Portable NeoOffice ... again

oihenart · Keymaker Joined: Apr 26, 2004 Posts: 81

Hello,

I have read all the posts about Portable NeoOffice and i still have a request.

We use NeoOffice in our classes and we try to convince teachers to use this product to make their lessons. In the side of the PC, they have prepared an USB key with some open source programs (OpenOffice, VLC Gimp, Audacity, ...), and i want to do the same for the Mac, but wit NeoOffice.

My request is simple : is there possible to do a portable version of NeoOffice, with preferences in the same folder of the program, on the key ? I have read the way to do this now, but it's really to complicate. The USB key must be the way to convince people to install NeoOffice on their computer, so it must be an easy way to test the program for people with few computer knowledge.

Happy new year !

Christian

valterb · Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 3:49 am Post subject:

I'm sure you have already seen this, haven't you? Wink

Valter

oihenart · Keymaker Joined: Apr 26, 2004 Posts: 81

yes, i have read it, but it's too complicate to explain to people with few computer knowledge. They want first to test NeoOffice. Later, we hope that they will be convinced to install it on their hard disk.

Christian

valterb · Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 11:12 am Post subject:

So the problem is only because you want (and I can understand why) put the preferences folder onto the USB key.

Could you simply assemble what is explained in the wiki and than just let people to replicate what you have done? For example letting people to download it from a server to their USB keys?

Valter

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

Sorry to give you the bad news, but it is very unlikely that we will add such support to NeoOffice. I have been thinking about this problem for some time and there is no way I have found that will not break NeoOffice's multi-user support.

Even if I could find a reliable way around that problem, I would have to make the NeoOffice installation writable for all users on a system so that each user can write their preferences there. This is workable for local installations but it NeoOffice is mounted from a read-only file system, NeoOffice won't work.

This is why preferences for nearly all Mac OS X applications are put in the user's home directory: the user's home directory is the only place in the file system that is guaranteed to always be writable by that user.

Patrick