PortableApps.com Platform

I have been using PStart for launching portable apps and want to give the PortableApps.com platform a shot.

Installation was a breeze but I am stumbling at what must be one of the very most basic tasks - how to get non .paf format apps into the platform within directories? For example, I have many Nirsoft portable apps in their own directories nested in a 'Nirsoft' directory in PStart.

Can I accomplish the same structure in the Platform? I'm used to piling apps into directories like: Audio/Video, Games, Imaging, Net, Productivity, Utilities, etc. to organize and save menu space.

As a possible future enchancement, could PAP have the ability to install themes?

It seems that all the menu has to do is to check to see what directories are in the ".\App\DefaultData\Themes\" directory (based from PAP directory. i.e. :\PortableApps\PortableApps.com\App\DefaultData\Themes\ ) and make a dynamic menu of available themes, similar to how the language sub-menu is populated.

I am sure that this would also simplify the code behind PAP...

Comments?

I'm new to Portable Apps and when I wanted to install a new portable application and followed the instructions, the new app icon appeared in the menu, but could not be initialized and a message appeared that the .exe file could not be found. I tried several times but the result was the same. What could have gone wrong?

The PortableApps Platform is multilanguage, but the folders "Documents", "Pictures", "Music" and "Videos" always stay in English, but is possible to add multilanguage support in folders, simple modify the "Desktop.ini" and the folders will be changed to OS language (Only Windows -- all versions):

Documents
[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21770
InfoTip=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-22914
IconFile=..\PortableApps\PortableApps.com\App\DefaultData\FolderIcons\documents.ico
IconIndex=0

If I may be the first to comment..

I installed this and am impressed by the scan option, as well as uninstall.

Also, the hide/unhide options are great.

The text size, transparency etc is cool.

It seems to work faster as well, with switching to front among other things as well I appreciate the drive checker; the ability to hide desktop icons is very interesting as well and makes me wonder what else this thing can (or should) do.

Anyway, best of luck to the developer.

hi,

i searched the forum for any help but only found the advise to put "RemainVisible=True" in the menu.ini what i did. still the menu stays not visible but minimizes. can anyone tell me pls what i have to add in the .ini to make the menu stay visible ALL THE TIME.

any help is much appreciated!

joe

Hi,

I am not sure if this is the right place or not (and I apologise if it isn't) but the PAM has a memory leak (both version 1.5.2 and 1.6 beta).

When PAM reloads the application list, it calls TfrmMenu.ClearButtons, which clears the TAppListItem array. It doesn't actually frees the TAppListItem or TIcon objects. Upon exit, the TAppListItem array (and TIcon) objects are not freed.

There are two issues (with fixes):

1) TfrmMenu.ClearButtons needs to be modified from:

for intCounter:=0 to Length(arrAppItems) - 1 do
arrAppItems[intCounter].Icon:=nil;


Hey, I've been trying out the PAM 1.6 beta and I like what I see but I was wondering how it was coming along as far as official release? I AM NOT asking for a timeline. I know better than that. I was looking more for an answer along the lines of "it's about x% done" or "it's in final bugtesting" or "we have 2 or 3 more things we haven't gotten in yet" or something like that. I'm just curious how it's progressing, especially after reading about John's meetings with the different flash drive companies and him saying that they wanted some specific features and such.

Memory Stick on public Library PC's

Do I un-install PA and re-install after FF?

Otherwise it defaults to IE on the OS - which is probably a screwed-down version of IE6 (remotely).

ie6 clags in the net-nanny (read surveillance and security - it is what it is)
FF does not.
I use an HTML page as my favourites - it is as graphic and informative as my HTML skills allow (eg telphone numbers, colour coding, and more). Which diminshes any advantage of PA.

This follow a thread in the general discussion about safe usage of portable applications.

Since the autorun function is the cause of many infections, I was wondering why the PortableApps platform has one.

It is handy, I agree, but I rather trade ease of use for security. as mentioned on the other thread I use Panda USB vaccin to prevent autorun on external devices to launch. Still, I recently use portable applications and I am glad to have your opinion. Thanks.