Portable apps set on CD/DVD+USB

Hi, I have a lot of work for the moment, so I won't be working on that project till the end of june, so don't expect quick results.

I'm going to create a CD/DVD + USB key duo system for portable apps.
The principle is simple :
- You have program executable & program data on the CD/DVD-Rom.
- You have your documents & config on the key.
- You insert/plug your cd/key in whatever order you wish
- A small autostart app on each device detects if the other device is present. If it is, then the set is complete and it can start working. If non, then let the other device do the work when it is plugged. Maybe implement a retry-in-5-seconds routine.
- The small auto-start program runs in memory and can be called by any of the portable apps to know which are their running dir & config dir.

This would allow to have LOADS of portable apps without filling up your key, or have different sets : multimedia, office, internet, etc. on severall cds (dvd readers aren't everywhere ;[ ), and we would also have the speed benefit
Of course, you can't change easily what's on the CD, exept if using a RW, but then you loose a lot over speed. To fix that issue, there are two methods :
1) Multi-session CD, install update patches on an "update_xxx" dir on the CD, that are applied on-the-fly when running the app; install other apps on a "apps_xxx" dir, so you can grow your CD. The small autolaunch program manages all that.
2) Install update patches on the key, same OTF applying method.

Now to make things easyer for the user, ie. to manage his documents, etc. I think I'll add an aleternative file browser, that would have it's own file associations :). If you know such a program, please post the name, this way I won't have to look for it.

To make things nicer, I think of overlaying totally the default windows interface, so you could have your own apps on the desktop, you own wallpaper, etc. I was thinking about Xoblite or LiteStep. If you know any good hacks about those, please post below

I also remember of some piece of software that allowed you to just press a key (eg. F3) and start typing the name of an app/document, and it would show a nice non-window-decorated popup which would show the result of you quick search in the recent docs, etc. Then you just had to press and it would open the doc/app. Ie to start firefox, type fir. If you ever saw this program, post the link, I'll try to re-write it/portabilize & adapt it.

Finally, I'll write (some day, maybe, it's just an idea ) a SuperEnhancedDesktopMenu
The idea is simple : you have on your desktop, instead of the icons, a few big buttons (Multimedia, Documents, Office, Internet, Graphism, Utilities) with nice icons, in a crystalized (http://www.crystalxp.net/) style, ie semi-transparent rounded .
You then click on eg. "multimedia", and the whole set of buttons slides to the left, in a mac-file-selector-like-way and lets "Video", "Audio", "Other" appear from the right, letting you choose a subsection, and then after another slide, an app.
What's the interest ?
1) Have some nice eye-candy in your pocket;
2) Find your apps easily - and fast - with a big-buttoned menu instead of a small-buttoned-menu
3) Have like the programs icons on the desktop, but mixed with the menu
4) What ? It won't be accessible if you have an opened window ? Oh but the replaced start menu button (replaced by litestep/XobLite/etc.) would show that menu on top of your windows of course

So, to conclude this post, if you know any already portable app that you would like to be available in this pack, that would be easy to modify so it could have it's config in X:\somewhere\there and it's read-only app data in Y:\somewhere\here then post a link to the app & link to the source code (portable's version source code). I know all apps in the Portableapps.com style will be easy to transform.

See you at the end of june

P.S. I'll do some french translations too