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mixxxdj / mixxx

Mixxx is Free DJ software that gives you everything you need to perform live mixes.
http://mixxx.org
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Portable mode support #13482

Open hellishvictor opened 3 months ago

hellishvictor commented 3 months ago

Feature Description

Hi, the program store its user data and settings files in "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Mixxxx", and it would be awesome if also were possible locate them on the same folder where the program is running from, so this way it can be used as portable on a USB pendrive or whatever.

Cheers.

fwcd commented 3 months ago

We've had a few discussions about something similar on Zulip, namely making the library portable (i.e. so you could carry your cues, playlists etc. on a thumb drive), here are the latest few threads on this:

We would need some bigger architectural changes in order to move library-related metadata into a separate db and so far no one has gotten around to put the design work in for this. A big question would be how we would migrate the existing library data or whether we'd e.g. support external Mixxx libraries in addition to the existing mixxxdb. All in all, this would probably be a good candidate for https://github.com/mixxxdj/proposals.

hellishvictor commented 3 months ago

All right, here is how I have solved it so far (I'm on Win 7 x64 SP1): · I've moved the folder "Mixxx" on "%LOCALAPPDATA%" to the location where I have the program (which I don't have installed it using the msi installer, but extracting the files with lessmsi), an rename it to "Config". Then I've created a batch file name "MixxxLoader.bat" with "@mixxx --settings-path "Configs". Also, changed of the the location of the "recordings" folder on file "\Configs\mixxx.cfg" at line 447 to Directory L:/Mixxx/Recordings for prevent its creation on the "Music" folder upon launch. it worked like a charm.

And at the last minute, I found out the following: https://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/mixxx-portable.

However, it all would be more easy if there's exist an option to download the program as zip instead of a msi installer, and that at launch it looks for the existence of a "Configs" ("Data" or whatever you want to name it) folder where the program is located for overriding the default installation location.

Cheers.

daschuer commented 3 months ago

Nice to hear that this is solved to you. How can we solve it for all our users that have the same demand? What do we need to change in our deploy scripts? Do you have interest to help?

ronso0 commented 3 months ago

However, it all would be more easy if there's exist an option to download the program as zip instead of a msi installer

IIUC the msi installer allows to uninstall the app, so replacing the msi with a zip is a no-go, but there could be an additional zip with specific 'portable setup' instructions?

The crucial change to make Mixxx portable is allowing relative paths for all stored file paths (watched music directories, cover art, ?), right?