Hi,
I'm putting together a project to distribute bibles and Christian software on USB sticks,
I'd like to make a web based user interface, although I don't do web design, I'm looking for an easy way to make a simple collection of nice looking icons to start up apps for me.
Most of them need to be driven using batch files, ie: I have a batch file to run VLC player and open a bible in Arabic, another runs VLC with a playlist with list of Christian radios stations in Persian, etc.
Any suggestions what I can use? some kind of simple template job would be perfect.
oh, this product is being given away free, just a small fee for media and distribution costs.
thanks
Yosef
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on BlueSky
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on Twitter
PS, one of the unique things about this product is that is encrypted so Christians who live in Islamic countries who are interested in Christianity can use this discretely without being found out.
therefore this USB drive is protected with Truecrypt (7Gb encrypted volume) and one of the features I am working on, lets you close this app down, which has to be done carefully, as an abruptly pulled out flash drive could corrupt the file system.
thanks
Yosef
The xBible project
bringing The Bible to closed off countries
If you are having your icons or links on the menu/usb go out to any website, it could still be monitored or recognized by the host PC or the local servers if it is set up to detect those places.
Why not just distribute the usb's with the info directly on it, no internet access needed? I've seen a few bible programs that fit on the usb, same with the audio files.
Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.
Is there a reason it has to be web-based? What features are you looking for exactly? Is it just a single window with a bunch of icon that open different programs?
If it doesn't have to be web-based, then Toolbox from Cylog Software is an excellent portable launcher (customizable).
Beyond that, in the past, I recall some freeware programs that were "menu builders" for making your own CDs. They were very easy to use and friendly even for non-programmer types. I'm sure some exist today or their descendants (sorry I don't have more specifics on that).
As an aside to anyone else in general, can you point to files on the file system using relative paths in HTML parlance? I know you can specify a drive, I just wonder if you have to specify a drive. That would be a problem for portable apps and a USB stick.
have you thought of using normal icons and whatnot?
I mean, just make custom icons pointing to the programs on the stick. Custom icons can hold parameters to pass on.
VLC shortcut to Persian radio
VLC shortcut to Greek Radio
VLC shortcut to normal player
Store exe files in their own directory, and place all the launch icons in the root of the drive.
Virtually no programming required; should work O.K. with encryption.
The only problem is, I don't think Windows shortcuts support relative paths. You can't guarantee what drive letter a USB stick is going to be assigned. It's a similar problem with using HTML page as a "launcher" page... it needs an absolute path (I'm fairly sure).
Something like Toolbox will let you add parameters to the shortcuts you create and will allow for the use of relative paths to executables.
The other big problem of course is that autorun for USB drives is almost always disabled, so it doesn't really matter what you do, users are most likely not going to see a nice menu/webpage/application automagically pop up on the screen upon connecting the drive. At some point the user is going to have to click something, something to get things started.
I understand the paths issue, but you can create a simple batch file that creates a path variable for the rest of the script.
You could even set it up (the script) to include 'press 1 for this press 2 for that' etc.
Before I found this site, I was working on something similar.
I'm no console expert, but even I was able to throw something together in an afternoon.
If you want to make it uber secure, use a portable VM that is password protected on top of it all.