Make it portable! (in the thumb drive sense of the word)

Hey.

I'd really like it if I could install Digsby on a thumb drive and be able to carry it around with me-- because although I love the fact that settings and such are kept server-side and follow me around (so to speak), I am never sure which computer I'll be on at work at any given day, and I'm sure they'd frown sternly at me if I just installed it on *all* of them. 

I'm very pleased with this program overall, I have a Trillian Astra beta account and it's nifty and all, but I like the look/feel of Digsby much better, as well as many of the features.

Though, I have to be honest, whichever one of you finally gives some love to us Linux users gets my vote.  (Hell, I'd settle on just making it compatible with wine, for now!) :p

Keep up the good work!!

Honestly...try installing it on a thumb drive. I've never tried it, but it just might work.

I'm curious- do you have a script or something on your thumbdrive that you run on other computers to set environment variables (like where the user/my documents folders are)? If so then you just might be in luck.

The app itself is self-contained (i.e. you can move the directory out of program files and it should still work with no modifications) but we do cache, log, and otherwise store things on your filesystem, usually in the user folder (c:\documents and settings\username\...).
 
So if you get an opportunity to try it out, the by all means go for it. Let us know how it goes!

As for Linux/WINE, I've heard of some people attempting it and they usually have some luck after installing gdiplus and something related to the .NET framework (Mono might be enough, I'm not sure though). I don't know if those two things are sufficient to get the whole app on its feet or not.

These two mini-projects are on our (very long) to-do list.

I did try (for both a thumb drive, and linux/WINE) with no success.  I don't have any scripts, I've just loaded it up with portable versions of what I use-- that, or the things I use are entirely self-contained.

For the thumb drive, I installed Digsby and it will run on the computer I'm at after the install (from the Thumb Drive) however, attempting this on another computer does nothing.. it won't start, and the task manager shows digsby.exe for about 1 second before it goes away, if it even shows up at all. 

I haven't really tried to make it work, to be honest, but I did a little poking around on my lunch break and found a digsby.dat file in Documents and Settings/<user>/Application Data/Digsby, though I can't find an ini file or anything that calls it.   (Keep in mind, it was a halfhearted attempt at best.. my lunch kept distracting me.)    It seems to me that it should just make a new digsby.dat if it can't find one, but I don't know much about coding-- I make robots.

For Linux/WINE, well, I didn't try anything really more than just trying to install/run it-- and it starts, and if it connects at all (I recall a "Cannot Connect" message a hand full of times) then it stops at "Connecting..." at which point I gave up and went back to trying to squeeze a few more fps out of World of Warcraft in WINE.    Maybe I'll try again tonight...

Any ideas on what's breaking when I try to run Digsby from a thumb drive?

you might need to install this on the other computer

Also try www.thinstall.com to make Digsby 100% portable

Still no luck on Thumb Drive action (I'd rather not pay to use thininstall, though I'll keep it in mind) however, using the advice above I have managed to get Digsby running in WINE, though it's a little... course. 

Anyway, I'm happy.... for now. 

Keep up the good work!

It can be done, but only if your flash drive has u3, to my knowledge of how I can attempt to do it, if thats good enough.

It was U3, until I removed it.  It's kinda the first thing I do. 

I know the program you're thinking of, that makes any program U3 compatible.

The real question I have is what files does Digsby put on a computer *outside* of the Digsby folder upon installation, and what files (presumably inside the Digsby folder) tell Digsby where to look for the "outside" files.

Armed with that knowledge, I could make it work-- however, I have the sinking feeling that I'm going to be told that Digsby doesn't put any files (except for locally cached settings) outside of it's folder, which means I have no idea why it's not working.

I think the solution will end up being that the C++ runtime files are not on any computer at my work except for the one(s) where Digsby has been installed... in which case I'll have to come up with something devious/creative.  I'll know tomorrow, when I try it out.

PS- I hope you feel warm and fuzzy that I added "Digsby" to my spell checker so it would stop underlining all my "Digsby"s in red-- it doesn't get more official than that! 

I wonder if the C++ runtime dlls are in the same directory as digsby.exe, it would work.

i believe the only thing necessary thing that lives outside the Digsby install folder is MSVCR80.dll. If you go hunting for it, make sure to grab version 8.0.50727.762.

I dunno, maybe I took the long way around... I tried a different computer (Without the Visual C++ Runtime installed on it) and it worked fine... In fact, I've tried 4 computers without Digsby being installed, and it didn't work on only one of them (the one I tried originally when I concluded that it didn't work from a thumb drive) all the others ran fine... so maybe it's something ridiculous and basic that isn't installed on the "bad" computer-- I dunno..

So far on my checklist, I got Digsby to play kind-sorta nice with Ubuntu, and got it to run off my flash drive (more or less).  So, I'm a happy camper.. but don't think I'm not chomping at the bit for a real Linux version. 

Thanks for all the help!

The first time I installed it, it was on a thumbdrive, and I haven't really had any problems at all. With the exception of having to recheck the autohide function everytime I change computers. I also don't know where the chat logs are kept, but I actually haven't looked either.

ruindpzzle wrote:

The first time I installed it, it was on a thumbdrive, and I haven't really had any problems at all. With the exception of having to recheck the autohide function everytime I change computers. I also don't know where the chat logs are kept, but I actually haven't looked either.

The chat logs are kept in C:\Documents and Settings\<computeruser>\My Documents\Digsby Logs


It would be pretty sweet if these were stored remotely, but I imagine that would very quickly become a space problem. (and I don't mean falling satellites!)

I haven't had to change any settings from computer to computer... but I don't think I've set it to autohide either. 

Joe wrote:

The chat logs are kept in C:\Documents and Settings\<computeruser>\My Documents\Digsby Logs

It would be pretty sweet if these were stored remotely, but I imagine that would very quickly become a space problem. (and I don't mean falling satellites!)

I run Digsby off of a USB drive, and had no problems installing on my PC at home (which uses Vista).  My work PC, which uses XP Pro, required the C++ runtime libraries to work, but I can easily operate Digsby on both machines.  What I would like, and this may be worthy of its own thread, is to allow the log location to be specified.  Right now, logging can only be toggled on or off.  The location is either where Joe specified, or if you're using Vista, C:\Users\<computeruser>\Documents\Digsby Logs. If you are carrying Digsby from machine to machine, it would make sense to keep the logs in one location.  Or, if you just want the log files to go elsewhere, that would be a nice option to have.

Excellent Idea!!  Change where you can save the log files gets a vote for me too!!

+1 to choosing log files' location

mike wrote:

i believe the only thing necessary thing that lives outside the Digsby install folder is MSVCR80.dll. If you go hunting for it, make sure to grab version 8.0.50727.762.

Any chance you could change the environment variables in Digsby to look for MSVCR80.dll in it's own directory first, and then the normal one?

I can't move/install files into those environment-path's, because of lack of admin rights and generally tight security.

This feature request has now made it to the wishlist. Go vote if you'd like this feature!

jgabor wrote:

Any chance you could change the environment variables in Digsby to look for MSVCR80.dll in it's own directory first, and then the normal one?

I think the default behavior for all windows apps is to check the program's directory first. If you get a copy of the DLL (probably available for download, or if you install necessary files on a PC you do have full acccess to) and drop it next to digsby it'll probably work

Making Digsby portable was the second thing I tried to do with it, I casted my vote to design it to be completely portable.  I jump between any number of PC's and laptops and portability is a must for me.