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Garrett Moderator Team
Joined: 04 Oct 2001 Posts: 2149 Location: A House
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Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2005 5:12 am Post subject: Need beta testing for Port'Launch |
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I need some beta testing, but first, let me explain a little first....
A few months back I bought a little iRiver 128 Meg MP3 Player. I always
wanted something like that. But I quickly found that 128 megs isn't
enough at all. So I spent a bit more and bought an iPod Mini 4 gig...
YeeeeeeeHaaaawwwwwww!!! Now I'm Rock'in Baby!!! I don't have
enough songs to fill this baby up!
But! I realized I can store files on it and actually run programs from
it also. Came across http://www.portablefreeware.com/all.php and
of course, I've been visiting tinyapps.org for a long time now.
Having selected a nice bunch of apps and compiling my own selection
of apps to have handy with me when I'm on the go, I took my Mini to
work to see if a program of mine was working, and it does, but I want
to see if it will work on other systems as well.
The program I made was a launcher for all the portable apps I have
on my Mini.
It's a no configuration setup, just run it and it has it's own rules to
follow to look for exe's on the removable drive.
I followed the foot steps of the PortableFirefox, PortableThunderbird
and other portable apps directory structure, which is something like this:
k:\PortableApps
"k:\" being the drive letter of our example removable drive.
My program resides directly in the "PortableApps" directory and will
detect programs in the same directory and one subdirectory beyond
that. So it will look in
k:\PortableApps\PortableFirefox
And find PortableFirefox.exe, grab some info and add it to it's list of
programs that can be run from this removable drive.
It saves no data to ini files or makes any registry entries. It's not
fancy, it's clean and simple. It's not intended for mass amounts of
programs to be listed, but can with no problem.
So, I need to know if there is anyone else here who has removable
drives and has programs on them for on the go situations, or anyone
who is now interested in setting up their own portable apps on a
removable drive, and wouldn't mind giving my launcher a test run
before I put it online for the masses.
Drop me a reply here and if anyone is interested, then I'll upload
it and a post the url in this thread.
thanks,
-Garrett
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LiquidCode Moderator Team
Joined: 05 Dec 2000 Posts: 1751 Location: Space and Time
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Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 12:44 am Post subject: |
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I'd like to give it a try. I have a 64mb usb drive and a 1gig mp3 player. I am going to be getting an iPod shuffle in the near future as well. So hook me up.
_________________ Chris
Http://theblindhouse.com |
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arcray Valued Contributor
Joined: 13 Jul 2001 Posts: 242 Location: Aude, France
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Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 11:55 am Post subject: |
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I would like to have a go. I have an old 20GB iPod, and a newer 60GB photo iPod, as well as a 250GB firewire drive to play with
_________________ Andrew GRAY
If you don't know I am looking for work, I won't get the job.
andrewrcgray.com |
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Garrett Moderator Team
Joined: 04 Oct 2001 Posts: 2149 Location: A House
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Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks a bunch guys.
Ok, download the zip and unzip it in a directory where you will have
other apps sitting, and or, have other apps in subdirectories. It does
not have to be in any specific directory at all. In fact, you could put
it in the program files directory on your main hd, but that's not what
this program was intended for.
Runtime is included just in case you don't have it. It would be even
better if you have access to a pc that doesn't have the vdsrun dlls
already on it. I want to make sure the runtime works in the same
dir as the app.
http://garrett.vdsworld.com/files/betatesting/PortLaunch.zip
This program does not make any registry entries, ini files or write to
anything on the hd or the removable drive.
This message will self destruct in 5 seconds.......
-Garrett
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LiquidCode Moderator Team
Joined: 05 Dec 2000 Posts: 1751 Location: Space and Time
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Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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Works very nice! No problems....so far...
_________________ Chris
Http://theblindhouse.com |
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LiquidCode Moderator Team
Joined: 05 Dec 2000 Posts: 1751 Location: Space and Time
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Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 3:12 am Post subject: |
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Ok. It's great. I have a few requests.
1. Have a "Do not include" list. I have other programs on the MEM Stick that I would not like listed because it gets too cluttered.
2. An option to closes all programs that are running on the MEM Stick. That way I'll be sure that I don't forget to close a program and avoid data loss.
Very nice. This is something that I will use.
Thanks
_________________ Chris
Http://theblindhouse.com |
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Garrett Moderator Team
Joined: 04 Oct 2001 Posts: 2149 Location: A House
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Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 4:29 am Post subject: |
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Exclusion list? Sure. I avoided it because I was being extreme about
not writing anything anywhere from the program. But I think the option
of an exclusion list should be good.
Close the programs that are open if you close the launcher? Hmmmm..
I think I can work that in too.
Thanks for the suggestions.
