Portable applications list needed

austin987 · Post by **austin987** » Sun May 17, 2009 8:10 pm

Howdy,

For those of you that don't know, I've got a Google Summer of Code
project to make a better test suite for wine. The goal is to test
graphical applications to find bugs that aren't tested by the test
suite, and to prevent regressions that aren't prevented by it.

While programs with installers can be tested, they increase the script
complexity quite a bit. Eventually, installers will be tested, but
simple applications with no runtime dependencies are ideal for
testing.

So wine-users, what are some of your favorite applications that have a
small download available and work (at least somewhat) well in wine?

For comparison, the ideal type of applications are things like winscp
(http://winscp.net/eng/download.php) which has a portable executable
for download. The portable version has no runtimes needed, doesn't
need a config file (automatically creates one if needed), and works
well in wine. Testing it under autohotkey actually found a previously
unknown bug (http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18455). Now it's
time to find some more similarly hidden bugs

.

--
-Austin

fcmartins · Post by **fcmartins** » Mon May 18, 2009 12:33 am

I don't have the time to go look for it now, but you might want to look into very old Windows games (no directx) collections.

NN · Post by NN » Mon May 18, 2009 2:01 am

Hi Austin,

austin987 wrote:Howdy,
<snip>
So wine-users, what are some of your favorite applications that have a
small download available and work (at least somewhat) well in wine?
<snip>

Heres a list of my favorites that are standalone and have no need of an installer (most are zipped only)
-----------------------------
HTTrack
http://www.httrack.com/page/2/en/index.html

Grab the version without the installer unzip all files in an empty folder
launch WinHTTrack.exe
-----------------------------
Convert for Windows
http://joshmadison.com/software/downloa ... r-windows/

Just noticed that on the page he mentions:
- Anything that runs Wine (not officially supported)
and also:
" 1. Convert runs quite well on Linux and UNIX using Wine. If you do this, you will need to change the tab layout to use a single row by going into Options > Preferences > Tabs, and uncheck the Multiple Lines option. "
-----------------------------
Hex Editor XVI32
http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/f ... /xvi32.htm

Installation
You don't need to execute a setup programm writing obscure data to your registry or updating DLLs in your Windows system folder. Simply proceed as follows:

1. Create a directory on your hard disk, e.g. C:\Program Files\XVI32
2. Unzip the downloaded archive xvi32.zip completely into this directory
3. Run XVI32.EXE

Also have a look at his other freeware:
http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/f ... eeware.htm
-----------------------------
HTML2Table
http://www.stefan-pettersson.nu/site/html2table/

Installation:

There is no need for any installation. Simply unzip all files
into a prefered directory and run HTML2Table.exe

He also has a few other suitable programs:
eg:
http://www.stefan-pettersson.nu/site/table2html/
-----------------------------
HTML Tag Stripper
http://www.wimb.net/index.php?s=delphi&page=27

Install

The program file and the help file can be copied to any convenient place on a Windows computer. No additional files or DLL's are needed.

Other suitable programs also on the site
-----------------------------
Advanced Process Termination
http://www.diamondcs.com.au/advancedseries/apt.php

He also has other freeware Windows Utilities:
http://www.diamondcs.com.au/software.php
-----------------------------
Resource Hacker
http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/
-----------------------------
Mike Lin's Freeware

*Startup Control Panel
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

*MCL (Mike's Command Line)
http://www.mlin.net/MCL.shtml

Also have a look at:

SMP Seesaw Pro (has source code also)
http://www.mlin.net/SMPSeesaw.shtml

http://www.mlin.net/other.shtml
-----------------------------
TClockEx
http://www.rcis.co.za/dale/tclockex/

zip version on download page
-----------------------------
Ken Silverman's Utility Page:
http://advsys.net/ken/utils.htm

EVALDRAW
http://advsys.net/ken/download.htm

and quite a few more his pages
-----------------------------
Registry Trash Keys Finder
http://www.databack4u.com/snc/rtkf_eng.html
-----------------------------
TreeSize Free (download without the installer)
http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

couple other program that might be interesting:
*HeavyLoad
*FileList
-----------------------------
Have a look on the following pages as well:
http://www.programming.de/freeware_windows.php
http://www.programming.de/freeware_windows_games.php
-----------------------------

Keep up the great work,

-
Nat

austin987 · Post by **austin987** » Mon May 18, 2009 10:05 am

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 2:01 AM, NN <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi Austin,

austin987 wrote:
Howdy,
<snip>
So wine-users, what are some of your favorite applications that have a
small download available and work (at least somewhat) well in wine?
<snip>
Heres a list of my favorites that are standalone and have no need of an installer (most are zipped only)

Great list, thanks!

