site_archiver@lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev@lists.apple.com -pmb Scenario B is worse: -- m On 18 May, 2007, at 17:45, Peter Bierman wrote: -pmb -- m On 18 May, 2007, at 16:55, Peter Bierman wrote: -pmb -- mikey On 18 May, 2007, at 14:17, Chris Cooksey wrote: One of the images contains only the .pkg file. The other image contains other files in addition to the .pkg file. Other than that, I can see no significant difference. Is the presence of the other files preventing the auto-launch of the Installer? If so, is there a way to work around that? _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/bierman%40apple.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.a... This is one of the areas we've improved recently. You can see some of the potential already with 10.4. The link doesn't need to be to a multi-megabyte disk image. The link can be just to the distribution script, which is typically less than 10 kB. The Installer should launch just as quickly as opening a new window in Safari. In 10.4, a bare distribution script like I describe is pretty limited, but you can see the direction we're going with it. At 6:43 PM -0400 5/18/07, Michael Watson wrote: I understand that the standard Installer.app will run, but it's not the look and feel of the application that startles users, it's the simple fact that a software installer came out of nowhere. Yes, there is choice to install. But that doesn't mean it feels fine to click a link and see an installer appear after several seconds of disconnect or more. Think about the delay on an average machine: 1. User clicks link for small download. (Less than 1 minute.) 2. Download completes in, say, 35 seconds. 3. Image mount operation takes 5-10 seconds to complete. 4. Installer.app launches in 2-5 seconds. (Depending on system use/available RAM factors, this will vary wildly.) In this scenario, the user clicked a link, and about a minute later, an application launched. Hmm, kinda startling and frightening for the average end-user. (In the sense that it came out of nowhere and wasn't specifically requested.) 1. User clicks link for non-small download. (More than 10 minutes.) 2. Download completes in, say, 12 minutes. 3. Image mount operation takes 5-30 seconds to complete. 4. Installer.app launches in 2-5 seconds. (Depending on system use/available RAM factors, this will vary wildly.) With the larger download, there's even more cognitive/memory disconnect between what happened and what's happening/going to happen; the effect is multilpied. It will not launch Jim Bob's XYZ Installer, it will only launch Apple's Installer.app. Hopefully the standard Installer.app either looks familiar, or is self-explanatory enough not to frighten users. I think the Installer's UI is pretty clear, but I agree that it's possible to construct web pages that trigger this behavior unexpectedly. In that case, the user needs to decide for themselves if they really want to step through some mysterious installer package that they weren't expecting. At 5:14 PM -0400 5/18/07, Michael Watson wrote: I didn't say it was dangerous, but because it's so non-standard that it really feels a bit unsettling to a lot of users. Click a link and a program you've never seen before launches? At least you're used to Mail jumping to the front--after all, you're familiar with Mail. But if you've never used Jim Bob's XYZ Installer before, that might feel pretty foreign. Just thoughts and observations from doing customer support with things like installers and disk images. Actually, we've gone to great lengths to make sure that's safe. In some configurations, it's possible to click on a link in a web page and have the link open as a new installer window. This isn't any different than clicking on a mailto: link to send an email, or an FTP URL that opens in the Finder. At 3:40 PM -0400 5/18/07, Michael Watson wrote: I can't say I'd ever want to see clicking a link result in the automatic launch of an installer application. Are you sure you honestly want to do this? It's /very/ non-standard and really kind of frightening for end users. When the user clicks on the link in Safari and clicks ok to the security question, both files are downloaded and unzipped, both dmgs are mounted, but only one of them goes on to auto-launch the .pkg in the Installer. This email sent to bierman@apple.com This email sent to site_archiver@lists.apple.com