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Additional Directory for Keeping Apps

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December 16, 2016 - 4:51am
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devangbhatt
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Additional Directory for Keeping Apps

Hello,

Does Portable Apps Platform, scan additional directory / directories for other portable apps?

I have a few non open source apps like CCleanerPortable, etc. These apps are not updated by the portable apps updater and I have to manually update them from time to time. Some apps like WSCCPortable update them selves from the app itself. And some tools are single exe like Microsoft Spy++, WiFi2Hotspot, WMI Explorer etc.

I would like to keep them in separate directories for maintenance purposes.

PortableApps = All Apps that are updated by the platform
MyApps = Portable Apps that I have to update myself e.g. MyApps\CCleanerPortable
MyTools = Single EXE Files in their own directories e.g. MyTools\WiFi2Hotspot

The single exe file when kept inside the folder and copied to PortableApps\ It is recognized and shows up in the menu properly and can be run by clicking on the name.

Does it support or Is it possible for incorporating multiple folder scans.

Best regards,
Devang Bhatt

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December 16, 2016 - 11:37am
John T. Haller
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Considering, Single EXEs, Illegal packages

First, to keep your individual EXEs separate and easy to find, create a directory called _MyTools within the PortableApps directory. Place all the single EXEs in there. The platform will find all of them and give them their own entry. I recommend the _ line so it shows up first if you ever need to browse to it in Explorer.

As for a separate directory, it's something being considered. It would likely be something pre-defined like PortableAppsNonPAF or similar rather than configurable. We may also just add a report into the platform to allow you to more easily list and explore into your unofficial and nonPAF apps so you know what to update.

Side note: If you're using something like CCleanerPortable from another site, I'd suggest stopping. It's packaged illegally and likely has hidden nasties within it. Piriform prohibits repackaging of all their apps for portable use and prohibits automatic updating by third party tools in conjunction with their trademarked names or logos so anything you see that packages or updates CCleaner, Speccy, Defraggler, etc is being done illegally. As such, it's quite likely that whoever packaged it put a little something extra inside it even if they include the supposed source code to their tools they used. Grab the official CCleaner from Piriform and it will tell you when to download a new copy.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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December 17, 2016 - 6:05am
(Reply to #2)
devangbhatt
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Thanks

Thanks, the _MyTools folder tip. It helped for the single exe files.

As for CCleaner, Thanks I did not know that. I now downloaded from Piriform and extracted the 2 exes to _MyTools.

Please do consider adding the Special Scan Folder(s) where we can store the apps in their individual folders.
It would be nice to separate apps like WSCC2Portable and the beta apps from the forums.

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December 20, 2016 - 10:34am
devangbhatt
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Utility for Creating Launcher

Hi John,

Thanks once again for suggesting "_MyTools".

I have created a small utility in vb.net for creating app specific launchers for the tools that are in sub directories.
https://github.com/ddbhatt/Utilities-for-PortableApps.com-Platform/tree/...

The problem is that this requires .NET Framework. If you could create similar command line app in Delphi would be very useful for customizing our PortableApps\_MyTools folder.

Thanks for your time.

With best regards,
Devang Bhatt

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December 20, 2016 - 10:45am
(Reply to #4)
John T. Haller
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Why?

How does this let you do anything with _MyTools for single EXEs that are already detected by the PortableApps.com Platform and show up?

If you want to customize command line options, icon, etc and place it in its own folder, you can already do this with the PortableApps.com Template without needing to compile anything and it doesn't require .NET. You just need to configure the INI file. The PortableApps.com Template includes a pre-compiled PortableApps.com Launcher (open source under the GPL written in NSIS) with all the basic functionality.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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December 20, 2016 - 3:06pm
(Reply to #5)
devangbhatt
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PortableApps Format is great.

Hi John,

The PortableApps format is great. But my issue was how to keep the apps that are automatically updated by the updater, seperate from the apps that I need to manually update from time to time.

In that case the _MyTools as suggested is great for single exe, which the launcher creates entries in the menu system. I have other apps that I haved downloaded over the years that I keep in a App folder in my dropbox and used PStart for these.

But who wants to remember which menu to search for a perticular app? The windows, portableapps, PStart or the cmd line tools that I have in my utilities folder.

So I wanted to have a single place where I can keep these utils, tools and apps. And PortableApps is the best option.

Apps that are distributed as single zip, supposed to be extracted to a folder and used for personal use, like alldup When the folder is copied into the _MyTools\AllDup\ The platform was not create entries for exes in the sub folder.

Since knowing about CCleaner, I redownloaded the program from pirmform and extracted the 2 exes in a folder _MyTools\Pirmform\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe

The utility that I wrote only creates a stub that runs app from the relative path, passing all arguments it recieves to the app. (I did jot know if PortableApps passes any arguments.)

Since the app stub is in _MyTools it show up in the launcher menu.

John, I code as hobby to relax my mind. By profession I am a business man. I can not write PAFs for the utilities that I download and delete if they are not usefull to me.

As I write, am downloading free version of EssentialPIM Portable. It is a zip file.

Basically, all my utility does is to create single files in _MyTools that calls 32 or 64 bit exes in relative sub folders. The Icons to make the stub look good in PortableApps Menu.

Sorry, if I offended you. It was not my intention. You are doing good stuff, and I only wanted a solution for my problem.

With best regards,
Devang Bhatt

P.S.: There are a few apps distributed by the developers in PAF, like WSCC2Portable which I can now keep in _MyTools\WSCC2Portable\

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February 22, 2017 - 7:02pm
John T. Haller
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Feature Coming

This feature has been added to the official PortableApps.com Platform Bug Report and Feature Tracker. We're taking suggestions on the implementation here: https://portableapps.com/node/55870

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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