I should've mentioned that zipped files are a bit hard, since
Autohotkey doesn't have an unzip function, requiring either importing
of a zip library, or installing 7-zip first.

That's why completely standalone applications are the easiest.

--
-Austin

David Gerard · Post by **David Gerard** » Mon May 18, 2009 10:16 am

2009/5/18 Austin English <[email protected]>:

So wine-users, what are some of your favorite applications that have a
small download available and work (at least somewhat) well in wine?

PuTTY is an obvious one. If Wine ever breaks PuTTY, you can be sure
the yelling will be heard around the world.

Unfortunately, Windows programs that don't have an installer are a
rarity. (My regular Windows programs, EAC and Simple Sudoku, both have
installers.) So those will be for Austin's Suite v2 or maybe v3 ...

- d.

austin987 · Post by **austin987** » Mon May 18, 2009 10:24 am

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 10:16 AM, David Gerard <[email protected]> wrote:

2009/5/18 Austin English <[email protected]>:

So wine-users, what are some of your favorite applications that have a
small download available and work (at least somewhat) well in wine?
PuTTY is an obvious one. If Wine ever breaks PuTTY, you can be sure
the yelling will be heard around the world.

PuTTY may be useful, but it needs an SSH server to really test its
main features, which means I need an ssh server that can have an
exposed password/access.

Otherwise, yes, perfect program for this. Still useful for testing
that it can run, text appears correctly, etc.

Unfortunately, Windows programs that don't have an installer are a
rarity. (My regular Windows programs, EAC and Simple Sudoku, both have
installers.) So those will be for Austin's Suite v2 or maybe v3 ...

Installers are actually easier than .zip files. But they're more
complex than standalone applications. I'll start on installers in a
few weeks. The plan is to get a few basic tests in early, so that some
tests are going and being done daily, without waiting on further
progress.

--
-Austin

Gert van den Berg · Post by **Gert van den Berg** » Mon May 18, 2009 3:41 pm

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 17:16, David Gerard <[email protected]> wrote:

If Wine ever breaks PuTTY, you can be sure
the yelling will be heard around the world.

Not necessarily, a native version is available if anyone actually want
to use it, doesn't make it less useful for testing though...

NN · Post by NN » Mon May 18, 2009 5:29 pm

[/quote]

Great list, thanks!

I should've mentioned that zipped files are a bit hard, since
Autohotkey doesn't have an unzip function, requiring either importing
of a zip library, or installing 7-zip first.

That's why completely standalone applications are the easiest.

--
-Austin[/quote]

I see what you mean Autohotkey doesn't seem to have an easy way to open archives.

Here is a bunch of links to discussions and possible solutions in Autohotkey:
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic23741.html

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic35296.html

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic16065.html

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic15135.html

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic23742.html

-
Nat

austin987 · Post by **austin987** » Mon May 18, 2009 6:54 pm

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 5:29 PM, NN <[email protected]> wrote:

Great list, thanks!

I should've mentioned that zipped files are a bit hard, since
Autohotkey doesn't have an unzip function, requiring either importing
of a zip library, or installing 7-zip first.

That's why completely standalone applications are the easiest.

--
-Austin[/quote]

I see what you mean Autohotkey doesn't seem to have an easy way to open archives.

Here is a bunch of links to discussions and possible solutions in Autohotkey:
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic23741.html

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic35296.html

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic16065.html

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic15135.html

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic23742.html
[/quote]
Thanks. I've looked into it a bit before, just haven't decided the
easiest way yet to avoid problems in the future. Which is why
standalone executables are so much easier

.

--
-Austin

perryh · Post by **perryh** » Mon May 18, 2009 10:37 pm

Austin English <[email protected]> wrote:

I should've mentioned that zipped files are a bit hard ...
I've looked into it a bit before, just haven't decided the
easiest way yet to avoid problems in the future. Which is
why standalone executables are so much easier .

Would it work to prefix a zipfile with an extracter, thereby
transforming it into a self-extracting .exe file, and then
treat that self-extracting file as a self-installer? (Or,
would you need for the extracter to also start up the app
after unzipping it?)

I'm anticipating that if we start with a freely-distributable
zipfile, and append it to a freely-distributable extracter,
the combination would still be freely distributable.

