Portable Firefox 1.0.7

[Sliver]

Launcher 1.1.1 B3 hangs if you remove the UserProfileDirectory from the ini.
By "remove" I mean both leaving the line blank after the "=" and completely removing the line.
By "hangs" I mean I see it running in the Task Manager using 98% of the processor power.


When the ini file is completely removed, PFF Loads and uses the local windows profile. (Desktop points to C:\Doc&set...etc)


As a side note, I am not quite following what the "appdata" dir is being used for. Since we have been including it, mine has stayed completely empty. Am I missing something or is it possible that the data that is supposed to go there going somewhere else?

[CritterNYC]

Launcher 1.1.1 B3 hangs if you remove the UserProfileDirectory from the ini.
By "remove" I mean both leaving the line blank after the "=" and completely removing the line.
By "hangs" I mean I see it running in the Task Manager using 98% of the processor power.

When the ini file is completely removed, PFF Loads and uses the local windows profile. (Desktop points to C:\Doc&set...etc)

As a side note, I am not quite following what the "appdata" dir is being used for. Since we have been including it, mine has stayed completely empty. Am I missing something or is it possible that the data that is supposed to go there going somewhere else?

That's what a "hang" looks like. It's an infinite loop. I'll see if I can nail it down. Checking every possible error condition in NSIS is a mess, so I may just require a full INI setup with newer versions and error out if the variables are missing. It's a simple update to fix your INI and most people use the defaults anyway.

Without the INI, it works as usual and uses the included profile (I just verified this). It does place pluginreg on the local PC, though, as it's using USERPROFILE for that, which I have disabled by default.

As for appdata, that's the directory Firefox *should* use for storing the pluginregistry. It doesn't due to a bug. I'm dropping it into the launcher now in the hopes that it is fixed in 1.5. I'm also trying to keep the launcher for the 4 Mozilla apps, OpenOffice, and my 2 unreleased portable apps consistant.

[Sliver]

As for appdata, that's the directory Firefox *should* use for storing the pluginregistry. It doesn't due to a bug. I'm dropping it into the launcher now in the hopes that it is fixed in 1.5. I'm also trying to keep the launcher for the 4 Mozilla apps, OpenOffice, and my 2 unreleased portable apps consistant.

Thank you for the low down

[stevelam]

Any hint of what the two unreleased apps are?? Please!

[mai9]

Any hint of what the two unreleased apps are?? Please!

a "Portable Internet" would be handy

or maybe a "Portable Internet Explorer" for those Windows that don't come with it

[CritterNYC]

Any hint of what the two unreleased apps are?? Please!

a "Portable Internet" would be handy
or maybe a "Portable Internet Explorer" for those Windows that don't come with it

Don't laugh... someone asked if Portable Firefox would allow them to cancel their dialup.

And, yeah, I made Portable Internet Explorer... sorta...
http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/firefo ... _explorer/
(note the pre-built Portable Firefox profile at the bottom)

[CritterNYC]

Any hint of what the two unreleased apps are?? Please!

Just watch my site/blog and you'll know next week

[CritterNYC]

Grab the new beta5 launcher instead:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 19#1794219

Ok... one more time... I altered it to leave it off by default and fixed the bug with userprofile being blank hanging it. I also added in a fun option to allow you to have a shared userprofile directory on your key used by all apps. I'll be adding this to all launchers... allowing you to have a single shared userprofile directory with a shared Desktop and Application Data directory within it.

I've released another new beta of the Portable Firefox Launcher. This one:

- adds support for extensions using file: added (CustomizeGoogle, GreaseMonkey, etc)
- fixes an issue where a non-existant profile directory would cause the launcher to hang
- added in directories, ini options and environment calls so Portable Firefox can use included directories for pluginregistry, etc... meaning that no files will be left behind on PCs that Portable Firefox is run on.
- disabled UserProfileDirectory and AppDataDirectory by default
- disable ProfileDirectory, AppDataDirectory or UserProfileDirectory by leaving them blank
- added new split file layout detailed in readme allowing for shared UserProfile directory among all apps

The new INI options are:
AppDataDirectory=
UserProfileDirectory=

Those are the defaults. The AppData and UserProfileDirectory are disabled by default due to side effects (Desktop on thumbdrive instead of local PC when saving) and the fact that AppData is ignored. Even with these new features, the launcher can still be dropped into an existing install... you just won't get the added AppData and UserProfile features without creating those directories.

http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portab ... _beta4.zip

INSTALLATION
Unzip the above file and then copy your firefox and profile directories over from a full install of Portable Firefox.

