Re: Is a Portable Version Possible?
Posted: 16 Jan 2017, 02:13
Wow... so much nonsense in this thread... And look at me, resurrecting it from the dead.
1. There are many many reasons why a person would want to make a portable app. Ours is not to question their motives, but simply to answer whether or not it is possible.
2. There are plenty of ways to compile a standalone executable using Java that will not require the JRE in any form. Any of your commercial compilers can do it by default. Simply put, the JDK is mostly just a collection of classes and includes that you can reference in your program but which the JDK compiler does not compile into your program. These are included in the JRE. But there's no reason that they can't be compiled into your program to make a fully functional standalone exe, it just takes longer to compile and makes for a bigger program.
3. Java is perhaps the worst language ever written. Partly because the JRE is one half step above malware, but mostly because the language is just so easy to learn that a whole lot of amateurs pick it up and write immature apps that do really stupid things (like saving data to the user's AppData folder without providing a proper uninstaller).
4. JPortable exists and supposedly works with 3rd party apps. So making a portable Forge is theoretically possible and has apparently even been done. But no instructions exist for anyone trying to figure out the process themselves.
So the question from the OP remains ( 7 years later...) - Is it possible to make a portable version of Forge and how is it done?
I've had no success getting the Windows download of Forge to run using JPortable Java 8 or JPortable Java 7. I've tried just dragging and dropping forge-gui-desktop-1.5.58-jar... onto Java.exe and Javaw.exe, as well as running "java -Xmx1024m -jar forge-gui-desktop-1.5.58-jar-with-dependencies.jar" from the command line within the JPortable folder. In each case literally nothing happens - I don't even get a blip of Java.exe on my task manager.
Would using a portable Java require compiling a custom binary of Forge?
This is the full collection of JPortable downloads.
How about we just make a request that future versions of Forge include a line that searches for a local path to Java (such as .\res\java\bin) when it checks for the JRE?
1. There are many many reasons why a person would want to make a portable app. Ours is not to question their motives, but simply to answer whether or not it is possible.
2. There are plenty of ways to compile a standalone executable using Java that will not require the JRE in any form. Any of your commercial compilers can do it by default. Simply put, the JDK is mostly just a collection of classes and includes that you can reference in your program but which the JDK compiler does not compile into your program. These are included in the JRE. But there's no reason that they can't be compiled into your program to make a fully functional standalone exe, it just takes longer to compile and makes for a bigger program.
3. Java is perhaps the worst language ever written. Partly because the JRE is one half step above malware, but mostly because the language is just so easy to learn that a whole lot of amateurs pick it up and write immature apps that do really stupid things (like saving data to the user's AppData folder without providing a proper uninstaller).
4. JPortable exists and supposedly works with 3rd party apps. So making a portable Forge is theoretically possible and has apparently even been done. But no instructions exist for anyone trying to figure out the process themselves.
So the question from the OP remains ( 7 years later...) - Is it possible to make a portable version of Forge and how is it done?
I've had no success getting the Windows download of Forge to run using JPortable Java 8 or JPortable Java 7. I've tried just dragging and dropping forge-gui-desktop-1.5.58-jar... onto Java.exe and Javaw.exe, as well as running "java -Xmx1024m -jar forge-gui-desktop-1.5.58-jar-with-dependencies.jar" from the command line within the JPortable folder. In each case literally nothing happens - I don't even get a blip of Java.exe on my task manager.
Would using a portable Java require compiling a custom binary of Forge?
This is the full collection of JPortable downloads.
How about we just make a request that future versions of Forge include a line that searches for a local path to Java (such as .\res\java\bin) when it checks for the JRE?