VoxCommando

New Features and Feature Requests => Feature Requests => Topic started by: voxcommando_user581 on March 20, 2017, 07:37:31 AM

Title: Appeal for truly portable version
Post by: voxcommando_user581 on March 20, 2017, 07:37:31 AM
Hi all,
Quote
VoxCommando is 100% a portable program

I saw that in the forums and decided to give Vox a try. I realize 99.9% of the settings and stuff is stored locally, but I was disappointed when I saw the reg key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\JitterSoft\VoxCommando had been written (window size, registration info, etc).

Is there a chance to appeal this and store all of this info locally? Believe me there purist portable people like me who really want all settings inside the app's folder (in fact 97% of my current apps do)
Title: Re: Appeal for truly portable version
Post by: nime5ter on March 20, 2017, 09:57:18 AM
Hi, welcome to the forum.

You're right, I made a mistake when I wrote in that particular post that the program is 100% portable.

We call it portable because it can be moved to a new location including another computer without having to be reconfigured or reinstalled. However, there are many opinions about what constitutes 100% portability, so I should not have said that (and I am not the developer). We've corrected that post. Thanks for pointing it out.

Naomi
Title: Re: Appeal for truly portable version
Post by: voxcommando_user581 on March 20, 2017, 10:09:22 AM
lol
instead of just correcting the post, what about the question about true 100% portability? Why is this not possible?
Vox development is going at light speed, so why not improve it.
Title: Re: Appeal for truly portable version
Post by: nime5ter on March 20, 2017, 10:20:59 AM
:) Presumably because the developer does not consider it an improvement.

I corrected the error because I do not want to misrepresent what is being offered.
Title: Re: Appeal for truly portable version
Post by: voxcommando_user581 on March 20, 2017, 10:22:58 AM
Does the dev actually read these forums? I am genuinely curious why it was designed this way on purpose.

Title: Re: Appeal for truly portable version
Post by: jitterjames on March 20, 2017, 11:03:21 AM
I am the dev and yes, I do occasionally read the forums.  :biglaugh

This is a semantic argument that I have no wish to engage in but I obviously need to address it.

The word "portable" is to me, just a word, it is not a goal.  I did not set out to create a "portable" program.  I set out to make a program that was powerful, flexible, easy to use, and allowed for a lot of experimentation and the ability to easily create alternate configurations or even run multiple release versions of the software either for testing or for accomplishing different goals at different times.

I do not intend to make any changes to the program just so that it can qualify as portable.  If you feel that I have falsely advertised the program as portable and that this lack of portability somehow makes the program not worth your time then I deeply apologize.  I would appreciate knowing where I have made these false claims so that I can correct the error.  I don't want to offend any other purists out there.

The program does not rely on the information that is stored in the registry to function correctly or to adhere to the configurations defined by the user.  If the small amount of information that normally resides in the registry is not present there, then default values are used and these are very minor settings that do no affect the actual functionality of the program.

The program needs to use the registry for storing activation information because the program is not intended to be free.  The advantage of storing this information in the registry is that once the system has been activated you can run as many different versions of the program on that system without having to re-activate each one.  I did not intend for activation to be portable because then I might as well make the program free, and I do not want to require users to have an internet connection so contacting an activation server on each run of the program is out of the question.

The program is also not completely portable in that it cannot be run on Windows XP, or Windows 95, or Windows 3.1.  There is nothing I can do about that.  The program is also not completely portable in that it does require certain prerequisites to be installed like .Net 4.5.1, a speech engine (either the Windows desktop engine or Windows speech platform) and a Microsoft Visual C++ runtime library.  Also if you take a copy of the program over to a computer that does not have a microphone attached, it won't really work the way you expect.

Since these are just some of the prerequisites for being a truly portable application, then we can say VoxCommando is definitely not a portable application.  In my opinion, this in no way diminishes the value of the program but we are each entitled to our opinion on that.

In common English, I consider VoxCommando to be extremely portable in the ways that matter when trying to make the program useful for its intended purpose.  Generally when I tell people it's portable it is in reference to this flexibility, or in reference to the fact that it cannot be installed in a protected location such as "C:\Program Files" because of the way it stores its configuration data under the root installation folder.
Title: Re: Appeal for truly portable version
Post by: voxcommando_user581 on March 21, 2017, 09:36:37 AM
Thanks for the long reply. I wasn't in any way diminishing Vox's value. It's probably the only app in its class that does this stuff well; it reminds me of Eventghost in some ways :)

Anyways, bummed about some stuff being stored in registry, but I understand & respect your reasons for it.