-Garrett
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LiquidCode Moderator Team
Joined: 05 Dec 2000 Posts: 1751 Location: Space and Time
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Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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Sure NP. Let me know when you get them worked in. I'll be happpy to test it.
On more thing, it would be nice if the icons were the icon of the exe file.
Thanks
_________________ Chris
Http://theblindhouse.com |
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LiquidCode Moderator Team
Joined: 05 Dec 2000 Posts: 1751 Location: Space and Time
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Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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Ok, so I'm sitting here playing with this and got another idea...
- What about an autostart list? When the user runs PortLaunch, it could optionally run a list of programs. I run Roboform Portable and Stickies every time I insert my Mem Stick.
- What about hotkeys? Assign hotkeys to start a specific exe. I know that PortLaunch would need to be running for that, but so are the other programs from the mem stick.
I also made an Autorun.inf file for PortLaunch, makes it even funner.
_________________ Chris
Http://theblindhouse.com |
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Garrett Moderator Team
Joined: 04 Oct 2001 Posts: 2149 Location: A House
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Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 1:26 am Post subject: |
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Hey, can I have a copy of that autorun.inf? I want to see if my iPod Mini
is capable of running autorun files or not. I know some removable
media is not capable of using the autorun.
Ok, to the suggestions.... Auto run and hotkeys, sure thing. Icons of
the programs. Ok.
Also being added;
* User defined sorting.
* When minized, use a tray icon to launch apps.
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LiquidCode Moderator Team
Joined: 05 Dec 2000 Posts: 1751 Location: Space and Time
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Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 4:54 am Post subject: |
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Very cool! Looking forward to it. Attached is the INF. It would not allow me to attach it as an inf, just rename it.
Description: |
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autorun.txt |
Filesize: |
135 Bytes |
Downloaded: |
1583 Time(s) |
_________________ Chris
Http://theblindhouse.com |
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LiquidCode Moderator Team
Joined: 05 Dec 2000 Posts: 1751 Location: Space and Time
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Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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You got a new version to test yet?
_________________ Chris
Http://theblindhouse.com |
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Garrett Moderator Team
Joined: 04 Oct 2001 Posts: 2149 Location: A House
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Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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Still working on it. Here's some of the added features and need to do
things:
[- COMPLETED ITEMS -]
[*] Have a "Do not include" list. I have other programs
on the MEM Stick that I would not like listed because it
gets too cluttered.
--> Complete!
[*] Autostart user defined apps.
--> Complete!
[*] Grab all exe files in all subdirectories beyond Port'Launch.
--> Complete!
[*] Start multiple apps selected in list.
--> Complete!
[- PENDING ITEMS -]
[* An option to closes all programs that are running on
the MEM Stick. That way I'll be sure that I don't forget
to close a program and avoid data loss.
[*] User defined sorting. Drag and drop moving them.
[*] Popup descriptions
[*] Minimize to system tray and allow popup menu to
launch the programs.
[*] Hide toolbar buttons option / Add those features
to right click popup menu
[*] Hotkey support.
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LiquidCode Moderator Team
Joined: 05 Dec 2000 Posts: 1751 Location: Space and Time
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Garrett Moderator Team
Joined: 04 Oct 2001 Posts: 2149 Location: A House
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Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 5:32 am Post subject: |
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Updated: 9 August, 2005
Version: 0.2005.08.09
Drop me a reply if any bugs, errors or new suggestions.
Thanks.
http://garrett.vdsworld.com/files/betatesting/PortLaunch.zip
Quote: |
[- COMPLETED ITEMS -]
[*] Have a "Do not include" list. I have other programs
on the MEM Stick that I would not like listed because it
gets too cluttered.
--> Complete!
[*] Show exe icons by default but give option to not use
them but use my default icons.
[Showing exe icons only instead]
--> Complete!
[*] Autostart user defined apps.
--> Complete!
[*] Grab all exe files in all subdirectories beyond Port'Launch.
--> Complete!
[*] Start multiple apps selected in list.
--> Complete!
[*] An option to closes all programs that are running on
the MEM Stick. That way I'll be sure that I don't forget
to close a program and avoid data loss.
--> Complete!
[*] Hide toolbar buttons option / Add those features
to right click popup menu
--> Complete!
[*] Need to make options/settings window for:
* Viewing and putting back excluded apps
--> Complete!
* Autostart list
--> Complete!
* General
Toolbar View
--> Complete!
Check programs on close
--> Complete!
[- PENDING ITEMS -]
[*] User defined sorting. Drag and drop moving them.
[*] Popup descriptions
[*] Minimize to system tray and allow popup menu to
launch the programs.
[*] Routine to determine if app is already in autostart
list.
[*] Hotkey support.
[*] Need to make options/settings window for:
* Hotkey pre-sets |
-Garrett
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