BTW I know absolutely nothing about Autohotkey, nor how it
fits into the scheme under discussion.

austin987 · Post by **austin987** » Mon May 18, 2009 10:39 pm

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 10:31 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:

Austin English <[email protected]> wrote:
I should've mentioned that zipped files are a bit hard ...
I've looked into it a bit before, just haven't decided the
easiest way yet to avoid problems in the future. Which is
why standalone executables are so much easier .
Would it work to prefix a zipfile with an extracter, thereby
transforming it into a self-extracting .exe file, and then
treat that self-extracting file as a self-installer? Â (Or,
would you need for the extracter to also start up the app
after unzipping it?)

Sure, it would. But I'm not looking to repackage stuff, but use freely
available downloads.

BTW I know absolutely nothing about Autohotkey, nor how it
fits into the scheme under discussion.

Autohotkey allows recording scripts, notably keystrokes/mouseclicks,
among other things. I'm using it in a Summer of Code project to make
gui tests for Wine.

--
-Austin

gamblor01 · Post by **gamblor01** » Mon May 18, 2009 11:35 pm

Howdy,

For those of you that don't know, I've got a Google Summer of Code
project to make a better test suite for wine. The goal is to test
graphical applications to find bugs that aren't tested by the test
suite, and to prevent regressions that aren't prevented by it.

That sounds like an excellent idea! Are you going to count .msi files as part of the "self-executable" process? Also, what if you just create an icon whose command is to call a script, or call an unzipper, etc. and then invoke the .exe file for you? Then you could just record yourself clicking on that shortcut (this may have already been suggested in the links above -- I didn't check).

If .msi files are legit I would suggest Steam. You can get the installer for free (though you need an account to actually login and test it so maybe it's not the best idea). It's a pretty popular application and certainly the reason why I run Wine.

I would suggest looking at the most popular applications on the appdb, but many of them are games and therefore do not have any freely available installers (not legitimately anyway).

The only other possibility I can think of are things like compilers. For example, you could download the Java SDK (or just the JRE) from java.sun.com as an exe and run that. Also, you mentioned not wanting to use 7-zip on a file first...but what about using the 7-zip installer itself as a test case?

EDIT: Nevermind. I read your posts again and these the types of files you mean by "installers" and currently wish to avoid. I'm an idiot.

I'm out of ideas. It's hard to find useful programs that have no runtime dependencies and are standalone executables. The only things I can think of at the moment are the games bundled with Windows.

You might try looking on cnet's download page to see what's available there, filehippo, or perhaps osguide.net (a great page for finding open source apps). Maybe that will inspire something?

Keep up the great work. Wine has progressed immensely since I first tried it out years ago. Hopefully projects such as this will keep it progressing for many years to come.

austin987 · Post by **austin987** » Mon May 18, 2009 11:41 pm

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 11:35 PM, gamblor01 <[email protected]> wrote:

Howdy,

For those of you that don't know, I've got a Google Summer of Code
project to make a better test suite for wine. The goal is to test
graphical applications to find bugs that aren't tested by the test
suite, and to prevent regressions that aren't prevented by it.
That sounds like an excellent idea! Â Are you going to count .msi files as part of the "self-executable" process? Â Also, what if you just create an icon whose command is to call a script, or call an unzipper, etc. and then invoke the .exe file for you? Â Then you could just record yourself clicking on that shortcut (this may have already been suggested in the links above -- I didn't check).

The script needs to be runable on windows and wine, and be dependable.
There's no need for an icon/etc., needs to be automatic.

If .msi files are legit I would suggest Steam. Â You can get the installer for free (though you need an account to actually login and test it so maybe it's not the best idea). Â It's a pretty popular application and certainly the reason why I run Wine. Â ;)

Possibly. The problem is Steam changes a lot.

I would suggest looking at the most popular applications on the appdb, but many of them are games and therefore do not have any freely available installers (not legitimately anyway).

That's the end goal. Get tests for iTunes, etc., which are quite
complex, to help prevent them regressing.

The only other possibility I can think of are things like compilers. Â For example, you could download the Java SDK (or just the JRE) from java.sun.com as an exe and run that. Â Also, you mentioned not wanting to use 7-zip on a file first...but what about using the 7-zip installer itself as a test case?

Compilers are pretty complex, and most (that I know of) don't work
yet. Java works somewhat, but the idea is to get stuf that *DOES*
work, and test it, automatically, to keep it working.
7zip could work, but I'd like each test case to be independent, e.g.,
not depend on installing 7 zip, then using it to extract stuff.

In the end, I used info-zip, which has some bsd-ish licensed zip/unzip
standalone executables for download.

Now to get to scripting them...

--
-Austin