Portable NVU Launcher 1.0.9
===========================
Written by John T. Haller
- with additional code from Free The Fox by mai9 and fflaunch by tracon

Website: http://portablenvu.mozdev.org/


ABOUT PORTABLE NVU
==================
The Portable NVU Launcher allows you to run NVU from a removable drive whose letter changes as you move it to another computer.  The editor and the profile can be entirely self-contained on the drive and then used on any Windows computer.  Specific configuration changes are made to the chrome.rdf so that your extensions will still work as the drive letter changes.


LICENSE
=======
This code is released under the GPL.  The full code is included with this package as PortableNVU.nsi.


INSTALLATION / DIRECTORY STRUCTURE
==================================
By default, the program expects one of 3 directory structures:

-\ <--- Directory with PortableNVU.exe
  +\nvu\
  +\plugins\
  +\profile\

OR

-\ <--- Directory with PortableNVU.exe
  +\PortableNVU\
    +\nvu\
    +\plugins\
    +\profile\

OR

-\ <--- Directory with PortableNVU.exe
  +\PortableApps\
    +\PortableNVU\
      +\nvu\
      +\plugins\
      +\profile\


It can be used in other directory configurations by including the PortableNVU.ini file in the same directory as PortableNVU.exe and configuring it as details in the INI file section below.  The INI file may also be placed in a subdirectory of the directory containing PortableNVU.exe called PortableNVUor 2 directories deep in PortableApps\PortableNVU.  All paths in the INI should remain relative to the EXE and not the INI.


PORTABLENVU.INI CONFIGURATION
=============================
The Portable NVU Launcher will look for an ini file called PortableNVU.ini within its directory.  If you are happy with the default options, it is not necessary, though.  The INI file is formatted as follows:

[PortableNVU]
NVUDirectory=nvu
ProfileDirectory=profile
PluginsDirectory=plugins
AdditionalParameters=-commandline -parameters
AllowMultipleInstances=false
SkipChromeFix=false
SkipCompregFix=false
WaitForNVU=false
NVUExecutable=nvu.exe

The NVUDirectory, ProfileDirectory, and PluginsDirectory entries should be set to the *relative* path to the directories containing NVU.exe, your profile and your plugins from the current directory.  All must be a subdirectory (or multiple subdirectories) of the directory containing PortableNVU.exe.  The default entries for these are described in the installation section above.

The AdditionalParameters entry allows you to pass additional commandline parameter entries to NVU.exe.  Whatever you enter here will be appended to the call to Thunderbird.exe.

The AllowMultipleInstances entry will allow Portable NVU to run alongside your regular local copy of NVU if you set it to true (lowercase).  The default is false.

The SkipChromeFix entry allows you to set Portable NVU not to adjust the chrome.rdf for extension compatibility on launch.  It is useful if you are only using Portable NVU on computers you control and are able to have the drive letter set the same each time as Portable NVU will launch more quickly.  Set it to true (lowercase) to skip chrome.rdf processing.  The default is false.

The SkipCompregFix entry allows you to set Portable NVU not to adjust the component registry (compreg.dat) for certain extension compatibility on launch.  It is useful if you are only using Portable NVU on computers you control and are able to have the drive letter set the same each time or if you are not using extensions which make use of the component registry (like Mozilla Calendar) as Portable NVU will launch more quickly.  Set it to true (lowercase) to skip chrome.rdf processing.  The default is false.

The WaitForNVU entry allows you to set the Portable NVU Launcher to wait for NVU to close before it closes.  This option is mainly of use when PortableNVU.exe is called by another program that awaits it's conclusion to perform a task.

The NVUExecutable entry allows you to set the Portable NVU Launcher to use an alternate EXE call to launch NVU.  This is helpful if you are using a machine that is set to deny NVU.exe from running.  You'll need to rename the Thunderbird.exe file and then enter the name you gave it on the NVUExecutable= line of the INI.


PROGRAM HISTORY / ABOUT THE AUTHORS
===================================
This launcher contains elements from multiple sources.  It began as a batch file launcher written by myself (John T. Haller) and posted to the mozillaZine.org thread about running Firefox from a USB key.  tracon later released a launcher called fflaunch which I enhanced and re-released as Portable Firefox.  mai9 later improved on fflaunch's techniques and released it as Free The Fox.  Multiple suggestions back and forth as well as improvements from mai9, myself and others lead to the launcher we have today.  This most recent version adds some of mai9's methods for running multiple copies of Firefox and my methods for allowing the code to be run from anywhere on first launch (as opposed to a specific directory), pass in commandline options, run without an ini file and allow the use of profiles from local installations.


CURRENT LIMITATIONS
===================
WRITE ACCESS REQUIRED - Both the NVU directory and the profile directory must be writeable on the USB drive. Drives with a writable switch can not be in read-only mode.