winPenPack

lajjal · **Joined:** Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:18 pm **Posts:** 82

I am curious about the sparse mention of winPenPack here (nothing more than 7 asides buried in program descriptions). Although their stuff is a bit slower because of the environment they use, they have a lot of portable apps and a few found nowhere else. Is there something I don't know about their operation or perhaps a feud of some kind. The nice thing about winPenPack is the ease of program updating, just one click.

ashghost · **Posted:** Sat May 03, 2008 8:55 am

As I see it, there are 2 minimal biases at work here:

I used Google to search www.portablefreeware.com for "X", and found at least 2 WinPenPack apps that have their own database entries because they're the only portable versions of those apps:

http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=657

http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=1100

So, if there are any other apps in the WinPenPack that aren't already in TPFC, go ahead and submit 'em!

By the way, I downloaded ALL three of the collections I referenced above when I first got interested in having lots of portable apps. By the time I deleted all of the inferior apps that duplicated functionality and the apps that unnecessarily used a registry wrapper, it might have been more trouble than it was worth. :lol:

Cheers,

Joe

lajjal · **Joined:** Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:18 pm **Posts:** 82

Actually any of the 221 apps at winPenPack can stand alone just fine. They need a couple of empty folders setup to work properly. I never expected that the collections (which are kind of useless) would be listed here. I don't have the time to cross reference and give a list of apps unique to winPenPack but it's a lot more than 2. X-TightVNC is one that came up the other day in a different thread.

ashghost · **Posted:** Sat May 03, 2008 12:48 pm

I wasn't saying they don't run portably. I'm not sure how their wrapper works, whether it allows the app to write to the registry (like Haller's PortableApps do) and then cleans up after it when you exit the app, or if it somehow redirects the registry and filesystem writes to the specified subfolders. Either way, it's slightly more overhead than using an executable from the original developer that natively saves its settings to a text file in its own folder - which is why, as you said, they're slower. Also, with Haller's method comes the risk that if the app crashes, you'll lose data (and leave it in the registry of the machine you're working on).

By offering the 2 examples I found, I was just pointing out that they aren't excluded from having their own entries.

The fact that all of those apps aren't listed is the other "bias" that I didn't mention - it's a lot of work! You don't even want to make a list, much less write up a description for each and get a screenshot and test for unicode support and OS support.

TPFC is Andrew Lee's website, and he updates the database on his time. Check out the "about" and "faq" pages (especially "In what order do you process freeware submissions?" on the faq - though I don't think he even looks at "4 to 5 apps a day" anymore).

So if there are WinPenPack apps that you absolutely love and they're not in the database, perhaps you want to submit those at least? Write a description (or copy from the WinPenPack description or the original developer's description), include a link to a screenshot, include a link to the webpage and a download link.

lajjal · **Joined:** Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:18 pm **Posts:** 82

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I absolutely appreciate the venue provided here and I'm sure it was a ton of work to start and a ton of work to maintain. I wasn't trying to be critical more than just musing about why more entries of winPenPack stuff had not crept in over time. Thanks for pointing out the 2 entries for Inkscape and Solfege since I missed those. By the way, you are right about the registry, they use a fake one. I also agree that Haller's approach is not a good one but it does let him do some things others can't (including winPenPack) like do a portable version of the latest Gnucash.

Queue · **Joined:** Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:41 am **Posts:** 198

ashghost wrote:

Also, with Haller's method comes the risk that if the app crashes, you'll lose data (and leave it in the registry of the machine you're working on).

This isn't exactly accurate yet I hear it really often so I want to clear something up.

Stuff will only be left in the registry if the wrapper crashes, not the program that has been portable-ized. This practically has a zero chance of occuring (the wrapper crashing I mean). If the main program crashes, the registry wrapper will clean up the registry the same as if the main program had been closed normally.

Also, most times a program crashes you'll lose data unless it has some sort of auto-saving feature.

