MuseScore Portable App 2.3 release date

• Jul 6, 2018 - 11:29

I am dependent on the Portable App (work laptop locked down) and have been waiting for (and looking forward to) the 2.3 release. Is there a goal for the release (e.g. within a week or two after the installable version)?

Is there anywhere I can check on the progress, maybe get the beta/RC version of Portable App?

regards
Riaan


Comments

Hi Riaan, normally we inform our package maintainers (Linux / Portable Windows) once a new release comes out so they can work on their packages. This time with 2.3, we held back communicating as we wanted to wait for user feedback to figure out how solid the release was.

Currently we are pushing out a new 2.3.1 release. Most likely we will communicate right after to our package maintainers about 2.3.1.

Finally you may wonder how long it will take. That's something we can't tell you either. It's summertime, so it may take longer than what it was with past releases, i.e. 1-2 weeks.

In reply to by Thomas

Thank you Thomas

a) I assume there is no difference between the code in the Portable App version (when it is released), nightly of the same build and 2.3.1 installable (MuseScore-2.3.1.msi), except for cosmetics like the installer and splash screen? (e.g. for someone that does not want to wait for the Portable App, they could use the Nightly of roundabout the same date or build version )

b) The download page gives no indication of what version of Portable App you will be downloading (text on the page or hovering over the binary). You have to click on "Portable version" to see which version it will start downloading (by hovering over the link on the next page). Any way to improve that (without littering the cleanness of the download page with version numbers). E.g. hovering over "Portable version" showing the actual version instead of something that redirects to it.

c) If I run Help -> Check for Update on the Portable App (version 2.2.1) it gives a popup that says "An update for MuseScore is available: MuseScore_2.3.1_r.l0899e9d , which links to MuseScore-2.3.1.msi, which is not something the Portable App user would have use for.
Is there any way to disable or grey out unnecessary features in the Portable App version (e.g. Help -> Check for Update)? or have it point to the correct .paf.exe when it has been updated? I can log an issue for this.

In reply to by Bart.S

Thank you Bart.S, for the info and your work on the Portable App.

1) I see https://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/musescore_portable still states Windows XP & Vista as System Requirements, whereas the main download page has removed them.
2) Is there any reason that https://musescore.org/en/download does not link to https://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/musescore_portable
or reference it, in addition to providing a link to the binary link download? Many of the other packagers maintainers link to their project page (the equivalent of your portableapps.com page).

For anyone curious: MuseScore 2.3.1 Portable App was released yesterday, 11 July, 3 working days after the 6 July release of the main variants (which I consider really quick!).

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

The PortableApps format is open source, so the packaging should be automated as part of the AppVeyor build. This would offer an improved way to deliver nightly builds.

By the way, if you change the extension of MuseScore's ordinary MSI from .msi to .7z then you can open it with 7zip and extract the files inside and run them without installing anything. This is the approach used by the Scoop package manager, which allows you to do this within Windows CMD:


scoop install musescore
mscore --version & :: Yay! Finally I can use the mscore command on Windows!

Scoop doesn't install anything in the traditional way: it simply extracts the MSI into a folder inside your home directory (~/scoop/apps) so it doesn't require admin priviliges and it doesn't modify any registry settings.

In reply to by Riaan van Niekerk

@Riaan, no need to build a Windows VM. Just create a pull request on GitHub called "WIP: portable build on AppVeyor". Each time you push a commit it will trigger an AppVeyor build.

AppVeyor builds follow the commands in these files:

Just edit the batch files in build/appveyor to do whatever is needed to create the portable build, and ask here if you get stuck.

Here's an example of a PR which affected the AppVeyor builds.

  • Notice if you click "view details" it says "2 checks passed" and under that "AppVeyor build succeeded".
  • Click "details" next to the AppVeyor build and it will take you to the build log.
  • Click the "Artifacts" tab on the build log and it will show the files created by the build.

If you write 'echo "Hello World!"' in one of the batch files it will show up in the build log on your PR. If you create a file and add it to this list then it will show up on the Artifacts page.

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