Re: Portable AbiWord

On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, John T. Haller wrote:

> Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 22:42:07 -0500
> From: John T. Haller <abiword@johnhaller.com>
> To: abiword-dev@abisource.com
> Subject: Portable AbiWord
>
>
> Greetings all,
>
> I wanted to take a minute to introduce myself. My name is John T.
> Haller and I'm the developer behind several portable versions of open
> source apps like Portable Firefox and Portable OpenOffice.org. As some
> of you may know, I've also packaged AbiWord for portable use. You can
> learn more about that effort here:
> http://portableapps.com/apps/office/word_processors/portable_abiword
>
> For the unfamiliar, the following modifications are made to a standard
> AbiWord install to make it portable:
>
> - All EXEs and DLLs (except Abi_IEG_Win32Native.dll) are compressed
> using UPX with the options --best --compress-icons=0 --nrv2d
> --crp-ms=999999 -k This shrinks AbiWord's size from 18.6MB to 14.2MB.

If you were to build Abiword using Microsoft Visual C++ you are likely to
get a smaller binary and you could compress the whole thing.

I'm sure abiword has grown since 1.0 but if I recall correctly mingwin
does produce a larger binary. In the past all I had to do to make a
portable abiword was UPX compress a single binary and slap it on a floppy
disk.

> - A launcher (or wrapper) called PortableAbiWord.exe is added that sets
> a fake USERPROFILE environment variable before calling AbiWord.exe.
> This points AbiWord to the portable device to store its settings, making
> it portable.

I never bothered to do this though, probably could have faked it with a
batch file if I'd wanted. I used abiword on a floppy just to show off,
the lack of room for a dictionary made it impractical for more regular
use.

> Other than that, it's a standard install of AbiWord from the installer
> pulled directly from the Program Files\AbiWord directory. No code is
> changed. Nothing is recompiled. The project has been pretty popular
> and has had about 16,000 downloads since it was introduced. I've
> actually been able to introduce quite a few people to AbiWord as a result.

Nice to have more interest in Abiword.

> While downloading the latest release and packaging it, I noticed the
> Trademark policies on the AbiSource website, notably the AbiWord vs
> AbiWord Personal nomenclature. I had originally named the project as
> Portable AbiWord to both keep it consistant with the other portable
> projects and to make clear that it was based on a standard release. I
> look at the word portable as more descriptive in this case (since it's
> AbiWord made portable).

You probably should not be using the copyright A-Swoosh artwork without
the express permission of the owner - namely Dom Lachowicz - especially
since you are overtly soliciting donations, making yours very much a
commercial enterprise.

> That said, I wanted to make sure I wasn't stepping on any toes in the
> AbiWord world as that's the last thing I'd want to do. If Personal is a
> prefered indication of a different compilation, then Portable AbiWord
> should be ok. But if it is being used to denote offical vs
> unofficial... and if Portable AbiWord is more unofficial in your eyes...
> I can alter the name to fit the prefered naming convention. (Portable
> AbiWord Personal would be one possibility)

pap!

those policies were very old from back when Sourcegear were running the
show, but Dom has the authority to decide some other agreement.

Abiword was happy to welcome Maemo into the fold, and perhaps the
developers might also decide to provide an official build of Portable
Abiword (I'm not sure but in the past UPX compressed builds of just the
exe may have been provided, but I'm not sure if anyone is doing nightly
builds anymore but if they are I'm sure I'll be promptly corrected.)

> I've got the 2.4.2 release packaged and ready for release, but wanted to
> get some opinions on it before I do, so I can get a name change or other
> issue taken care of before I do the release as this release, made from
> the new PortableApps.com website, will likely be more popular than the
> previous ones. Also, I'm working with the U3 folks on a few apps for

U3? I misread that as U2 for a minute and thought they had expanded from
just promoting iPods.

> their new platform (Firefox and OpenOffice.org so far) and may be able
> to sell them on a package of AbiWord for it as well.
>
> That's about it for me. I'll be on the dev list as I have been for a
> while if folks want to respond on-list. You can also drop me a note
> directly.

Since you are on the list I didn't CC you

Thanks for helping promote Abiword.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Inkscape http://inkscape.org
Abiword http://www.abisource.com
Dia http://gnome.org/projects/dia/
Open Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org

Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
Received on Tue Jan 10 11:54:30 2006