PAD® stands for the Portable Application Description specification and XML format, created in 1998 by the Association of Software Professionals. The proposed specification and format was designed to assist software authors and publishers provide a consistent and standard method for communicating content for product descriptions, requirements and other product-specific details to online sources, websites and catalogs. By using an industry-accepted standard format, webmasters and program librarians would be able to automate program listings. The PAD standard saves time for publishers in distributing their products and for webmasters in updating, maintaining, and publishing products on their sites.
Today, over 50,000 software publishers from around the world use PAD files to distribute over 250,000 unique applications on 6,000 websites, online directories, and catalogs that support publishers' PAD submissions. All of the current PAD Specification, support, resources and tools are managed by the ASP's PAD Committee. (For a list of PAD supported websites, click here http://padsites.asp-software.org.
The prior v3.11 PAD Repository has been replaced with a new global PAD Repository available http://repository.appvisor.com. and online validator, have been replaced with a newly-created web-based solution on www.AppVisor.com. To import and upgrade your existing PAD files to the v4.0 format, register for free on Appvisor http://publisher.appvisor.com.
Version 4.0 http://repository.appvisor.com/padspec/files/padspec40.xml now includes support for publishers to add social network links (Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc) and links for video content (YouTube, etc) while also incorporating authentication, certification, and other security features to protect publishers and their applications from PAD SPAM, fraud, hijaak, and malware. All PAD v4.0 files use a real-time PAD Validator and are reviewed for official publication by a technical professionals before placed on the Official PAD Repository.
Chair, ASP Pad Specification
For more, see the PAD FAQ.

Author Resources
You are a shareware author wishing to create, edit, validate and upload PAD files.More...

Webmaster Resources
You are a download site webmaster wishing to implement PAD support on yourweb site.More...

Specification Resources
You are interested in the technical definition of PAD.More...

PADGen 3.1.1.47 follows 301 redirects (June 12, 2010)
PAD Spec 3.11 and PADGen 3.1.1.46 with larger domain name fields (June 7, 2010)
PADGen 3.1.1.45 (May 25, 2010)
PAD Spec 3.10 revamped Program_OS_Support and minor Download_URL additions (Jun, 2009 posted Oct. 14, 2009)
PADGen 3.0.1.38 (Aug 04, 2008)
PAD Signing Tools 3.0.1.8 (Apr 11, 2008)

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