You are here

Still about PAL

10 posts / 0 new
Last post
Devildevilscle
Offline
Last seen: 11 years 9 months ago
Joined: 2010-11-08 13:18
Still about PAL

1. May someone please elaborate [waitforprogram] & [refreshshellicons] sections on PAL's launcher ini?
2. Is it possible for PAL generator to also produce a copy of the launcher's source code it created?

3D1T0R
3D1T0R's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 9 months ago
Developer
Joined: 2006-12-29 23:48
1A:If no cleanup necessary,B:If filetypes get registered;2Me too
  1. Both of these are elaborated apon in the PortableApps.com Launcher documentation, which you can thank Chris Morgan for. Wink

    • PortableApps.com Launcher documentation[WaitForProgram]
      If you don’t need the launcher to wait for the conclusion of the application, set this to false. Note that you should only do this if you do not have registry entries to handle or files to move, for example if you can redirect all settings with command-line arguments or environment variables.

    • PortableApps.com Launcher documentation[RefreshShellIcons]
      If the application does any registering of file type extensions which you handle or clean up, to make the new icon appear or to stop the portable one appearing, set this to one of the values. If it is just cleaning up at the end, after should be enough, but if you handle it with a RegistryKeys value, you will need both.

  2. I'm also interested in an option which would place the Source of the specific launcher into the Other\Source directory.

~3D1T0R

Chris Morgan
Chris Morgan's picture
Offline
Last seen: 8 years 10 months ago
Joined: 2007-04-15 21:08
Neither of these are sections
  1. Neither of these are sections - they are values inside the [Launch] section.

    What don't you understand about these? Please specify what you don't understand, then I can help more.

  2. No.

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

Devildevilscle
Offline
Last seen: 11 years 9 months ago
Joined: 2010-11-08 13:18
My questions are

So ok, they're values & not sections. Im sorry, just a bit sleepy when i made that post. Thank you.

About WaitForProgram,
my questions are:
1. What actions, the launcher should implement that waits the program for? Cleaning temp? May you please specify?

2. What do you mean by conclusion here?
"If you don’t need the launcher to wait for the conclusion of the application, set this to false."
Is it
a)closing the app? Or
b)after the app performed it's task(or 1 of it's task)?

At RefreshShellIcons,
Im not a programmer, for what i know, shell here refers to the app's GUI, right?
Does this value only refreshes the icons on the GUI?or the GUI as a whole? At what point does refreshing be implemented?

Sorry for too many questions.

-:O =

Chris Morgan
Chris Morgan's picture
Offline
Last seen: 8 years 10 months ago
Joined: 2007-04-15 21:08
WaitForProgram will work when

WaitForProgram will work when you don't use any registry stuff or [FilesMove]/[DirectoriesMove]/[DirectoriesCleanup*] (take a look at Other\Source\PortableApps.comLauncher.nsi, Functions Post, PostPrimary and PostSecondary, and the relevant hooks for those segments in the Segments directory, to work it all out). The clean TEMP functionality works with WaitForProgram set to false - but it puts the clean TEMP in Data\temp rather than $TEMP\$AppIDTemp which is undesirable for TEMP-heavy apps. If in doubt, omit WaitForProgram=false. It's not very common that it's suitable.

RefreshShellIcons refreshes the shell icons - file types in Explorer and things like that. If you don't know that you need it, you probably don't need to worry about it.

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

3D1T0R
3D1T0R's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 9 months ago
Developer
Joined: 2006-12-29 23:48
Unless you know you need them, you probably don't.

As far as [WaitForProgram] is concerned, the "conclusion of the application" is when the App is closed (completely), and waiting should only be disabled if the App doesn't use the registry (at all), doesn't leave anything behind anywhere, and no files need moved.
So basically if the program is already portable, or can be run in a portable mode via a command-line argument or the presence of some file in the App directory.

Note: Never trust a "portable" app to be truly portable, always check for yourself.

Regarding [RefreshShellIcons], the "Shell" is Windows' shell (Windows Explorer), the icons are the ones it assigns to files of a certain filetype, and filetypes are the extension on the end of a file's name (e.g. .mp3, .url, .pdf, .html, etc.), and associating the filetype means setting Windows to automatically open the files of a specific type with a specific program.

As Chris saidif you don't know you need it, you probably don't need to worry about it.

~3D1T0R

Devildevilscle
Offline
Last seen: 11 years 9 months ago
Joined: 2010-11-08 13:18
Much clearer

It's much clearer now. Thanks again.
But, One more thing,
as it seems, im working on apps that saves settings to the registry. I'l probably need
waitforprogram=true.
If, as chris said:
"If in doubt, omit WaitForProgram=false."
omiting the value waitforprogram on section [launch], would give me its default value
waitforprogram=true
(w/c is i think i need).
Right?

-:O =

Chris Morgan
Chris Morgan's picture
Offline
Last seen: 8 years 10 months ago
Joined: 2007-04-15 21:08
Omit

Don't include default values; omit the line.

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

3D1T0R
3D1T0R's picture
Offline
Last seen: 2 years 9 months ago
Developer
Joined: 2006-12-29 23:48
Wasted space

If you include lines that tell the Launcher to do what it will do by default when it doesn't see the line, then it's just a waste of space. (which may not be much when it's only one line, but imagine every Portable App's Launcher configuration including every line despite the fact that a large majority of them are telling the Launcher to do it's default, and you now have tonnes of unnecessary overhead. See?)

~3D1T0R

Devildevilscle
Offline
Last seen: 11 years 9 months ago
Joined: 2010-11-08 13:18
Ok

Thx

-:O =

Log in or register to post comments