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Portal provide a simple and easy portable application launcher with hotkeys.

http://guipro.sourceforge.net/portal



Download the installer @ http://sourceforge.net/projects/guipro/files/PortAL/ (install application + uninstall component, copy, uninstall)

Settings:: Application folder

Checked this out, wrote up some notes:

GPL license, autodetect 32/64 bit, automatically asks you if you want the portable version.

Requires Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 runtine (contains MSVCR90.DLL and MSCVP90.DLL).

Configuration is done using an XML file. For those familiar with XML, this will be easy to work with, but the average user is going to balk at the complexity. Also, its simply faster to drag and drop programs into a menu as with PStart. Hopefully the author will develop a graphical interface for editing the config, in addition to the well-written howto.

PortAL is at version 1.4.3 (released 2012-09-02):

TPFC entry is at http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2315

Please vote.

1. I get registry leftovers if using the installation method with portable option:



2. One can use UE on the installer and get both 32 and 64 bit versions by choosing Auto rename (u) when asked in the command prompt (the smaller one is 32 bit):



Note: there is a folder named "img" under "$_OUTDIR" that needs to be moved in "doc" to have images in documentation.

3. As webfork pointed out, it depends on 2 dll files:



Should we modify something in the entry?

joby_toss wrote:Should we modify something in the entry?

Excellent, joby_toss. I totally forgot about the installer's writing to the registry. Yes, I will modify the entry. Thanks.

Fixed... is the "How to extract" instruction clear?

Very!
Voted.

PortAL is at version 1.4.5

------------------------
Release: 1.4.5
Date : 2013-05-10
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* New '-config" parameter (Feature Request #18)
* Fix with variable parsing (bug #21)

------------------------
Release: 1.4.4
Date : 2013-01-22
------------------------
* Adding support for Windows 8
* Can override system hotkeys

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http://sourceforge.net/projects/guipro/files/PortAL/

From the entry post:

The current version of PortAL needs the Microsoft Visual Studio Redistributable package installed to work (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downloa ... x?id=40784) but the developer has agreed to compile the necessary binaries into the installation package so that users should not need to install the Re-distro package in the next release.

Anyone have a sense of the accuracy here? Should the entry get amended for Visual Studio Redist until the next release?

webfork wrote:Should the entry get amended for Visual Studio Redist until the next release?

• "If you build it, they will come". It doesn't hurt anyone, so I guess that is a yes by me...

You only need 2 files. Download vcredist package, extract and put them where PortAL.exe is.

Thanks for the info, joby_toss.

As I recommended in the entry comments, the developer is very active and responsive to user input.

Spin out to the issues section of his GitHub site: https://github.com/obsidev/guipro/issues to let him know about any issues that you find - he will be grateful for the input.

Also, I wouldn't remove the Visual Studio Redistribution dependency until the next version. Version 1.5 is still dependent.

I mentioned Joby_Toss' registry issue to the developer - he's got a fix for it and it will be included in the next release.

Question to the Moderator - when future versions of PortAL (or anything else) are released, should I put that here or with the app commentary?

Shadeclan wrote:Question to the Moderator - when future versions of PortAL (or anything else) are released, should I put that here or with the app commentary?

It's better to mention updates in the forum. Not all of us follow comments.