Portable App Development

I am currently packaging an application called Asymptote Portable and the one person who actually gives feedback and I are having a strange issue. For some reason, I am able to run test batch files and proper integration in other programs on Windows 8.1 Professional where they cannot run them on Windows XP SP3 or Windows 7 (presumed SP1). This is very strange and I feel we need a third opinion on to why they could have such disparate results. Any help, preferably testing or purely technical assistance would be greatly appreciated.

I started working on QtiPlot which is a software for visualising graphs like Origin but open source.

I have got it working using the following QtiPlotPortable.ini:

[Launch]
ProgramExecutable=QtiPlot\qtiplot.exe
DirectoryMoveOK=yes
SupportsUNC=yes

[Activate]
Registry=true

[RegistryKeys]
qtiplot=HKCU\Software\ProIndependent\QtiPlot

[RegistryCleanupIfEmpty]
1=HKCU\Software\Trolltech\OrganizationDefaults\Qt
2=HKCU\Software\Trolltech\OrganizationDefaults
3=HKCU\Software\Trolltech
4=HKCU\Software\ProIndependent

I have a quick question for the devs regarding environment variables. Is it in bad form to have %APPDATA% redirect to somewhere to eliminate the need for file and directory moves? I only ask because it seems easier to redefine environment variables like APPDATA, LOCALAPPDATA, and USERPROFILE and not have to worry about moving large amounts of files.

Is it possible to define/implement a custom installer step?

I'd like the user to select a single option from a list and
the installer should then download an additional file, based
on the selection and execute the file post-installation.

Thanks for any information about this!

I created a Jar starter, so you can launch any .jar File within the Portable Apps Menu without the jPortable launcher Dialog.
It uses the jPortable runtime, which must be installed.

You just have to create a New Folder for the app, put in the .jar file (additional files of the app too, of course) and put the also the launcher files into the folder.
Within the appname.ini you have to replace appname.jar with the name of the .jar file.

I'm currently working on a program that creates a partial-randomly named directory to work with and then leaves it there after runtime. I assume it's being used as a temporary file storage location, but that is inconsequential because I want to remove it. Unfortunately, DirectoryCleanupForce doesn't seem to work with wildcards. Is there a way of getting rid of these directories? Or will I have to resort to using NSIS scripting? Below is the exact code I have written in the launcher.ini file.

[DirectoriesCleanupForce]
1=%USERPROFILE%\.asy
2=%PAL:AppDir%\asy\asy_*

Can the desktop theme and gadgets become portable too?

-=HKCU\Software\Classes\bittorrent

Description: PAF AppInfo Editor is a program used for creating/editing a PortableApps.com app. It simplifies things by making most options point and click. Using this editor would prevent you from making mistakes that you would otherwise do if you were manually typing up the appinfo.ini file.

CRC: D4BDA964
MD5: bbb7e02fcbb807db9c9a4ec674fe29de
SHA-1: 90fa9e0554c66294c9f1618e28060bc64e67d32a
Dependencies: .net Framework 4.0
Languages: English
Changelog: http://paste2.org/smwxM3zG

I've got the following code to run a custom executable file after installation of the portable app:


!macro CustomCodePostInstall
ExecWait '"$INSTDIR\App\Cygwin\Cygwin.exe" --quiet-mode --no-shortcuts --disable-buggy-antivirus --site http://cygwin.xl-mirror.nl --root $INSTDIR\App\Cygwin\ --local-package-dir $INSTDIR\Data\Packages\'
!macroend


Unfotunately this stopped working some time ago. It seems like the execution is just skipped.

Any idea how to get this back working or what the reason is?

Thanks a lot!