You are here

What does the menu do, other than the obvious ?

7 posts / 0 new
Last post
HarryR
Offline
Last seen: 13 years 5 months ago
Joined: 2010-06-25 03:32
What does the menu do, other than the obvious ?

Actually, that's a pretty dumb title ...

What I mean is that I mostly work in a very document-oriented way, and I rarely launch apps directly. Hence, I am usually using a file manager as my interface, and almost never an app menu.

So, does the PortableApps menu do anything other than launching the relevant apps, like adjusting paths or environment variables, or cleaning up the registry, or something ?
If I don't use the PortableApps menu at all, do I lose anything in terms of portability ?

Jimbo
Offline
Last seen: 4 years 10 months ago
Joined: 2007-12-17 05:43
Currently, not much

At the moment, there is a wallpaper switcher in there, but not much else

But in future versions, it will be handling things like portable fonts, environment vars, file associations, url handlers, and more.

If you are launching docs from explorer, make very sure that you are associating the files with the launcher, not with the base app, as the launcher is the part that does the magic that makes the app portable.

horusofoz
horusofoz's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 year 2 months ago
Joined: 2008-04-03 22:45
Help

One small addition to Jimbo's comment is that the menu will also offer Help for the some of the apps such as Toucan.

PortableApps.com Advocate

Simeon
Simeon's picture
Offline
Last seen: 10 years 1 month ago
DeveloperTranslator
Joined: 2006-09-25 15:15
Lang switching

Right now the menu offers automatic language switching for the Apps who support that. As english isn't my native tongue, I like that because I dont have to set the languages of all the programms manually.
But I know this probably isn't such a big thing for english-speaking users.

"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate

solanus
solanus's picture
Offline
Last seen: 10 years 1 month ago
Joined: 2006-01-21 19:12
PortableApps themselves are designed to be self-contained

So, changing drive letters to accommodate the letter of your USB drive, and cleaning the registry and temp files, are all done by the individual app's launchers.

Portable Fonts, File Association, PortableApps Updater and other planned enhancements for the menu were started as separate apps.
I think the Fonts app is dead, but there are two File Association apps - eXpresso and PortableFileAssociator.

For at least two apps, you can add fonts directly into special folders to take your special fonts with you (OpenOffice and GIMP).

For me, I like the ability of the menu to auto-start apps when the menu starts.

P.S. I'd love to see Portable Fonts and these other apps developed and continued as independent from the menu. It would offer these functions to non-menu users, and we'd likely see them sooner.

I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.

vf2nsr
vf2nsr's picture
Offline
Last seen: 8 years 1 month ago
Developer
Joined: 2010-02-13 17:10
Autostart

you can also use the menu to auto start programs so they launch when the menu first does

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” Dr. Seuss

HarryR
Offline
Last seen: 13 years 5 months ago
Joined: 2010-06-25 03:32
Right - think I should be OK

Right - think I should be OK then.

Many thanks to you all.

Log in or register to post comments