As we're debuting the PortableApps.com Format 3.0 which will include the specs for file formats, I wanted to get other folks' thoughts on what filetypes we should include icons for and information on within the platform by default. These will be icons included with the platform and the associated file formats that will use them by default. For apps that wish to define additional file types, they can define a new one (example: .newfile) in their appinfo.ini and associate it with one of the built in file types, with their app's icon, or they can include a custom icon within the app itself (details coming shortly).
This topic, though, is about the base set of file types which each have a unique icon and the pre-defined file extensions that will be associated. Currently, the list is:
- archive: 7z, bzip2, cab, gz, gzip, rar, tar, zip, wim, xz, z
- audio: aac, aif, iff, flac, m3u, m3u8, m4a, mid, midi, mp3, mpa, ogg, pls, ra, wav, wv
- calendar: ical, icalendar, ics, ifb, vcs
- chart: (no defaults)
- code: ada, ads, adb, asm, asp, aspx, au3, bas, c, cmake, h, hpp, hxx, cpp, cc, cs, css, d, diff, patch, es, iss, java, js, jsp, lua, m, mak, nsi, nsh, pas, inc, pl, pm, plx, php, php3, phtml, pro, ps1, py, pyw, r, rb, rbw, rc, sql, vb, vbs, xml, xsml, xsl, xsd, wsdl
- contact: vcard, vcf
- database: db, odb, sqlite
- diskimage: cue, img, iso
- drawing: ai, eps, odg, otp, sda, sdd, sgv, std, svg, svgz, sxd
- document: abw, djvu, doc, docm, docx, dotx, dotm, fodt, odt, ott, pdf, rtf, stw, sxw, uot, ps
- ebook: azw, cbr, cbz, epub, lrf, lrx, lit, mobi
- font: fnt, otf, ttf
- image: ani, bmp, cur, ico, jpg, jpeg, gif, pcx, png, psd, tif, tiff, xcf
- java: jar
- presentation: odp, otp, sxi, sti, sxd, pps, ppsx, ppt, pptm, pptx, pot, sdd, sdp
- spreadsheet: ods, ots, sxc, stc, xls, xlc, xlm, xlw, xlk, sdc, csv, xlsx, xlsm
- text: cfg, inf, ini, log, nfo, txt, text
- torrent: torrent
- video: 3gp, asf, avi, flv, mp4, m4v, mpe, mpeg, mpg, mkv, mov, ogm, qt, rm, rmvb, webm, wmv
- webpage: html, htm, mht, mhtml, shtml, xhtml, xhtm, xht
*lnk (that link to websites) and url files would be 'webpages' as well and handled by the default browser. Apps that handle the http protocol will be treated as possible browsers, though we are debating adding a webbrowser setting to [Associations] as the OS handles is specially. Thoughts on this are welcome as well.
So, I'd like some thoughts on this list. Anything you think is unnecessary. Anything you think we should add. Thanks in advance!
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mp3, ogg, wav, etc?
“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
It's under audio
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remove that guess I needed to think in broader terms
Maybe I too tired lol sorry
“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
Programming file types like php, js, c, cpp, h for development apps?
Or would these be better associated by individual apps?
Ah, I forgot about that line. It's been added.
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John, you're a Delphi coder! Why are we leaving .pas off the list?
Rick Carter
pascal is in there already
your friendly neighbourhood moderator Zach Thibeau
It is best to leave the icon and all associations to the applications themselves. They already register what they can open and have icons. PortableApps only needs a way that I can manage what apps get to open what extensions. This is needed in the case of multiple apps being able to open the same extensions.
The categories are a nice thing but would fail for custom file types.
What we need is just a searchable list of file types with it's associated PortableApp. (For a good example, see Firefox>Options>Applications.)
These icons won't be used exactly as you're expecting. Sometimes they will be associated before you have picked which app you want to open with, which means it shouldn't use any custom icons from a given app. And we can't base this on what the apps themselves register as they only support registering directly (not via the portable version).
We're not yet talking about how the platform will display these, though. This topic is just to ensure we're not missing anything popular/common.
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How about .torrent since you have 2 Bittorrent clients as official apps?
Forgot about torrent
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ini
Signature automatically removed for containing links
Added ini and inf
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docm
Signature automatically removed for containing links
Added the macro-enabled versions of doc, xls and ppt.
