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Hello everyone,
It seems that you can change the menu name from PortableApps.com to something else but I can't find any documentation on the subject.
I will be teaching classes in GIMP & OO this year and I would like to customize some of the USB flash drives.
Thanks in advance,
Dave White
Do you mean the name that is displayed at the top of the menu in the left corner?
That one is hard coded into the menu and can not be changed. The drive name can be changed by clicking on the free space indicator.
Thanks,
I saw a menu online with Smith Tech and I thought you could change the Name in the Upper Left Corner.
Dave
The logo and trademarked name are coded into the exe.
However, there are two easy ways to customize the menu to ADD your own logo, while at the same time leaving the PortableApps logo. Personally, I am proud to leave that there, to give the credit where credit's due.
So, the two things are:
1. Add a personal picture. The upper right of the menu has a place for a small picture, perfect for adding a logo.
https://portableapps.com/support/portable_apps_suite#personalpicture
2. You can customize the theme. The theming in 2.0beta5 is pretty flexible, and if you can use GIMP, you can create a custom theme. All the images are PNG files.
I started a thread where I try to explore the new theming system (no official docs available yet) and it's easy enough to grasp.
https://portableapps.com/node/24556
I even have a link to a page that has a .xcf file with all the various images as layers.
You probably will want to change the name and icon that you see in explorer, too. That can be done by editing the autorun.inf file.
If you want to change the top text you could try geek.menu. But beware: It is a fork off an old version, an it may be filled with ants – or whatever it was.
Great ideas,
I will use the upper right corner 48 x 48 to identify each menu.
Thnaks again for your valued input...
Dave
Yes, i think it should be possible to change the portableapp.com name and logo. After researchig through the internet, you will see a lot of similar portable programs with different menu name like lupon,smithtech e.t.c (sorry for mentioning these names). This does not mean the credit does not go to who the credit is due to (portableapps.com) as some of these name changed even acknowledge portableapps.com on their site . Like dave said, in some schools, students can be very smart that you just want to have only their names displayed instead of "portableapps.com. I believe it's possible to change this though we might not know how to do it in this forum. If anybody knows, pls share in the spirit of open source. Thanks.
Since this is an Open Source project, of course the source is available online here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/portableapps/files/Source%20%28PortableA...
The app is coded and compiled in a version of Delphi.
For most coders, they can't afford Delphi.
If you own Delphi, and understand it, I'm sure you can figure out how to tweak and recompile the menu.
Just be aware that you are making a fork of the PortableApps menu, because you will have an unsupported exe file. That means that if you want keep up with the updates to the menu that are published here, you will not be able to use the automatic updater; you will need to recompile the menu again to keep your logo changes.
So you have to ask yourself if the benefits are worth the effort. If all you are doing is blowing away the PortableApps logo to put in your own logo, that's a lot of effort to maintain a small change; especially considering there are at least two other simple ways to personalize the menu without removing that logo.
The other menus that you have mentioned are typically completely redesigned to add other functions, not just to change the logo. They also are following their own fork and are not necessarily compatible with the official PortableApps menu.
So if you want to make your own fork to change the logo, the source is available.
But I guarantee you that John will not release an official version that can do that.
Thanks for the explanation solarus. All credit goes to john for sure. The stress is not worth it.
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