Finally a launcher for all portable programs?
Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 6:42 am
Hello everyone.
I'm Gianluca the developer of SyMenu (http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2394 http://www.ugmfree.it).
Yesterday I released the new version of my program (4.00) that implemented a new feature to integrate virtually all the existant portable programs: it's called SPS.
SPS stands for Standart for Portable Software and it is a standard for documenting portable programs.
What does it mean?
It means that a portable program documented with SPS allows SyMenu to automatically:
- download it from the author web site or from an online repository;
- unpack it to add the program to you portable program collection;
- link it to the SyMenu list of items so you can launch the program from inside the menu;
- update it when a new version is available and of course it is documented in a new SPS;
- remove when you are tired of it.
Someone could object that a similar feature is already available on some other launchers such as the PortableApps one.
You are right, but the PortableApps updater only manage programs packed with its own format (PAF).
What does that mean? It means that someone who wants to add the program to the PortableApps suite, have to create a package suitable to be linked with PortableApps application, you have to work hard on it.
Conversely with SPS you only have to describe how the program is packed (with zip, rar, exe...), where to find the main executable, what the executable name is when it is unpacked, what is the download url and a few other things... This is the reason for which SPS is a documenting standard and not a packing standard.
Virtually almost everything you publish on the PortableFreeware web site could be documented in this way to create an SPS file and therefore could be linked by SyMenu.
SPS is an open standard, well I'm yet working on it, but it is quite stable, and for that reason it allows other launchers to implement it. In that way an SPS suite could be included in more than one launcher.
Last things.
You can learn all you need on SPS from SyMenu forum http://www.ugmfree.it/forum/topics.aspx?ForumID=6
I created an application to help filling the SPS files for your preferred program. You can download it directly from inside SyMenu, its name is SPS Builder, or from my web site http://www.ugmfree.it/SyMenuSPS.aspx
Download SyMenu and have a look at what SPS is able to do. In a few days two people were able to create a suite of almost 50 programs.
SPS is surely inspired to your way to document the programs for this web site, you'll find fields like Stealth, Dependencies, License... it is only a more formal way to document a program because it is not for the users but for the launchers.
If the community of PortableFreeware likes the SPS we could create a PortableFreeware SPS suite that I'll include in SyMenu as an official supported suite otherwise if you want to cooperate to increase the little SyMenu suite, be my guest.
Gianluca
I'm Gianluca the developer of SyMenu (http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2394 http://www.ugmfree.it).
Yesterday I released the new version of my program (4.00) that implemented a new feature to integrate virtually all the existant portable programs: it's called SPS.
SPS stands for Standart for Portable Software and it is a standard for documenting portable programs.
What does it mean?
It means that a portable program documented with SPS allows SyMenu to automatically:
- download it from the author web site or from an online repository;
- unpack it to add the program to you portable program collection;
- link it to the SyMenu list of items so you can launch the program from inside the menu;
- update it when a new version is available and of course it is documented in a new SPS;
- remove when you are tired of it.
Someone could object that a similar feature is already available on some other launchers such as the PortableApps one.
You are right, but the PortableApps updater only manage programs packed with its own format (PAF).
What does that mean? It means that someone who wants to add the program to the PortableApps suite, have to create a package suitable to be linked with PortableApps application, you have to work hard on it.
Conversely with SPS you only have to describe how the program is packed (with zip, rar, exe...), where to find the main executable, what the executable name is when it is unpacked, what is the download url and a few other things... This is the reason for which SPS is a documenting standard and not a packing standard.
Virtually almost everything you publish on the PortableFreeware web site could be documented in this way to create an SPS file and therefore could be linked by SyMenu.
SPS is an open standard, well I'm yet working on it, but it is quite stable, and for that reason it allows other launchers to implement it. In that way an SPS suite could be included in more than one launcher.
Last things.
You can learn all you need on SPS from SyMenu forum http://www.ugmfree.it/forum/topics.aspx?ForumID=6
I created an application to help filling the SPS files for your preferred program. You can download it directly from inside SyMenu, its name is SPS Builder, or from my web site http://www.ugmfree.it/SyMenuSPS.aspx
Download SyMenu and have a look at what SPS is able to do. In a few days two people were able to create a suite of almost 50 programs.
SPS is surely inspired to your way to document the programs for this web site, you'll find fields like Stealth, Dependencies, License... it is only a more formal way to document a program because it is not for the users but for the launchers.
If the community of PortableFreeware likes the SPS we could create a PortableFreeware SPS suite that I'll include in SyMenu as an official supported suite otherwise if you want to cooperate to increase the little SyMenu suite, be my guest.
Gianluca