Any chance for a "portable" Windows release?

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#1

Hi,

Long story short: I always try to have all my apps in “portable” form whenever possible (even if I have to force the issue with some apps by doing an “install, copy, uninstall” cycle - which always annoys me: if it works like that then just provide an archive version in the first place! … but I digress).

I’m wondering if there are any plans for, or chance of, there being a portable version of Solar coming?

Note that I don’t mean one that uses the portableapps.com infrastructure. I mean just a good old-fashioned “extract this archive and run it” release.

Thanks,
Frank

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#2

So, there’s a command line version of the simulator that gets installed when you install the full package, called “Corona.Shell.exe” (There’s something similar on the macOS as well.)

CoronaShell

You can package up that executable the DLLs and a few resources and have an interpreted version of Solar2D that has no other dependencies and should be good to do 99% of development, but obviously not building, welcome screen, etc. Those functions require a “full install” plus Java, xCode, etc.

All the needed files aren’t much more than 10MB. At some point, I want to build a package script that pulls the Corona.Shell version into an easy to install “test drive” for people who simply want to look at the engine, run the samples, etc.

I don’t know the issues with portable version of the full engine, but my assumptions is that it needs some registry settings, updates to installed drivers, etc.

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#3

Okay cool, thanks for answer. It really was the equivalent of a “full” install that I was looking for, since I would need to build. But that’s fine, not like I CAN’T install it or anything, was just hoping to not have to.

Maybe at some point, if my time ever frees up, I’ll see about digging into the code and maybe seeing what would be involved in having it not depend on anything else (other than the truly necessary things like a JDK and Xcode and whatnot). If it really is just some registry entries then it SEEMS like migrating that to a config file shouldn’t be THAT big a deal (he said, knowing that the universe will ALWAYS punish any developer for such hubris!)

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#4

A great suggestion!

If it is possible to have multiple portables with different versions, then it would be easier to “go-back” to earlier versions, if a newer version or latest version creates un-expected problem(s).

At the moment, I have to un-install (the one with un-expected problem) and re-install (the one which has proven earlier or is a stable version).

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