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I agree with portpete in that we don't need 15 new icons. If I associate the "audio" category with Audacity Portable, I want all those file types to display the Audacity icon, so I know what app it will open with.
Maybe if you want to indicate a category that hasn't yet been associated with any app you could have a special "unassociated" icon.
Also, LibreOffice files are a little different; while lots of other file types are opened by a lot of different apps, .od* files are generally best opened by LibreOffice or OpenOffice - so I wouldn't lump my .odg files with my .svg files, nor would I use the same app to open .odt, .abw, and .pdf files.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
An app using it's own icon for a filetype is bad form. The icon is supposed to represent the type of file it is, not the app that opens it. And these will be independent of the apps. The idea is to avoid having to have 100 icons within LibreOffice for associations and similar custom icons for every single app. There's also the fact that many apps have awful icons included (see 7-Zip). And this will also allow us to have some other features.
For folks who want a custom icon, they can still select one, of course.
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Windows has special icons for system files, mp3s, etc; image files that are associated with Picture Viewer vary by extension (bmp, jpg, and png are all different); LO files use the 8 icons they have for each component of LO (Writer, Calc, Draw, etc); Adobe and GIMP use their recognizable icons.
Maybe it is bad form, but personally I like the practicality and functionality of knowing at a glance which app will open when I double-click on a file.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
You're welcome to customize it that way if you'd like. It's going to be tweakable. But it is impractical for our purposes.
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What about the new Office formats: xlsx, docx, pptx, etc
They're already there, though I had forgotten to list pptx.
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Possibly uncommon filetypes:
Additional filetypes:
Misc:
Previously known as kAlug.
I added webm and m4v. Switched ps to document. And removed tex as it's pretty specialized (and nothing we do supports it yet).
I don't think md or mdown is common enough to include and it doesn't even have an official file format and is pretty specialized (it was created in 2004 and I don't think it ever caught on). Even if we did include it, as a markup language, it would be better suited to code. Same thoughts on rst. Your thoughts?
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You moved both ps and ps1. PS1 is PowerShell code.
Previously known as kAlug.
Fixed, any thoughts on the rest?
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I just think we don't really need that .z in the archive section.
And:
webpageis formatted differently from the othersPreviously known as kAlug.
I fixed the issues.
The whole site has revisions, but I only add them where we need em. I suppose adding them to the PAF page would make sense.
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Dunno if it should be included but how about .mab (Mozilla uses it for its address books). I was also going to suggest .wab files but that can be converted into a .csv file for import into Thunderbird.
It does, but it exports them as other formats. So, it's really more of an internal format.
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I would add .vw (WavPack) to the audio files section. AFAIK both XMPlay and VLC (and a few others) support it. Also it's open source.
Good call, I'd forgotten about WavPack.
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log
Yes, that would apply to a few apps. Added log.
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The following I found at fileinfo.com. I think I got everything applicable.
Executable
.bat DOS Batch File
.wsf Windows Script File
CAD
.dwg AutoCAD Drawing Database File
.dxf Drawing Exchange Format File
Web
.aspx Active Server Page Extended File
.css Cascading Style Sheet
.rss Rich Site Summary
Font
.fon Generic Font File
Setting
.cfg Configuration File
Compression
.sit StuffIt Archive
.sitx StuffIt X Archive
.tar.gz Compressed Tarball File
.zipx Extended Zip File
EDIT: Wikipedia has a pretty exhaustive list here.
It amazes me that on the internet you can be anything you want, and yet so many people still choose to be idiots.
CSS and ASPX I forgot to add. CFG and GZ I just added.
We're just sticking with common stuff. fon isn't common. RSS files aren't common. We don't have anything that supports zipx and it seems an unpopular proprietary format. Stuffit seems mac-only, less popular now and we have nothing that supports it.
As for bat and wsf, I was thinking of leaving them off as it would prevent users from running them.
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JOhn I would prefer to have bat left off as I like to choose whether to run or edit lol
“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
NEF - for Nikon raw
not sure what all the rest are
Clair
As I don't think anything we have supports it and RAW is uncommon, I'd like to leave it off. If we add a RAW processor later, it can have custom icons.
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I think some of the image viewers support RAW. BTW, it's only rare to people who own cameras that don't support it. To those of us who have the capability it's absolutely common and necessary.