KNOWN ISSUES
Unfortunately, there is a bug in Firefox where it uses the USERPROFILE directory and then hard codes an Application Data directory onto that. Due to this, the default settings won't prevent FF from writing to the local drive. You can set it to use a userprofile directory, but that will break the desktop section of the file open and save dialog boxes within Firefox (it will look in X:\PortableFirefox\userprofile\ instead) Of course, you can create a Desktop directory within that and use that as your portable desktop.

Please give the new features a try and let me know how it works for you.

PS - The sooner I get this launcher nailed down, the sooner I can release OpenOffice.org. I'm waiting on a new launcher.

Regards,
John

[Sliver]

1.1.1.1 B4 Seems stable to me. I have not tried the Customize Google or GreaseMonkey Exts as I never used them before so I cannot vouche for that aspect, but the userprofile portion does in fact work without issue.

On a side note, I have noticed for a while that the plugins screen only seems to work roughly 25% of the time. (Tools > Options... > Downloads > Plug-ins... ) Some times I get a list of plugins that I change disable (see PDF Fix on Crits page) and other times I do not. This happens regardless of what machine I am on (25% of the time on my work machine, 25% of teh time on my Laptop, 25% of the time on my Desktop). This is without changes to any configs between uses, and it even sometimes happens during the same session (I access it once and they are there, then during the same session I go to access it again and it is not there.)

I figured it was related to the "Plug-ins issue" where the plugins file is left on the local machine, but now that this has been removed and I am still having the issue, I figured I'd mention it.

~Sliver

[stevelam]

Yeah both 1.1.1b4 and 1.5b seem stable. One thing though my copy of 1.1.1b4 has the wrong icon. Picky I know but I cant be all posative can I now!!!

[CritterNYC]

1.1.1.1 B4 Seems stable to me. I have not tried the Customize Google or GreaseMonkey Exts as I never used them before so I cannot vouche for that aspect, but the userprofile portion does in fact work without issue.

Anyone else try Customize Google or GreaseMonkey yet?

On a side note, I have noticed for a while that the plugins screen only seems to work roughly 25% of the time. (Tools > Options... > Downloads > Plug-ins... ) Some times I get a list of plugins that I change disable (see PDF Fix on Crits page) and other times I do not. This happens regardless of what machine I am on (25% of the time on my work machine, 25% of teh time on my Laptop, 25% of the time on my Desktop). This is without changes to any configs between uses, and it even sometimes happens during the same session (I access it once and they are there, then during the same session I go to access it again and it is not there.)

Not sure what would cause that, and I don't think it's something I can fix.

Yeah both 1.1.1b4 and 1.5b seem stable. One thing though my copy of 1.1.1b4 has the wrong icon. Picky I know but I cant be all posative can I now!!!

Whaddya mean by wrong icon? The launcher or PFF has the wrong icon?

[Sliver]

Whaddya mean by wrong icon? The launcher or PFF has the wrong icon?

yeah I noticed this too, When I went to overwrite the old Launcher, with the new, The new one had the Standard Firefox Icon and not the PFF icon.

[CritterNYC]

yeah I noticed this too, When I went to overwrite the old Launcher, with the new, The new one had the Standard Firefox Icon and not the PFF icon.

Yeah. I was using the unofficial Firefox icon before. I was thinking about switching to the standard FF icon for the launcher. I noticed other launchers using it as well. Not sure if any of the Moz folks will be annoyed by it, though. I'm using the official TB icon for the PTB launcher because there is no unofficial icon. Same with NVU, Sunbird and OpenOffice. So, PFF looked out of place with the unofficial icon there. I'd love to hear other thoughts on the matter.

[Sliver]

I love the custom icon. For me it is a big helper as mentioned in other version threads. I use both PFF and Standard, PFF for personal (not allowed during work hours) stuff and standard for my work stuff.

Either way I will be using PFF regardless of the icon.

[CritterNYC]

I love the custom icon. For me it is a big helper as mentioned in other version threads. I use both PFF and Standard, PFF for personal (not allowed during work hours) stuff and standard for my work stuff.

Either way I will be using PFF regardless of the icon.

Actually, the custom icon has never applied to the app itself when it is running... so it wouldn't help you distinguish them at all. It was just for the launcher... which wouldn't be in the same directory as firefox.exe anyway. Of course, you can customize the icon of PFF when running by dropping a custom icon into the X:\PortableFirefox\firefox\chrome\icons\default\ directory as I've detailed previously.