RE: Cocoa-dev Digest, Vol 5, Issue 1598
RE: Cocoa-dev Digest, Vol 5, Issue 1598
- Subject: RE: Cocoa-dev Digest, Vol 5, Issue 1598
- From: "Tom Fortmann" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:53:40 -0500
I'm new and jumping in late and really don't have much to add except you are
both right. At its core I think it's important that OS X hold true to the
concept that any Application can be installed and deleted through a simple
drag and drop operation. Installers aren't a bad thing. They help users
simplify the tasks of dragging and setup, but every app should be prepared
to run clean after simply dragging it to the Applications folder. IMHO the
real beauty of this design has been in the ability to drag the installed
application to the trash bin when I'm done. I just can't understand why
other OS's are completely incapable of cleanly uninstalling the ENTIRE
application. I've wasted too much time cleaning all the leftover crude from
PC's for friends and family. There is an old engineering principal KISS -
keep it simple stupid. And nothing is simpler than drag and drop (or an
installer scripted drag and drop)!
___________________________________
Thomas Fortmann
Director of Development
Xcape Solutions, Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: cocoa-dev-bounces+tfortmann=email@hidden
[mailto:cocoa-dev-bounces+tfortmann=email@hidden] On
Behalf Of Bill Royds
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 9:32 AM
To: email@hidden
Subject: Re: Cocoa-dev Digest, Vol 5, Issue 1598
On 10-Sep-08, at 04:59 , email@hidden wrote:
> Anyway, if Mac software starts heading back down the road to
> everything having an installer, the appeal of the Mac platform vs.
> Windows will be severely diminished in my eyes. Drag and drop puts
> the user in control - installers put the user at their mercy.
> Whenever I see an installer that does nothing but put an app in /
> Applications, I tend to think twice about using that app, because
> it's often a sign of a poorly thought out product. Often I will send
> an e-mail to the author complaining about this as well.
But you are not a typical user so your preferences are not the most
important.
Most users who want to install software only want to b able to click
on the downloaded package and have it install.It might ask some
questions like password or ask whether you want advanced control, but
even the concept of moving to /Applications is more than most users
want to know.
Windows installers are much easier for naive users to handle than
anything that requires knowledge of the system structure such as drag
and drop to /Applications.
Of course, it is still better to have a simple install logic and a
bundled app that you could drag and drop to /Applications is better
than one that requires many different steps. probably the double click
on an app package should just invoke a shell script the\at does
sudo cp MyApp.app /Applications
with the sudo password prompt in a gui window.
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