I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss about Software that hasn't yet been developed that you would like as a Portable Application to be developed. I am hoping developers will come across this thread and gain a sense of inspiration into creating a Portable program. All suggestions* below.

*Note: I am not referring to suggestions of current applications which aren't Portable, e.g. Office as Open Office Portable is a worthy alternative.

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Added 177 Applications: Portable and an AutoIt MVP
SoftwareSpot - Portable Apps

I don't think you'll get many good ideas. Portable software movement is fairly big and I think that all important things are done already. So you'll either get some niche things or more major ones that are available, but could be done better.
As example of the latter I could give virtual optical drives.

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Well, I actually got one. I started to develop it (using NSIS) but at about 80% I realized I'm too lazy to continue

It's a backup utility but not a regular one. It operates from the right-click context menu of files (yes, not truely portable) but a very simple GUI could be created to it (perhaps a floating always-on-top box). It's WIP name is DupeME and duplicates the file in question (+ opens file in default program). You could set how many backup files are allowed, where to store them (right next to the main file or in a separate directory), backup extension, etc. When opening duplicate files in DupeME it prompts for restoring the backup (Yes|No).

If I would start it over I would choose AutoIt I guess as NSIS is not very capable of creating GUIs, not to mention my limited programming knowledge. If someone's interested I'd happily hand over all credits & stuffs

Like this?

Objective:
To make a searchable catalogue off all your collected software DVD/CD library
Idea:
1 Each disk in your collection is loaded - obviously by hand
2 The disks folder structure is scanned
3 An identically named empty structure is re-created with empty files on a dedicated device e.g. 4GB USB
4 The disk is ejected
5 An 'index number' is displayed for the disk, so the physical disk can marked/labelled

Use:
Use the excellent 'everywhere' search program to find any software you have on your shelves

Notes:
I've omitted all the little details & 'maybe try's etc for brevity and clarity.

Thanks everybody! My main goal was for those who know AutoIt, AutoHotKey and want to learn but lack inspiration in what to design then this thread could have been a good catalyst.

@tproli - Nice idea, but isn't this a little bit like DropIt or couldn't this be added to DropIt (for example)?
@NickR - There is something kind of similar in TPFC with ZeroZipper - http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1573, of course the cataloguing would have to be done manually.

Again, for those want to pick up a programming language and wish to step away from the "Hello World" tutorial(s), these Examples above will be a great starting point to learn skills in a real world environment.

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Added 177 Applications: Portable and an AutoIt MVP
SoftwareSpot - Portable Apps

* A text-transformation utility similar to the very not portable CleanHaven. EditPad and Notepad ++ come close but miss on a few important elements.
* Some kind of Visio replacement. Don't say "Dia" unless you've really used it to solve problems because it can't and it doesn't. Edit: I had forgotten about Dynamic Draw Portable, although I haven't tested that program at any length.
* Barcode scan/recognizer. We have one but the reviews were not great. Its something that has come to portable devices like cell phones and should come to portable software. Edit: PA has a Bar Code creator: Zint.
* A strong, commercial anti-virus product. Big boys like AVG, McAfee, something like that. I've seen discussion of this, but if someone has really solved this, please reply.

I'll see if I can come up with more when I have more time.

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Supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation | DuckDuckGo user | My GPG key | Projects donated to: VLC, CubicExplorer, Ditto, Greenshot, TrueCrypt

using ClamWin as a benchmark, what are you wanting to improve?
do you mean like a full-fledged, resident scanner?

If you're doing tech support, you're worried about the foreign system you're on, or many other scenarios I can think of, you need serious antivirus. I don't know how ClamWin compares in terms of virus detection to major anti-virus applications, but I do know its considerably slower.

A resident scanner would be nice, but isn't critical in my view.

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Supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation | DuckDuckGo user | My GPG key | Projects donated to: VLC, CubicExplorer, Ditto, Greenshot, TrueCrypt

2D and 3D CAD. I'm currently using DraftSight for 2D, it's not natively portable, but I've hacked together a wrapper for it. Blender is OK for general 3D, but it's very hard to draw things that are mm accurate.

i like it because it's open source and it doesn't entrench itself throughout your system. however, in-the-cloud scanning is becoming popular and so maybe Clam AV for Windows would interest you (ClamWin doesn't do the cloud). Clam, as far as i know, is really popular for server side scanning. defs seem to updated more frequently than many commercial products. another one to check out is aSquared (now Emsisoft). their command-line scanner is free and i have had very good results with it.

Strictly speaking, ClamAV sucks.

http://www.virus.gr/portal/en/content/2009-08%2C-10-august-05-september

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My YouTube channel | Release date of my fourth playlist: April 11, 2013

Strictly speaking, such comparisons are useless.
A program that wouldn't look at a file and always yelled 'it's a virus!' would be considered perfect.

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That seems to be the case. Even their wikipedia page is very sour.

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Supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation | DuckDuckGo user | My GPG key | Projects donated to: VLC, CubicExplorer, Ditto, Greenshot, TrueCrypt

no wonder i never have any viruses

actually, as a "software developer", if you want to call me that, who distributes software, i guess i should be careful about joking around with that
i'm a bit of a security nut and i do take serious precautions

Here are some more I put together:

* DVD ripper (like Handbrake)
* Basic video editor
* Basic music-making / production software
* Food/weight/health
* Mapping or GPS software beyond just ITNS Converter (http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1977)
* SFTP server (not FTP over SSL). I can explain the distinction and why this is important elsewhere.
* More art/drawing/creative type programs. ArtRage (http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=330) is really an example of what I'd like to see more of. Most image programs take the form of editors or filtering.
* Form-filling program. This is really something an AutoHotKey or AutoIt person could try to tackle. ArsClip (http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=734) comes close, but I haven't been able to make the formfill tool work.

Edit:
* A portable MediaWiki. You can configure some programs here on the site to run a local webserver and wiki, but this is not simple. As fantastic and versatile as Wiki's are, I'd have thought someone put one together by now. There's WikidPad, but I found it hard to use and dislike CamelCase.
* Super simple cleanup. We have some great system-cleaning/privacy protection freeware here on the site, but I'd like to see a one or two-click solution to clean the system (with optional 1-pass wipe). When the cleaning is done, the program should automatically log out or shut down the system. When you're using a public computer, it should be unfailingly simple to erase everything you did and then walk away.

Edit2:
* Traffic shaping ala Netlimiter ... there are a few possibilities out there but none look portable.

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Supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation | DuckDuckGo user | My GPG key | Projects donated to: VLC, CubicExplorer, Ditto, Greenshot, TrueCrypt