Version 3.3.1 of X-LibreOffice, winPenPack's portable LibreOffice, was released on February 24.

Now, over two weeks later, LibreOffice Portable is still at version 3.3.0. Last week I edited the database entry and added a note about X-LibreOffice precisely because LibreOffice Portable is lagging behind.

At this point, I suggest changing the entry to point to X-LibreOffice instead of LibreOffice Portable. Doing so would immediately notify visitors that X-LibreOffice 3.3.1 is available. In case some people (for example PortableApps.com Menu users) are still willing to wait for LibreOffice Portable 3.3.1, there would be a note about LibreOffice Portable.

It is a big difference if one project releases a piece of software over two weeks after the other.

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There is a big difference between the two packages. LibreOffice Portable is the official portable version (also linked to from LibreOfficePortable.org) and is developed with input and participation from The Document Foundation. It has a more complete portable launcher than the unofficial X-LibreOffice package as well. The delay is due to the fixing of a couple bugs in relation to portablization to improve performance and to create additional installer options to support every language LibreOffice itself supports (I think X-LibreOffice is just Italian and English). The primary developer of the portable version inside The Document Foundation had some personal matters to attend to which resulted in the delay and required us to contribute additional development time to it. It will be released within the next few days.

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That's right, Italian and English are the only languages X-LibreOffice supports. I have decided that I'll switch to LibreOffice Portable myself if it supports the Finnish language before X-LO.



I believe you. I suggested swapping the entry this early because I wanted that we'll have enough time to discuss before deciding anything.

Everything is fine if LibreOffice Portable 3.3.1 will become available soon enough. If not, I'm going to return to the subject later.

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

Good catch.

The only time I'm aware of that there was a version difference between winpenpack software and portableapps, it was with 7-zip. Winpenpack had the latest beta, which was a very substantive update, but in short time, PortableApps started offering it both the stable and beta versions. In the case of LibreOffice, judging from the release notes, this is also a substantive update: bug fixes and code cleanup. These issues would be key for someone using a productivity suite, which is a software that needs stability.

While this would ordinarily be an issue, PortableApps has a strong history (as in the 7-zip case) of very frequent updates in line with the software they repackage, so I don't think this will take long to clear up.

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X-LibreOffice 3.3.2 was released on Wednesday. LibreOffice Portable has been outdated for over a month.

I continue to suggest swapping the entry. I no longer trust John's promises.

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

LibreOffice Portable is done and will be posted tomorrow, or possibly later today (5 days after release) if I can complete the PA.c Installer features request to remove unneeded languages in time. Most likely, I will release it without it and add that in in time for 3.3.3 since it is primarily intended for LibreOffice Portable.

We had to adjust the build process to handle all 57 supported languages in LibreOffice at the request of members of the LibreOffice community instead of the 18 we were doing (or the only 2 that the unofficial X-LibreOffice supports).

We don't just install it manually and copy it in, we have an automated build process developed in conjunction with The Document Foundation so that builds are consistent between versions and upgrades progress smoothly. That process needed quite a bit of updating to properly handle 59 languages. Future updates should be out same-day as the automated builder takes about 30-45 minutes to run now, similar to the way our Firefox builder compiles 17 packages and uploads them to our mirrors in about the same amount of time.

UPDATE (28 Mar): For anybody watching this topic, The Document Foundation needs an extra day to get the files on their mirror network (as the official portable version, they host downloads of LibreOffice Portable themselves), so it should hit their mirrors tomorrow morning (German time) and be announced on PA.c and TDF tomorrow morning (NY time). We have two builds, one our standard package with Czech, Chinese (Simplifed and Traditional), Danish, Dutch, English (US and Great Britain), French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Korean, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish clocking in at 400MB installed. And the other, which we're calling "FullMultilingual", with all 57 languages LibreOffice support clocking in at 570MB installed. The installer has an 'experimental' option to remove some extra language files (dictionaries, wordbooks and templates) for all languages except English and whatever language you selected during install which reduces the install size down to about 240MB and 370MB respectively.

UPDATE (Mar 29): We needed to finalize the installer option to remove the extra languages (as it isn't translated) with The Document Foundation. That's been done and the packages have been built and sent to The Document Foundation. As it is later in the day German time, I'm not sure if they will be finished propogated to their mirrors in time for our contact to let us know today. But we'll announce it as soon as TDF makes it available.

