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Portable App Development

Discuss portable app development and modification of existing apps.

Directory layout possibilities

John T. Haller's picture
Submitted by John T. Haller on April 23, 2006 - 3:03pm

I've been debating directory layouts a bit and wanted some thoughts from other developers. Basically, I'm thinking internally to the apps themselves... which will also make things easier when used with the Suite and with the upcoming launcher.

My thought is this:

PortableAppName
 - App
   - appdirectory1
   - appdirectory2
 - Data
   - settingsdirectory1
   - settingsdirectory2
 - Extras
   - backup settings files, etc (coming soon)

So, for example, Portable Firefox would be:

PortableFirefox
 - App
   - firefox
   - plugins
   - PortableFirefoxCode
 - Data

Portable Mono/.NET

Rob Loach's picture
Submitted by Rob Loach on April 23, 2006 - 1:39pm

I was playing around with Mono (an open-source .NET implementation) and decided to try it out as a portable application development suite. I installed it on my computer, copied the files to my USB drive, and tried to hook it up with PSPad (which is already portable). I can now compile C# code from PSPad without any dependancies on .NET being installed.

Compiler Settings
Here are the compiler settings for PSPad I used...
Compiler: drive:pathto\Mono\bin\mcs.bat
Parameters: "%FILE%"

Portable Starsiege: Tribes

Submitted by Ayavaron on April 18, 2006 - 10:32pm

I made a portable version of Starsiege Tribes based on the free rerelease they did back in 2004. I'm not entirely certain as to the legality of its distribution, but I've got it hosted on my site if anyone wants it or if anyone wants it listed on PortableApps.com

Here's the link to the file itself:
http://ayavaron.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2006/PortableTribes.zip

*hopes this does not kill my bandwidth*

Making Java manageable for Portable media.

Submitted by emhifrit on April 17, 2006 - 7:17pm

Hi I am new, so this might be in the wrong place. This thread is a call out for discussion and collaboration of the more senior Java Developers and those more experienced with
NSIS (NullSoft Scriptable Installer System) launchers for Portable Apps.

[Here is the situation] I spent my spare time this weekend installing a number of the java applications with bundled JREs onto my WD 120 GB Passport Portable Hard Drive.
It been over a year since I had done any real java development and I wanted to organize a comfortable and flexible developer environment (IDE and other tools) that I could use independent of the JVM on the host machine while I am on the go. So the dev environment would be consistant when at home, work, computer labs or friends places. Also I want to develop small java applications that friends can use on the small thumbnail drives, but there are no consistent tools to help package the java apps for the thumbnail drives.

Portable App Methodoligy

Submitted by rustyz82 on April 17, 2006 - 6:52pm

I have been an avid user of several of the portable apps offered for for a while now and am looking at developing some of my own and making some of the applications I use daily portable. I'm wondering how exactly most people accomplish this. I know Portable Firefox runs without ever using the computers registry, at least thats what my monitoring indicates. Some other applications seem to use a Wrapper like RegRapper to remove the entries after the program is gone. Which method do you guys prefer? Ideals I would like to make it so the application never touches the registry at all, but i'm still researching how to do that.

Developer Needed

Steve Lamerton's picture
Submitted by Steve Lamerton on April 17, 2006 - 10:32am

I posted this job add up on sourceforge and I think I may as well put it here too.


C++ with wxWidgets Developer Requested

Hi,

I am looking for a C++ with wxWidgets developer to help debug my latest project, Libertà. Libertà is designed to be a simple and easy to use application launcher for applications such as those on www.portableapps.com. It also portableizes (e.g. removes registry settings after use) existing programs. At the moment the project is 90% completed but I am have trouble with some C++ as it is not my 'native' language. Your main role will be to help debug the existing code and/or replace it with more efficient alternatives. If you need ANY more information please dont hesitate to e-mail me.

Operation Cleanup

Ryan McCue's picture
Submitted by Ryan McCue on April 13, 2006 - 6:32pm

Operation Cleanup:

Description:
Cleaning up the Request Apps forum, suggesting things and just basically making sure that everything is closed with a definite answer. This also means developing things if no solution exists.

Starts:
May 1st

Members:
rmccue
nm35
justin
Jonathan
mdweaver7485
(join below)

Stay tuned for updates.

MESSAGE TO JOHN HALLER: Project Page request

Submitted by nm35 on April 12, 2006 - 5:12pm

@John:

(I'm posting a topic here instead of e-mailing you since you have 300+ messages to wade through. :P)

Could you make a few project pages for me? Here's what I need:

  • Portable Notepad2
  • Instant FileZilla
  • Portable Nightingale (my portable Songbird)
  • Portable Development Suite (integrated IDE, if you have a better name please tell me!)

That's all I need at the moment; I'll let you know when I need more.

UPX Assistant: handy automation tool for creating portable apps!

Submitted by aniperleo on April 12, 2006 - 10:50am

Hello All!

I LOVE UPX, but it can also take a lot of time for me to write backups and make my compressions, which is why I have written UPX Assistant (v1.01)! Now all my backups can be written automatically and mass compressions completed on the fly. In the interests of the community I would also like the share the application, maybe it can help you too, maybe not. Basically, you can drag multiple files into the application or shortcut, and there are some other features I'll write below the download link.

Download:
http://www.turboultra.com/portable/setup_upxassistant-1.01.exe

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