Reading these last couple of posts I had to cringe a little, but mainly in sympathy. I knew the word .pet would cause confusion. Nobody who isn't already familiar with puppy linux's past would know that a .pet is the extension for a traditional program file in Puppys. (Well there were before that .pups, but we'll ignore that for now)
@tigerflag, what Mike was saying was that he imagined you'd like to have a Puppy installer program that gave you choices for installing applications. Using this installer, you would click on an application choice, and it would simply install the program, and also put up a menu entry for it. Simple!
Well yes, wouldn't we all! And in fact Quickpet was an attempt to do that, as you already knew.
The big problem:
Back when Puppy Linux ran only a limited number of puppy programs specifically compiled for it, life was simple. But limited. We envied bigger distributions, like Ubuntu and Debian, which had thousands of available programs, instead of out meager hundred or so. So the idea was hatched to use their programs in Puppies actually built (compiled) out of their foundational programs, and able to take advantage of their application repositories. So Puppys built out of Ubuntu, and Debian were created (Upup and Dpup). But that's when the problems started.
Unfortunately using Puppy with an "alien" repository doesn't always work out well, because in the case of the Ubuntu OS, for instance, there are a lot of assumptions about the way the Ubuntu operating system works, and what files it already has onboard. These form an environment in which Ubuntu applications work.
The environment in a Puppy OS, even one built to use Ubuntu's repositories, is very different. So many programs don't work In an Ubuntu-Puppy out of the box. Many do, but some don't. Also, to use these repositories, a Puppy program installer had to be built that knows what to download, and where to put it in Puppy. The Puppy Package Manager (PPM) did a reasonable job of this, with no guarantee however that the downloaded and installed programs actually will work.
As an alternative to all of this, Mike Walsh has been packaging "portable" programs that you download and stick somewhere on your hard drive, and then activate. These are fairly OS agnostic. They don't care what the Puppy or dog OS is (well to a great extent). They contain what they need to run internally. They do put up a menu entry, and generally run out of the box. They are tested on Puppies (unlike Ubuntu or Debian applications in the repositories).
If I may say briefly how they work because I feel the instructions can seem daunting to a new user.....
You down load one.
You put it in the top directory of the drive you are using for your puppy linux (we usually call that /mnt/home).
You click on that file.
Inside it are a few little utilities. One makes a menu entry. One removes a menu entry. And one launches your program. That's all you need to install it.
To install the program so it works, click on the "Menu-Add" utility. It sets you up with a menu entry in Puppy.
After that, you can either launch the program directly while you're there by clicking on "Launch" -or-
Go back to your desktop, click on the puppy menu, and find your newly added application there. Click to launch, as usual.
Your puppy portable program is installed, and easily accessed in the usual way --- from the puppy menu.
If you ever want to remove this program, go back into the portable you put in /mnt/home and click "Menu-Remove" This does exactly what it says.
Hope this helps, rather than confuses......
ps. @mikewalsh ....thinking about all this, it might be less confusing for newcomers to rename "Menu-Add to "Install" and "Menu-Remove" to "Uninstall". Then you wouldn't have to explain what to do. People would know intuitively.
I also have to assume that you classify yourself, not as a "geek", but as simply a 'user', yes?