In other words, basically the only time the quoted statement is true is if the OS itself crashes. Even then, simply running the wrapped program again then closing it will get everything back to how it should be. Not as perfect as something that redirects registry calls entirely (or a natively portable program), but it's not an end-of-the-world scenario and not nearly as risky as the quoted statement makes it out to be.

Queue

ashghost · **Posted:** Sat May 03, 2008 8:32 pm

I suppose that oughta teach me to just repeat what I've read in forums. I've never been worried about that happening anyway (how often do mature open source apps crash?), so I shouldn't have echoed it just to try to make a point. :oops:

lajjal · **Joined:** Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:18 pm **Posts:** 82

Not using the registry at all is always safer.

webfork · **Posted:** Fri Dec 31, 2010 1:11 pm

Oddly, although the software doesn't appear to have been mentioned directly here on forums, WinPenPack's menu system has gone dotNET. I'm very confused by this move, but they seem to think the benefits outweigh the loss of portability.

joby_toss · **Posted:** Sat Jan 01, 2011 12:54 am

This is unbelievable!
This move is the end of WinPenPack's menu, in my opinion!
Sabotage?

webfork · **Posted:** Sat Jan 01, 2011 11:06 am

joby_toss wrote:

This move is the end of WinPenPack's menu, in my opinion!

Given that it hasn't even been mentioned in forums, I think we can safely say this is more of a blow to the whole WinPenPack project as a viable PortableApps alternative.

SYSTEM · **Posted:** Sat Jan 01, 2011 11:29 am

webfork wrote:

joby_toss wrote:

This move is the end of WinPenPack's menu, in my opinion!

Given that it hasn't even been mentioned in forums, I think we can safely say this is more of a blow to the whole WinPenPack project as a viable PortableApps alternative.

What do you mean? I thought the winPenPack project doesn't depend on winPenPack menu. :roll:

For example, I switched to X-OpenOffice.org when I read this comment and this piece of news most likely won't make me switch back to OpenOffice.org Portable...

joby_toss · **Posted:** Sat Jan 01, 2011 11:34 am

I think there is a much smaller number of users that seek and download the individual apps, as opposed to the whole suite (any version).

webfork · **Posted:** Sat Jan 01, 2011 11:57 am

SYSTEM wrote:

webfork wrote:

Given that it hasn't even been mentioned in forums, I think we can safely say this is more of a blow to the whole WinPenPack project as a viable PortableApps alternative.

What do you mean? I thought the winPenPack project doesn't depend on winPenPack menu.

That's correct. However:

Because PFWC didn't seem to care about winPenPack's menu in the first place, this doesn't really affect anyone here.
However, we HAVE recommended the collection as a whole (which includes the menu) in a couple of places as a way to jump on board the portable software wagon quickly and easily.
With the dotNET move, any note in the future about winPenPack will always come with a "dotNet" disclaimer, which for a long list of reasons discussed elsewhere will hurt their status.

SYSTEM · **Posted:** Sat Jan 01, 2011 12:56 pm

webfork wrote:

SYSTEM wrote:

webfork wrote:

Given that it hasn't even been mentioned in forums, I think we can safely say this is more of a blow to the whole WinPenPack project as a viable PortableApps alternative.

What do you mean? I thought the winPenPack project doesn't depend on winPenPack menu.

That's correct. However:

Because PFWC didn't seem to care about winPenPack's menu in the first place, this doesn't really affect anyone here.
However, we HAVE recommended the collection as a whole (which includes the menu) in a couple of places as a way to jump on board the portable software wagon quickly and easily.
With the dotNET move, any note in the future about winPenPack will always come with a "dotNet" disclaimer, which for a long list of reasons discussed elsewhere will hurt their status.

OK, I see: in the future, everyone who recommends winPenPack suite to other people has to mention the .NET dependency of winPenPack menu and explain what the dependency means in practice (until .NET becomes common enough). Thus, most people don't want to mention winPenPack any longer.

I can understand their move, even though I find it unwise.

In the end, winPenPack Net Menu has a lot of improvements over the old menu (at least according to the announcement).

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