Re: Installer UI advices

[Markus Hitter]

Am 11.03.2005 um 21:17 schrieb M. Uli Kusterer:

> At 10:44 Uhr -0500 11.03.2005, Adrian Robert wrote:
> > I'm not sure drag/drop install is appropriate for packages.  On OS X 
> > this is done for .apps that don't need any additional work (by 
> > scripts, etc.) or license agreement, and works because of their .dmg 
> > disk-image mounting framework.
>
> No. .dmg files are simply another kind of archives.

Actually, .dmg's are no archives at all, they are disk image files.

It happens they can be configured to be read-only, to be compressed and 
to ask for some sort of (license-)agreement on mounting. But still, 
they are disk images.


> You can do drop-install with apps from zipped archives, or .tgz ones 
> just as well.

Goal would be not to require any installation at all. With the .dmg 
mounted, you can run most well designed apps right off the mounted 
volume, without copying anything anywhere.

I do this quite often and after a few runs to figure whether this new 
app fits my needs or not, I possibly drag it over to a more appropriate 
place for long term usage. But most apps I try out disappear as soon as 
I unmount the .dmg. I was interested in testing but have no further use 
for them.


> This scheme is only used for apps that don't require additional files.

It should be highly encouraged to design apps this way, even at the 
cost of some duplicated files/libraries/whatever. It makes handling the 
software so much easier and you won't have any headaches with different 
version requirements for the same framework/library.



> At 10:44 Uhr -0500 11.03.2005, Adrian Robert wrote:
>
> > [...] the need for delivering in a "package" arises when something 
> > that simple can't work -- either you've got files that need to go 
> > elsewhere on the disk, dependencies that need to be checked, scripts 
> > that need to run, etc..

For dependency checking, this should go into the app's startup routine 
anyways. Sometimes dependencies just disappear later and every app 
should handle this gracefully.

For files elsewhere on the disk - design your app to avoid them. 
Generate temporary files as you need them. Generate preference files 
when it's time to store something. Try not to fiddle with system files, 
i.e. those in /etc.

For scripts that need to run ... ugh, you mean just installing the app 
would alter my system? Ouch ...


my $0.02,
Markus

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