Clair
Common means overall. Most people shoot pics with their phones now. A large percentage still use cameras. Of those, only a small percentage support RAW. Of those, not all of them even use it.
It's not a judgement of how important it is, but how common overall. And just because something isn't included in the common set doesn't mean it won't be supported. XnView supports 400 image formats (including Nikon RAW) but we're not gonna build all those into the platform itself. We'll let the app tell the platform about them if you use IrfanView.
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The same thing can be said about quite a few of the file formats already on the list. You own it, so be it.
Clair
In the ebook list.
Previously known as kAlug.
DjVu is analogous to PDF. ebooks come in both formats, but neither format is exclusively for ebooks. It's actually more common for stuff that isn't ebooks to be in both formats. So I added it to documents.
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Although MIDI-Karaoke is an unofficial extension to MIDI format, anything that plays/reads .mid files will also play/read .kar files (including e.g. MuseScore Portable). I think this might be a good enough reason to add it.
No typin th las lette ca sav yo plent o spac
How about .iso, img, cue. Infrarecorder supports these, and I think 7-Zip can open all of them?
I've been debating those as I already have an optical disk icon ready. But as optical is dying, I was unsure whether to include it. I spose it makes sense for now.
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People who copy DVDs to their notebook's hdd copy them as .iso files and play them with apps such as Portable SMPlayer.
People using multi-boot USB drives use GRUB4DOS and .iso files of Linux, Windows Rescue, and other systems.
Ed
m - Matlab script files
bas - Exported Macros from MS Office
Some extensions I use that are maybe too specific:
hex, map - Compiler output data
arxml - automotive xml files
I added m and bas as those will be appropriate for us at some point. The other 3 seem a bit too specific.
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but chm and associated help type files?
“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
MAFF belongs to the Mozilla Archive Format.
And MHT is the IE arc format.
The only caveat is that to fully enable in Firefox,
you need to install Mozilla's plugin https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mozilla-archive-format/
Those are best handled by the system which has a built-in chm and hlp handler.
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m3u, wmp etc.
m3u is already in there. does anyone use wmp?
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Not sure as far as apps here, but Windows Media Center does...
And m3u8 for people who use UTF-8 playlists. I don't know if any player here supports them, though...
I've added m3u8 to the list, too
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KeePass uses .kdbx to store the keys. So maybe under database?
and how about .reg? Or do you want to leave them to the system?
.kdbx is not a generic file format; it is KeePass specific and so should be defined in KeePass Portable.
As for .reg, we certainly shouldn't go touching them.
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 don't get the difference between the KeePass specific file format and the Auto Hot Key file format. While .AHK is added, .kdbx is not.
We have multiple apps that will handle ahk files (several text editors as well as Auto Hot Key Portable itself which will be coming). We only have one app that does kdb and kdbx, KeePass (technically, right now, we have no official apps that handle kdbx as it is only compatible with the .NET version of KeePass). As such, it's file format will be defined internally in the app and not generally by the platform.
Once again, just because a file format is not in the list does NOT mean it is not supported. It just means it will be defined by a given app not by the platform.
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Ok, thanks for the reply.
.swf
John, what are your thoughts on possibly adding .ani & .cur to the list? AniFXPortable can open/edit both of those.
Both are already listed under images.
I added them after the suggestion but forgot to comment.
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.mogg under audio -- Multitrack Ogg Vorbis
I don't know if you can come by .mogg's outside of professional music authoring, legally, though. Audacity is, AFAIK, the only PortableApps app that will open it. REAPER is more commonly used. The .mogg files you're most likely to find around the public Internet are Rockband files extracted from, I think, the PlayStation 2 version. In theory they would let you listen to individual tracks of a song on their own or create your own custom mix. Hypothetically, that is... But maybe there are legit ones out there?
While Audacity can open them, it doesn't associate itself with them. It only associates with AUP files.
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autohotkey scripting ahk
your friendly neighbourhood moderator Zach Thibeau
As we use it a bit, I've added AHK
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Though they may not need icons, it would be nice for the PA menu system to designate protocol handlers in a similar manner to file format handlers.