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Also this time winPenPack was faster. The "multilingual" and the "all languages" versions have been released yesterday http://www.winpenpack.com/en/news.php?extend.218.3

As mentioned, it was done before the availability, but as this is the actual official portable version, The Document Foundation had to take the time to get the files and push them out to their mirror network. Plus, they wanted to review the added experimental feature to shrink things down by removing extra languages. So, our all languages version is only a 133MB download (119MB for the most popular 20 languages) and can be installed in as little 382MB for any language (or even 260MB for the 20 most popular ones) with the installer compared to as much as a 411MB download and 1GB install size for many languages in the unofficial WinPenPack package.

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PortableApps.com - The open standard for portable software

How come "faster" became the most important thing?

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Because you can try it before than others!
Let me explain:
sometimes portable distributions can be used to test new features or bug-fixes without changeover on your installed "stable" version.
This is my "personal way of working" with suites like this! I use Openoffice everyday in my workstation, but I like to test LibreOffice improvements out of any risk. In this case also "faster" is important.

Anyway, IMHO, both distributions are very good and stable for end-users also.
My "very personal" preference goes to X-LibreOffice, but, I'm Italian so it's quite normal!

Are you sure? The winPenPack's multilingual version (57 languages) seems to be 299 MB (the zip package) and 600 MB (the exctracted files). In the PortableApps version the languages deletion works?

The deletion of language in PortableApps version does not seem to work. However, I compared these two versions by performing a raw test "on field"!

I install the Portable LibreOffice in my USB stick, under "G:\Portable Software" folder, but, at first run, I received this error:



Let's change the path in "G:\Portable_Software"; the program starts, but immediately it looks for Java, without finding it:



Ok, for a test doesn't matter! Then I create a writer document and try to save it, but the "My Documents" folder on host pc opens!
From Options|Paths, the path to "My Documents" point to the "My Documents" folder of the host pc (..a little bit unusual place to look for documents in a portable device!).
I "force" to save the document in the "Data" folder on my pendrive and then I found it in "Recent Documents":



Well done! But when I move my pendrive to my laptop (now the path is E:\), the "Recent" path is not updated.
I try opening the Recent Document, but I receive another error. The Recent Documents list has been also deleted.



Next step: if I change the name of the folder containing the program, I get another very strange error: "The path to LibreOffice Portable has changed...some features may not work":



Now, same procedures with the UNOfficial winPenPack's portable version.
The program correctly runs from folders having spaces in their path; at first run (and just if not already present on my portable device) Java is automatically downloaded and installed in X-LibreOffice structure; changing the drive letter, all Recent files and other paths are correctly updated; the documents are saved in the right "Documents" folder present inside X-LibreOffice structure; no errors! Neither if you change location, nor if you rename the program's folder.


Shortly, in my humbly opinion, UNofficial X-LibreOffice quality is definitely higher than *OFFICIAL* Portable LibreOffice.

Hey guys, have a look here, at the top of homepage...
http://www.winpenpack.com/en/news.php
IMHO a NEW very nice package!

On my "winXP sp3" netbook, from within a 2GB USB stick, it works properly and it is quite reactive!. After first run, selecting my Italian language, the final "weight" of whole pack is about 349 MB (without java: if you "install" it this is about 87MB and it is stored in "lib" folder).
This seems to me a good compromise for a "portable" suite.

Today I'll have a strong "work on field" test, because I need to prepare a "technical specification" for a customer, and I'll do it with this portable version.
see U soon for any news over there in a few days!

Cheers

Excellent.

I, however, am still at rev4. I'm going to update my copy when X-LibreOffice 3.4 is available.

http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan#3.4.0_release

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

We are not committed to anything from PortableApps and we can definitely switch over as I indicated in a previous post. However:

• How is it handling Java? If its installing, that's definitely not portable and I'm not aware of WinPenPack releasing a portable Java package.
• What is the correct documents folder? What is the expected behavior? I ask because if you're suggesting C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents I don't think that's the most portable-friendly option.
• Some users might not want a recent files listing, although admittedly that functionality should be capable of being turned on or off under preferences.

And has anyone submitted a bug report for any of this?

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