Re: Graphical Installers [was Re: OpenOffice.org on OS X and GNUstep]

[Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf]

Am Freitag, 18.11.05 um 02:59 Uhr schrieb Rogelio Serrano:

> Tell the audience how you'd tackle the installation task without an
> installer and what you hate so much about wizards?
>
> Personally, I've seen very bad and very good wizards. The bad ones
> don't allow me to set up things the way I want or chocke on my
> not-100%-standard situation.
>
> Good wizards (the one coming with Azureus, for example) are like a
> step-by-step guide to get the setup. They comment with hints on what
> the developers consider as reasonable values and might even have some
> tools integrated to explore what one needs to know to do a thoughtful
> decision. They accept any possible value, however.
>
>
> Markus
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter
> http://www.jump-ing.de/
>
>
> Well i have seen good wizards too. But I dont see how we can make a 
> good wizard in this case. There are too many technical questions to 
> ask the user. In windows for example I would prefer the intaller to 
> just show a progress bar. Not ask questions about 
> flattened/unflattened, whether you have gnu make and then if you have 
> cygwin or mingw. Or whether you to take over the desktop or not.

Let me chime in here.


IHMO it is not so important whether an installer is a graphical one or 
not. I've seen brilliant command line based ones and broken-by-design 
graphical ones (and the other way around too)

A good installer makes it easy for an (possible novice) user to get a 
software installed on his/her system without ending up in a clueless 
state about something or in an unresolvable situation. The question 
here is: How to achieve that goal?

It is all about good guidance. That is:

- Ask the right questions (== ask the necessary questions in a right 
order)
- make it possible to go some steps back (although the need for that 
should be avoided as far as possible by the above)
- offer the possibility for expert choices at several points, but 
always offer a default/novice way to do things
- avoid "GNUstep speech" (That is using terms where only "old GNUstep 
hands" understand what those mean)  as far as possible.
- explain, explain, explain (what is going on, what this or that choice 
means etc. in a short and to the point way)


How to get this implemented into a working and good installer?

Not just start coding away and work around problem later but:

- design the interaction flow first:
 - get an idea about what is needed
 - get an idea what can be answered/decided by the installer and which 
things need user interaction
 - get the questions which the user has to answer in a right and user 
comprehensible order

- then start to think about how to implement it
 - command line based (works almost always)
 - html based (should work mostly since webbrowsers are a commodity 
today)
 - graphical (needs some sort of graphical interface to be installed - 
no problem on Windows but what to use on Unix/Linux? KDE or GNOME are 
what we're going to replace, depending on their libs just for an 
installer is somewhat odd. TCL/TK? Has everyone installed that? the 
same questions as for KDE/GNOME arise)
 - mixed (start with command line and switch to something GNUstep GUI 
based for the last steps (Example: the OPENSTEP installer)

- implement it ;-)


I am thinking about moving this discussion into the wiki so that it 
becomes fruitful and doesn't pass away like those thousands of 
fruitless polemics here on the list do since an really good installer 
is something GNUstep needs badly to get more users (GNUstep 
installation is one of the toughest hurdles you've to take if you want 
to become a GNUstepper. I hope the most of you did not forget their 
challenging first "GNU"steps. We should make it a lot easier for the 
"following generations")


regards, Lars