gvSIG has two distributions: portable and installable. In the installable version we must follow the installation wizard, and a shortcut is automatically created on our Desktop and at Home menu. On the other hand, in the portable version we must unzip the downloaded .zip file and we can run gvSIG directly, without installing anything on our computer and even having it on a removable disk, such as a pen-drive.

In the case of portable versions, this shortcut is not created, but we can do it. Depending on the operating system we will do it in the following way:

Windows:

If we want to start a portable version of gvSIG, we will access to the folder where we have that version (once the zip has been unzipped), and we will double-click on the gvsig-desktop.exe file.

If we want to create a shortcut to start the application, we will click with the right mouse button on that .exe file, and then we will select the option “Send to -> Desktop (create shortcut)”. In this way it will create the shortcut on the Desktop, and we just have to double-click on it to open gvSIG.

If we click on the shortcut created with the right mouse button we can change the icon, being able to select, for example, the”gvsig-icon48x48.png” file that we have in the portable version folder.

If we download a new portable version we will have to create a new shortcut on the new exe file, or we can change the properties of the previously shortcut created on the Desktop, indicating the path to the new file.

Linux:

In case we have Linux, once the zip file of the portable version has been unzipped, we can run the application by double-clicking on the gvSIG.sh file that we have in the unzipped folder (on some computers it may not work, depending on the characteristics of the operating system), or we can also do it by opening a Terminal, accessing to the path where we have the portable version, and running the gvSIG.sh file with the command: “./gvSIG.sh”.

If we want to create a shortcut on our Desktop, it can be done by creating a .desktop file and configuring it to call the gvSIG.sh file. If you are not used to working with Linux, we have created some instructions that will make this work easy. For this we have created a boot file, which you can download from:

http://downloads.gvsig.org/download/gvsig-desktop/runtimes/portable_version_shortcut/gvSIG%20desktop%202.5.1_3033_ENG.desktop

You must download it on the Desktop. Then you open the text editor that you have (such as ‘gedit’ or ‘Kate’), then go to Open file, and open the file that you have downloaded. In that file you have to change the name (for your gvSIG version) and write the full path to the gvSIG.sh file and the gvSIG icon. They are these 3 lines:

Name=gvSIG desktop 2.5.1_3033
Exec=path to the gvSIG.sh file in the portable version folder.
Icon=path to the gvsig-icon48x48.png file in the portable version folder.

(Check that you do not have spaces at the end of the paths).

You should have something like this:

Name=gvSIG desktop 2.5.0 final
Exec=/home/test/gvSIG-desktop-2.5.0-2930-final-lin_ubuntu_14.04-x86/gvSIG.sh
Icon=/home/test/gvSIG-desktop-2.5.0-2930-final-lin_ubuntu_14.04-x86/gvsig-icon48x48.png

Once the file is saved, you can start gvSIG by double-clicking on it.

If we download a new portable version we must follow the same steps, or we can edit that file again and indicate the path to the new boot file and the new icon.