Prior to build 20110604-001, JPEized apps each made use of their own in-memory copy of their package's portable registry. These copies were not shared between concurrently running apps. Also, any changes made did not get written to disk until the app ended.
Starting with build 20110604-001, there is now an option available to run JPEized apps so that they make use of a concurrently shared portable registry. Although still a work-in-progress, each app may now see and react to changes made by other apps that are running at the same time, making the portable registry behave more like the Windows system registry behaves.
This test verifies that JauntePE provides portably packaged apps with the means to use the portable registry as a shared data store for concurrently running apps.
Before beginning with the test steps given below, make sure you have the latest nightly build version of JauntePE.
- Start JauntePE.
- Open Edit->Package Settings via the menu.
- Click on the Registry Type tab.
- Select the Basic Plus option.
- Select the OK button.
- Left click on the Portable Registry tab.
- Right click and select Add Current User Key somewhere within the inner contents box.
- Left click on the Package Contents tab.
- Right click and select Add Program Files somewhere within the inner contents box.
- Left click on the Program Files icon. You can also left double click for faster browsing.
- Open an explorer or similar file system browsing window.
- Browse to the JauntePE Samples\TestRegSharing folder.
- Drag-n-drop the TestRegSharing.exe file to JauntePE's Package Contents window.
- Make the JauntePE window your active working window.
- Right click on the TestRegSharing.exe icon and select Add Launcher.
- Make your file system browsing window your active working window.
- Browse to the JauntePE Toolbox\Quickie folder.
- Run the JPEized TestRegSharing app. You should see a changing bar graph in the opened window. In that window, there should be one changing vertical bar. The bar's height changes as the app changes its corresponding value in the registry.
- Run the JPEized TestRegSharing app again. You should now have two opened windows, each with a changing bar graph made up of two vertical bars. The first bar is for the first window's running instance of the app. The second bar is for the second window's running instance of the app. Each window's bar graph should look and change close to the same as the other window's bar graph. This represents two different app instances reading and writing to the same package's portable registry concurrently.
- Feel free to run as many additional instances of the app as you like (up to 128 is supported by the app.) Each new running instance of the app should result in each open window showing roughly the same bar graph that changes in the same way over time. To make the app running and window placement more manageable, there is a right click context menu available. It has selections for starting 1, 2, 4, or 8 new instances of the app plus a selection for tiling all of the currently open windows. To use it, simply right click somewhere within one of the open test windows.
- When you're done with this first part of the test, close down a few of the windows. Note that each window's bar graph changes to contain a missing bar corresponding to each window instance you close. Once you've closed a few down, switch back to the JauntePE window.
- Left click on the Portable Registry tab.
- Right click somewhere within the contents window and select Refresh.
- Select the down arrow button for the Registry Keys combo box above the contents window and select Current User\Software\TestJPE.
- If you're not already in details view, switch to it now by left clicking on the View Type button just to the right of the combo box.
- You should see a Default entry. It's Data value represents the number of vertical bars you should see in each bar graph. If you'd like, change that value now by left double clicking on it. It's new value should be greater than the number of currently open windows. Once you make the value change and select OK, you should see each open window's bar graph change in the same way.
- You should also see a number of "Test JPE Concurrent Registry Usage" entries. If you have 8 open test windows, there should be 8 of those entries. Each of those entries Data values represents the height of its corresponding vertical bar in the bar graphs. If you'd like, change one or more of them in the same way as you changed the Default value. The new values should be between 0 and 50. Once you make a value change and select OK, you should see each open window's bar graph change in the same way.
- Close the remaining open test windows by right clicking in one of them and selecting Close All.
- Close JauntePE.