I’ve struck upon a way to make WebRunner (and by extension, any other XulRunner application) pretty much portable!
I’m no real programmer, I mean, I know enough to be dangerous. I’ve got a good handle on html, css, javascript, asp etc. In the past I’ve played with the source code for Portable Firefox from PortableApps.com trying to get XulRunner portable. I didn’t have much luck. Ran into too many code errors to resolve myself. What I needed was a way to make the program portable without programming anything new.
X-Launcher
What I was able to find was X-Launcher. X-Launcher is a nifty little app that allows you to launch just about any application portably - that is, without leaving much of a trace on the host computer. I’ve been able to use X-Launcher without too much effort (hey, just my style :).
You can get X-Launcher from winPenPack.com (downloads section) along with a host of other open source software all made portable using X-Launcher or other means. WinPenPack is an Italian website, but you can get English on most pages by choosing it from the language menu. Nice site and a lot of good software!
X-Launcher itself is an easy to use program, you simply configure the X-launcher.ini file for it and you’re ready to use it. One of the things that really sets X-Launcher apart is the fact that you can have multiple launchers in the same directory. Just rename the X-launcher.ini file and the X-launcher.exe to any name you wish (just as long as both have the same file name) and you can put a second set of exe/ini files with a different set of names in the same directory together. Why would you do this? Well, for one, this allows you to run multiple versions of a program with wildly different configurations. Another thing this buys you (and more relevant to this discussion) is the ability to launch different WebRunner apps portably.
Normally if you launch a program you can pass it options through command line switches. If you’re using another program to launch the application you want to run, then you don’t usually have the option of passing switches to the second program from the first. With X-Launcher, these switches are built into the configuration file.
The default configuration file that comes with X-Launcher is loaded with information on feature settings, but it’s also a bit overwhelming. Fortunately, if you run X-launcher.exe with no like-named ini file, it will create it’s own, scaled down X-launcher.ini. This configuration file is a heck of a lot easier to read!
There are several application variables that can be defined, the most important one being the application name. This will eventually point to folder names and the application itself. Here’s the contents of a X-launcher.ini for a webapp with included explanations for most settings:
wikipedia.ini
[Setup]
AppName=WebRunner
;Application name, this will also be used below as the
;name of some of the folders.
[FileToRun]
PathToExe=$AppName$\$AppName$.exe
;This is the name and path to the file you're trying to
;launch.
WorkingDir=%HOME%
;This is the name of the directory which will be used
;by the program as it's working directory.
Parameters= -webapp wikipedia@luckydisasters.com
;List of any parameters to pass to the application, in
;this case we're telling WebRunner to load the webapp
;"wikipedia@luckydisasters.com"
[Environment]
HOME=$HOME$\$AppName$
;This folder will be used to save any user specific file
;information - like the Mozilla profiles folder.
USERPROFILE=%HOME%
;As you can see I've used the same folders for all the
;programs files, this will make it a lot easier later if we
;want to see what the program is doing or make
;changes.
PATH=%PATH%;@ScriptDir@
;This adds the @ScriptDir@ variable to the system
;path used by the application
[Functions]
DirCreate=%HOME%
;if this folder doesn't exist when you start the
;program, it will created. You can place other
;functions here as well if you need them.
[Options]
;These settings are other X-launcher application
;options, such as showing a splash screen and
;what not, feel free to make changes, but these
;should be fine as is
DeleteTemp=true
MultipleIstances=true
FixAppData=false
RunWait=true
ShowSplash=true
WriteLog=false
[SplashScreen]
;This section allows you to add a custom splash
;screen and sets the length of time the splash
;screen is shown. Leave the Image and Title blank
;for X-launcher defaults. The image path (as well
;as all paths in this ini file) are relative to the
;current location of the ini/exe files for the
;X-launcher app.
Image=
Title=
TimeOut=1500
Download the Wikipiedia X-launcher files here:
Wikipedia X-launcher
7-Steps
What I’ve done to use the above webapp portably is as follows (assume that the USB drive/portable device is drive letter “X”):
- Make sure you have WebRunner and the Wikipedia.webapp installed.
- Create a folder under “X:\PortableApps\” (or where ever you store your portable applicaitons) called “X-WebRunner” (”X:\PortableApps\X-WebRunner”)
- Copy the “C:\Program Files\WebRunner” folder to “X:\PortableApps\X-WebRunner” (”X:\PortableApps\X-WebRunner\WebRunner”)
- Copy the wikipedia.exe and the wikipedia.ini files into “X:\PortableApps\X-Webrunner”
- Run the Webrunner.exe, this will create the user profile you’ll need to copy your webapp into
- Now copy your webapp folder from your profile folder on your hard drive usually located about here:
“C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\Application Data\WebRunner\Profiles\RANDOMSTRING.default\webapps\WEBAPPNAME”
to your new profile folder on your portable device:
“X:\PortableApps\Application Data\WebRunner\Profiles\NEWRANDOMSTRING.default\webapps\WEBAPPNAME“
- Last step, start the wikipedia.exe file again, this will start the webapp that you’ve copied.
My “X-WebRunner” install:
Now you can start moving your webapps over and making X-launcher.exe and X-launcher.ini files for each one, the only line in the ini file that needs to be changed for each is “Parameters“, which gets changed to the webapp folder name for each webapp. So basically all you have to do is copy the original wikipedia.ini file, rename it and change the Parameters setting.
Next I’ll have to configure Plain Old Webserver USB (POWUSB) to run with X-launcher. Then I can carry around a nice little XUL Webserver!
Links:
winPenPack
X-Launcher download
My Wikipedia X-launcher configuration
My Wikipedia.webapp Bundle
I’ve been checking out the phenomenal NIN remix site and I thought to myself, wow how nice that a site that empowers you with the ability to take part in the musical experience - free of charge - is also a perfect candidate for a WebApp!
