@DetlevCM
The main problem for graduate students trying to use Mendeley on university computers is two fold: it's not always possible to work on the same computer; they are all shared, most of the times we use the first one available, that's why portable apps are so useful. Moreover, the computers are blocked, both to install new softwares and for portable softwares to save configuration information (like login and password for accessing our Mendeley account).

I tried to use @Alessandro Carrega's idea and it works. Just unpacked Mendeley desktop files (from the setup file, downloaded from Mendeley's website) using an unzip application, and stored all them in a folder in my pen-drive. Then, configured to download the pdf files to another folder (Options / File organizer). It works well for several Mendeley's features: reading and anotating papers, sychronizing, adding references etc.

There are two problems with using like this: both Citation view/copy and Word integration features don't work. And when I turned on the computer again today (i tried the first time yesterday), it had lost my configuration information, so I had to log in again, set up the File organizer again and download all pdf files again.

It seems then that a Portable version of Mendeley is close to be available, for the core of the software is working well. There seems to be minor issues to solve, like: save the configuration information at the pen-drive too, not Windows users configuration folders.

Best regards. Marcelo.

Hello people.

For those who want an android client for Mendeley, there are at least two options in Android Market. They are not official (developed by the Mendeley team itself), but use the oficial Mendeley API (which is the reason why they created an API library to provide access to the database).

I've been using the first one; very nice, works fine, I can open the pdf and read in my cell phone (haven't tried in tablet). The second one has received good reviews too.

Enjoy:

1-Droideley
2-Scholarley

(é só procurar no Android Market: https://market.android.com/)

Cheers! Marcelo.

Hi Robert.Knight

what may be important to stress is that the Mendeley dashboard web experience on mobile phones (specially) and tablets is not very good. An app for these devices would be great, getting very easy to open and read the pdf papers. Moreover, there already more phones using Android than iOS, what may increase even more.

Best regards.