It could be useful to have this done as a centralized control by the PA menu system rather than in each browser because, not only might users have multiple browsers, URLs may also be encountered in non-web documents, such as PDF and word processor files, or even in a .url or .lnk file. I realize this may need to be implemented differently than the "Portable File Associator" method for file formats. But, then again, maybe it can already handle those; I haven't worked with Portable File Associator in a long time.
Also, it might be good to inlcude a handler for shortcuts.
This way the portablized file manager could handle launching which ever app is called for. On that note, can PA menu have a "bookmarks" menu, possibly populated by URLs and paths found in url and lnk files in a bookmarks folder or by URLs and paths found in a bookmarks file such as can be exported from Firefox? The targets selected could then be handled by which ever program was appropriate. A recent files or web history menu could be handled the same way, but now I supposed I have ventured squarely off topic and in to feature request / feature creap territory.
It does handle protocols. But protocols don't use icons. Thus, there are no defaults. Specifically from the PortableApps.com Format - AppInfo.ini section:
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Thanks, that's good to know.
What about the .url and .lnk shortcut file extensions suggestion?
OR
Now I'm thinking listing them in a shortcut group might be better than in a file manager group.
They could have their own icon (either a different icon for each extension, or one "shortcut" icon they both share), or use the icon of what they point to, or have an icon modifier added to the icon of what they point to, like windows shortcut icons do.
I think .lnk files are handled by the OS itself and, when they contain a web link, open in the default browser (as set by the default browser setting, which is separate from http, html or lnk settings). They have their own icons associated, which is usually the icon of the thing they link to (like an app).
.url files, on the other hand, are their own thing and consist of a simple INI file internally with a link and possibly a custom icon. I'm not sure offhand where they get their icon, but I'd wager it is the same as the .lnk files.
At the moment, I was planning on determining whether a given app is a browser based on http handling and then letting it show as a possible default browser for the OS (and hence handling lnks and urls). The icon used would be the webpage icon as well. Does that make sense?
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ECMAScript, is (almost) the same a JavaScript, and anything that can interpret JavaScript should be able to do the same for an ECMAScript file. You may even want to use the same icon as a js file, or the same shape with a different color, or a similar shape with the same color scheme.
I've added es to the list
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there's ppt and pptx, but not pps and ppsx, aint those usefull?
I know you can just rename them, but aint that a little unpractical?
Yes, I set the working directory!
Forgot about slideshows. Added.
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SWI-Prolog also appears to support *.pro
I've added .pro to the list
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I just thought of .rc, as (wx)Dev-C++ uses it as a compiler resource file (and I think Borland does too). Would that fit under code?
Yes indeed. rc added
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.mm maybe? I thought I saw some mind-mapping app(s) in the dev lists & Freeplane already has a "portable" version available.
What about that new Opus audio codec standard that's in the works? I think FF 15 just added support for it. Does it have file formats associated? Then they may become more common.
I know you don't comment on when something is releasing but...
Do you think built-in file associations are coming RSN or do you suggest I start using one of the stand-alone apps? If the latter, which would you recommend? I remember seeing PFA, eXpresso & Cafe mentioned on here. I don't want to waste time setting one up if the platform is close - I've done without it this long so I could still go without a while longer if you're within, say, a month or 2 out. Otherwise, tell me which to use. See? I don't even want to waste the time to research which of those to use!
mm is too specific and won't be used by most folks, so it's best if the mind mapping apps specifically define it.
I don't estimate dates anymore.
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I know you don't; that's why I only asked for something rough so I'd know whether to bother with one of the others instead of waiting on the integrated version. Assuming I do decide to go ahead with a stand-alone one, which of the portable file association apps would you recommend? Thanks!
It's your personal preference which one you use. I used to use PFA, but switched to Expresso. Cafe is what Expresso is based off of.
Markdown (*.md, *.mkd and others *.markdown), is a marks language to write with plain text, process it with Pandoc or MultiMarkDown and convert it to a pletora of other formats, like LaTeX, ConTeXt, HTML, odt and fodt, etc.
This could be included with the group text.
Also, from the unix world, there are many files without last name. Shall be read as read-only text or binary?
See here.
Previously known as kAlug.
just thought of one, it's not as common and 7zip uses the algorithm BUT some projects use this compression method called .lzma more specifically .tar.lzma
your friendly neighbourhood moderator Zach Thibeau
as LZMA has been superseded by XZ.
Previously known as kAlug.
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