Java Portable Apps

portable
–adjective

1. capable of being transported or conveyed: a portable stage.


2. easily carried or conveyed by hand: a portable typewriter.


3. Computers. (of data sets, software, etc.) capable of being used on different computer systems.


4. ...

Dictionary.com

So how many definitions of "portable" do your applications of choice satisfy? Having grown up profesionally in the spirit of "write once, run everywhere", I've always wondered how a "portable" application could run only on Windows, as is the case with most of the PortableApps.com. Not that I have anything against portableapps.com, it's a cool idea and a very pragmatic software suite is offered.

But I happen to work on Linux and my colleagues usually work on Windows, so if I want my applications-on-a-stick to be truly portable, they need to run on any platform. I need portable in the sense of "running on any operating system". Thus an obvious choice is Java- it's usually not the first choice for a desktop application, but here its intended purpose fits the bill nicely. And I don't need all operating systems- honestly, who would lend me their Mac? Come on, it's too personal to give to anyone ;-) This means I can have a JRE for Linux and Windows on my stick (in case it's not installed), and I'm set.

Of course, the task of finding the actual applications is the difficult one. They are not all completely portable in the sense of "not modifying anything on the hard disk", but most of them could be configured to run with settings from the USB. I also needed to run all of these on machines without administrator privileges. Most (with a few exceptions) are open-source:

• Organizer: ThinkingRock
An outstanding application for organizing your tasks according to the Getting Things Done method. I am now so addicted to this app that I can't leave anywhere without it- I feel lost withot my next actions list. Con- it is the least portable in the sense that it creates some .java entries, but mostly related to layout- something I can live without.

• Editor: jEdit
One of my all-time favorite editors, I really doubt there's much this editor can't do. With all of its useful plugins, it doubles as a mini-IDE. I run it with a command-line option to use the settings on the USB stick and the settings include the option to download my plugins there, so I have them with me as well.

• Mind Mapper: FreeMind
Another immensely useful program, FreeMind is an open-source mind-mapping application, indispensable for loads of stuff like notes, brainstorming, personal database, task-manager...

• Outliners
I couldn't choose between the extensibility and import/export capabilities of JOE (Java Outline Editor) and the rich text support of Jreepad (including Textile markup), so I have both. I really wish JOE's default shortcuts were a bit less awkward, but it's a great tool even though there's no development on it for several years now.

• File Manager: muCommander
A couple of years ago I would be really bothered by the idea of using a Java file manager (Java doesn't have the best OS integration, you know). Now I'm happy to use this really nice lightweight commander clone. It has transparent filesystem support for popular archives and remote protocols (FTP, Windows shares, SFTP).

• Disk space manager: JDiskReport
Warning: not open-source, but free for personal use. Generates very nice pie charts about filesystem usage though, and even has a Web Start version. I still want to be able to check my disk space when I'm not online, so it has a convenient place on my USB thumb drive.

• Media organizer: MediaSort
Organizes music and pictures into directories/filenames based on tags inside these media files. Pretty nifty. I used to do that with a clunky one-liner script calling jhead for JPEG files and a custom Ruby script for MP3 files, but this proved to be a nicer general solution.

• File Synchronization: JFileSync
I carry this around in case I don't have rsync handy. Its GUI looks very nice for syncing directories to and from my USB key.

• Version Control: SmartSVN
Version control is must-have for a developer. SmartSVN is not open-source, but has a version, which is free for personal use. This was the only Subversion client I could find, which would work on Windows without administrative privileges, and use Windows authentication.

• Port forwarders
Network connectivity is important to me so I have an assortment of port forwarding applications for different purposes. JPortForwarder is a simple port forwarder (site says it's multithreaded), so I don't have to rewrite one every time. PlugProxy is a really cool way to debug network applications, as it shows the network traffic as it transparently redirects it. jzbd adds encryption to forwarding when I'm worried about security. These are not updated in a long time, but what could you improve in a port forwarder?

• Port Scanners
Yeah, I know the low-level scanning options of NMap are out of Java's reach, but still. JAPS makes a fast concurrent scan of a single host, while JMap can scan a subnet (no, it's got nothing to do with Sun's post-mortem memory analysis tool).

This set of programs proved especially useful when my laptop's hard drive reached the end of its intense life. Using a Damn Small Linux to boot from the USB disk along with these applications really decreased the time I could get productive again- without a hard disk- until I got a new hard-drive. To top it off, I could boot DSL in Windows, emulated by qemu- but DSL can really deserves a blog post on its own.

Update: This blog prompted me to do some more research and I found this great thread on Javalobby about Java Desktop Apps. There's at least one new cool app I am going away with- ekspos image viewer. It even has Picasa integration!