is enough for release team members.
And I think its great to hear that hardware/software partnerships are coming along well, but until I don't see a drive in the store I wont believe anything
I hope the page update to the new translation module is coming too.
Thanks for the Update John! Sounds great!
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
I agree with you guys about 3 months, I think that is fine for our purposes. Especially as you guys can take on additional members as needed.
The new translation system is nearly done. I'm just finalizing between the two URL formats (see updated main post: Website 2.0) and how to sync the URL aliases between languages properly.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
as for the URL format, I'd go with portableapps.com/de. I like it better than de.portableapps and I think its more common.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
I hope that Your plans will work in order to take some (financial) pressure from Your shoulders.
In the last days I've worked on the German pages on PortableApps.com. All pages will finished next week. If this works is done I'll try to update the new OpenOfficePortable launcher to the Pa.com Launcher.
And I'll be happy if the updater will be part of the next Beta
Paid for Software more or less?
What You need is OSS!
warst das also!
I always wondered who did that.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
(You would have seen who if you looked at the IRC logs; Marko mentioned it to me some days ago.)
I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
... if You have some minutes for translation I'll send You a little list
Paid for Software more or less?
What You need is OSS!
but send it anyhow. Ill see what I can do.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Didn't know this already, but as I stated below, I translated already most of the specification. Is this needed? I could send you my translation.
"Der Klügere gibt nach, deshalb regieren Dumme die Welt."
please send it to Marko or to me.
Everything which is already done, we dont have to do it
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
I added info about the site update including the new translation system as well. And, yes, the updater is in the next beta
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Please use the one of the adresses types - de. or /de - with the easiest setup and/or way of intergration on Pa.com
I'll be happy with any solution in order to get the translation process a little bit smarter.
Paid for Software more or less?
What You need is OSS!
I feel quite strongly that we should use the PortableApps.com Launcher for everything with no exceptions for normal software - only custom applications like the PortableApps.com Launcher itself, the Installer, the AppCompactor and Toucan which don't need launchers would not use it. I've put the functionality into the launcher so that a developer can use the overall framework of the PortableApps.com Launcher and all its things, and put in custom code where it's needed. That way for normal things like moving files, command line arguments, registry handling and the like, we can avoid common (ridiculously common with our copy-and-paste structure) bugs. The PortableApps.com Launcher can then be tested more (in fact after 2.0 I'm planning on building in unit testing and component testing to try and find any more bugs there may be, and to avoid some of the issues which have happened before).
From a testing perspective; I am far more likely to test something using PAL than a launcher made entirely of custom NSIS code. It's far quicker, easier and more reliable. When a custom segment is used, it will be fairly easy to evaluate it; it'll just be a fairly short block of code which does what's needed, and it will tend to be fairly easy to analyse that, the nub of the extra functionality. There's no need then to make sure that the rest of the launcher is correct (and that's a cause of lots of our bugs, where INI values aren't read correctly and other similar issues where copy and paste has caused a mistake which hasn't been picked up, and is then often perpetuated in other applications). You only need to inspect the new code.
There's also the point of increased functionality; here we can get all new functionality in one place - for example, the recovery/cleaning from power failure or disk removal which we put in recently. I can't see other launchers doing that - for a single instance it's just too complex. You need the hooking code execution layout that I've done, just going through the program sequentially is too hard to manage effectively. Or Live mode. It's fairly difficult to do in individual applications, but once you've got the code laid out in chunks and once I've got it done, it's easy to use as it's there already.
If anyone can think of any situations where it really wouldn't be practical to use PAL with a custom segment, please tell me so that I can consider how to improve it so that it will be practical.
Once the transition to PAL is finished, I don't think I could really recommend an application with a custom launcher for release without very special circumstances. Using the one framework is just better in every way that I've been able to think of.
I'm not advocating using only the PortableApps.com Launcher because I made it (except insofar as I made it because of the following reason); I'm advocating it because I think that it's a better way for us to develop a solid, consistent product. It is the way forwards for rapid development of products that works.
I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
I would have the need for a custom segment when porting Steam Portable to PAL because I need to backup HKLM\somekeys\...\Steam App * , note the wildcard. But this is a very rare case I think, as your launcher covers really a lot of things.
BTW, are services back in the PAL, I didn't follow the threads the llast weeks.
"Der Klügere gibt nach, deshalb regieren Dumme die Welt."
Once I've got the PortableApps.com Launcher really solid and got testing, more complete documentation and so on into it, and once everyone's using the PortableApps.com Launcher for their applications (see my comment above :P), I'm planning on getting more back to testing portable applications (and developing my own once more). However, I'm also heading into working in Uni holidays and starting my own business (development of new, primarily web-based, products). I'll have to see how my time with PortableApps.com pans out. I'm definitely planning on staying on though.
I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.
“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1
I'm an untalented leech who contributes little here but a small donation, but I wanted to both thank you (both thou, JTH, and all the rest of you) for what you do. Often as users we forget that people have lives to live, and demands on them more pressing than our wishes. As a stranger, I also hope that it is not presumptuous to offer John my condolences and support for the difficult times he has been going through.
On another level, it is exciting to see the future of PortableApps.com, and I look forward to playing with all the new toys!
First, we take Manhattan....
I am not my signature.
Happy to hear all those news.
I also plan to spend some more time on PAc again soon.
This will include going on with my Steam Portable.
Also I started a German translation of the specification some weeks ago, but didn't already finish. So I'll wait now for the updates, and than if wanted finish it. @JTH: Are also translations of the specification wanted or only such of the pages "normal" (non-dev) users will access?
"Der Klügere gibt nach, deshalb regieren Dumme die Welt."
So happy to see an update. I've been getting worried the last couple of weeks with the general lack of updates. Keep up the amazing work!
Nerdy Redneck
I have PortableApps installed on my outdated 60gb iPod Photo and run it on both my Windows 7 PC and my Windows XP laptop. I've had no problems with any of the apps and I enjoy the conveniences that they provide. I, along with many other users, am very excited about 2.0 and I will definitely upgrade once it becomes available.
Jeg er zu 100% zustimmen es ist eine große arbejdsplads Holde op speichern arbejde die wunderbare Informationen I love this site halten, die gute Arbeit!
;
It might have been quite a while all these happened but pls still do accept my condolence. It's takes determination for anyone to come back after string of bad happenings especially when offering things for free.
determination makes all things possible