As featured in popular German computing magazine, PC-Welt.
News
August 31, 2011: GetIt no longer indexes AppSnap by default since the repository seems outdated.April 12, 2009: Portable Edition: You can now run GetIt from a USB Stick! (Portable Edition can be created from installed GetIt)
January 7, 2009: Chain Installing is now supported! Just select multiple applications in the GUI and hit Install to install them all!
January 6, 2009: GetIt now offers to install AppSnap and AppUpdater for you, so you no longer have to do anything before installing GetIt.
Introduction
There are many Windows implementations of a Linux
style apt-get function that let you type "install Firefox",
and poof, you have
Firefox installed.
GetIt is not an application-getter/installer. It
just provides you with
one single interface to take advantage of your favorite
application-getters, all in one place.
When you want to install something, you shouldn't have to think "Hm,
which windows apt-get clone has this program that I want to get?".
That's where GetIt comes in. It indexes repositories locally, and lets
you choose which program to install from a master list of ALL available
programs.
You choose the
program
you want to install, and GetIt knows which app-getter to talk to in
order to make the installation happen.
GetIt is open-source software, licensed under the GPL. Source available on Google Code.
^ TOP
Usage
GetIt was designed to be used with Find And Run Robot, and as
such
has a Folder Interface. However, you can just as easily just use GetIt
from the command-line (and thus any other Application Launcher, like
Launchy). There is also a GUI for you to use.
Folder
Interface
The best (and silliest sounding).
If you look at the GetIt\Installs\ folder, you will find the entirety
of the combined repository database readily accessable via files. This
is useful for two reasons:
A) Having a folder interface, allows
you to easily use GetIt in combination with FindAndRunRobot.
B) If you can't be convinced to use FARR, you could just go to this folder. Double-clicking Firefox.git is the same thing as
running "GetIt.exe install Firefox".
Since GetIt was programmed with Find And Run Robot
(v2) in mind, it is automatically
set up (via an Alias file) to allow you to use the install command.
FARR is the preferred
way of using GetIt, due
to FARR's powerful incremental file search.
Notice that Firefox was
found, and recommended to the user, even though only "fire" was typed.
It was this sort of power that inspired GetIt in the first place. If
you hit enter at this point, Firefox will download and install itself.
Of course, you can
Refreshing/Update all Repositories right from FARR as well.
So, simply typing "installrefresh" will Refresh/Update all Repositories.
Of course, you can use GetIt just fine without having FARR.
Commandline
It's just as easy (alas, without the incremental search ability) to do the same
thing via the commandline.
GetIt.exe
install Firefox
Installs Firefox by calling the proper Application Getter.
GetIt.exe update
Updates all Application Getter's repositories, and exports them into
the GetIt Installs\ folder.
GetIt.exe upgrade
Upgrades all installed Applications, using any Application Getter that
supports this feature.
GUI
You can also use this GUI.
Above, you see the list of applications that was found by combining the
repositories of all installed Application Getting Engines.
Chain Installing is now supported. Just select as many applications as you want, click Install, and they are installed without further interruptions! The proper
application getters will be called upon in series to do their job. The GUI also lets you create Batch files that will do the Chain Install, for later use.
Final Thoughts
- I want to donate to support GetIt!
- Donations encourage us to allocate more time into this project. In fact, we have set up different tip jars for different requested features. If you want your feature to get priority, add some spare change to a jar of your choice. When donating, just tell us which jar you want to add it to, if you care. :)
Total Donated: $7 -- Redo GUI Tip Jar: $0 -- Portable App Edition Tip Jar: $7
- I want to host my own repository! What do I do?
- First take a look and study AppSnap's
db.ini.
This is the master repository it uses, and it uses the same format
you'll be using for your repository. Read:
How-To Host a Repository.
Currently only AppSnap custom repositories are supported. If you are hosting a repository, tell us about it on the forum!
- In case mutliple Application Getting Engines support a particular application:
- Which app-getter is used is determined by your preference. If you like a certain application-getter better than another, you can list it on top in the preference.txt file that can be found in your GetIt folder. The same idea can be used to remove an Application Getter.
- In case mutliple Repositories support a particular application:
- Which repository is used is determined by your preference. If you trust a certain repository more than another, you can list it on top in the repositories.txt file that can be found in your GetIt folder. Once an application is found in a repository, it is ignored in repositories below it.
- My favorites Application Getter isn't supported by default. What to do?
- Contact us. We're busy, but if we see something we like,
we'll
try to add out-of-the-box support for it. Until we do, you can manually
add more Application Getters to GetIt.
You have to do these things:
1) Add the App-Getter's name to your preference.txt
2) Make an Engine.ini file for the App-Getter in the Engines folder. (See one of the already supported App-Getters for an example of this)
3) Make a program to export the App-Getter's database of applications into GetIt format. (GetIt can't possibly know how to deal with every database format imaginable - just the ones it was made to understand). This program can be set to auto-run on DB update checks, via the Engine.ini
...Yeah, step 3 is the most work. ;)
- I need more help...
- Check out the forum.
- Special thanks to the authors of Windows Application Getters!
- This wouldn't be possible without you. See the top of the page for links to all supported Application Getters.