Deployment proposal

[Chris Forsythe]

Folks,

I put a proposal up on http://code.google.com/p/growl/wiki/FutureGrowlInstallerPlusDMGPlans
for how I think we could change things for deployment. If some of
you could look at it and provide feedback that'd be appreciated.

Chris

[Dan]

Just a peanut gallery opin...

Internet-enabled DMG ... IMO not a good idea; too many problems.
This functionality is only triggered IFF you use Safari with
auto-open enabled. But basic browsing security say that you never
enable such things! And not everyone uses Safari. This creates two
very different installation experiences - which will confuse the user
and create more support issues for you. Additionally - auto deleting
products are simply not permitted in most business environments.

Extras tab... I really like the idea of moving the Extras into a
tab, within the Growl prefspane! I'm not sure of your wording tho -
is this a list of extras that let the user select which is to be
downloaded and installed? Or are the Extras stashed within the
prefspane initially (making for a bloated pane on disk) and just
activated by the user? How would one do activations / updates on a
system that has no public 'net access, ever?

- Dan.
--
- Psychoceramic Emeritus; South Jersey, USA, Earth.

[Christopher Forsythe]

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 9:12 AM, Dan <dante...@gmail.com> wrote:

At 8:56 PM -0600 11/9/2009, Chris Forsythe wrote:
>I put a proposal up on
>http://code.google.com/p/growl/wiki/FutureGrowlInstallerPlusDMGPlans
>for how I think we could change things for deployment. If some of
>you could look at it and provide feedback that'd be appreciated.

Just a peanut gallery opin...

Internet-enabled DMG ...  IMO not a good idea; too many problems.
This functionality is only triggered IFF you use Safari with
auto-open enabled.  But basic browsing security say that you never
enable such things!  And not everyone uses Safari.  This creates two
very different installation experiences - which will confuse the user
and create more support issues for you.  Additionally - auto deleting
products are simply not permitted in most business environments.

I thought this too until I tried it with Family. A large portion of my disk image related issues just disappeared after that. In my opinion it makes life easier for the type of people who need it, and people who don't need it would be able to figure things out quite easily.
 

Extras tab...  I really like the idea of moving the Extras into a
tab, within the Growl prefspane!  I'm not sure of your wording tho -
is this a list of extras that let the user select which is to be
downloaded and installed?  Or are the Extras stashed within the
prefspane initially (making for a bloated pane on disk) and just
activated by the user?  How would one do activations / updates on a
system that has no public 'net access, ever?

It's both. It bundles the extras in the prefpane, and also checks for updates, and manages updates. This way if someone doesn't have internet access they get the extras, but if they do installing *and* updating extras is easy.

[Evan Schoenberg, M.D.]

Though I don't think that it's the Right solution, I'm fine breaking things up into separate releases, as Peter has already done with GrowlMail, for the sake of Getting Things Done.

I don't think that a .pkg on an internet-enabled disk image makes much sense, though. Why not a big icon that says "Install Growl" on a window that pops up, rather than it disappearing into a Downloads folder, if we can't go with a raw file (and I agree that we can't, as a second download would be Growl-1.prefpane and we'd get duplicate installations pretty easily).

Cheers,
Evan

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[Chris Forsythe]

On Dec 27, 2009, at 6:41 PM, Evan Schoenberg, M.D. wrote:

> Though I don't think that it's the Right solution, I'm fine breaking
> things up into separate releases, as Peter has already done with
> GrowlMail, for the sake of Getting Things Done.
>

I'm more hesitant to do it now, since we're getting people on the
discuss list confused about Growl vs GrowlMail and it's a bit more
apparent.

> I don't think that a .pkg on an internet-enabled disk image makes
> much sense, though. Why not a big icon that says "Install Growl" on
> a window that pops up, rather than it disappearing into a Downloads
> folder, if we can't go with a raw file (and I agree that we can't,
> as a second download would be Growl-1.prefpane and we'd get
> duplicate installations pretty easily).
>

With the Extras inside the prefpane, to me it makes sense. When we
changed to internet-enabled with Family for instance, we saw a drastic
reduction of support requests about unmounting the dmg for instance.
And Family doesn't have nearly the amount of users that Growl does.

I thought going pkg would solve the problem with the Growl-1.prefpane,
Growl-2.prefpane, etc etc nicely. Plus it's something users know. I'm
up for other ideas though.

> Cheers,
> Evan
>
> On Nov 9, 2009, at 8:56 PM, Chris Forsythe wrote:
>
>>
>> Folks,
>>
>> I put a proposal up on http://code.google.com/p/growl/wiki/FutureGrowlInstallerPlusDMGPlans
>> for how I think we could change things for deployment. If some of
>> you could look at it and provide feedback that'd be appreciated.
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
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[Peter Hosey]

On Dec 27, 2009, at 16:41:16, Evan Schoenberg, M.D. wrote:
> I don't think that a .pkg on an internet-enabled disk image makes
> much sense, though.

It makes very good sense, as when the average user downloads the image
in Safari, the Installer package will open up right away. No messing
around with a disk image.

[Christopher Forsythe]

Does it make sense with what Peter said here? Any other ideas outside of "drag this here"?

We do have "drag this here" with Perian and it also works pretty well. http://www.flickr.com/photos/greyfodder/258271552/ is a screenshot of that with .5 before the prefpane, http://allforces.com/2009/01/14/flvs-in-quick-look/ is a screenshot of it with the prefpane like we have it currently.

If we're trying to make things simpler, I don't know which is the better route to take. To be honest I want to make this as simple as possible, and whatever choice we ultimately make has that goal in mind.

Chris

[Evan Schoenberg]

My problem with installer packages is that:
1. Installer sucks.
2. Installer sucks.

Double click to install a prefPane makes perfect sense to me, and
anyone who can use a mouse can follow the directions to do so. The
only real problem we have with that is the issue of upgrading, since
currently an upgrading user and a first-time install user are faced
with the same steps, and the result is that since System Preferences
might already be open, there's the potential for serious conflicts as
the old bundle isn't unloaded from System Preferences' address space.

Moving to a modern updater - that is, Sparkle 1.5 - will address this.
Only a tiny percentage of users - primarily folks who are either (1)
so confused as to probably screw something else up anyways or (2)
savvy enough to deal with it - are going to be downloading &
installing on top of an old version.

-Evan

[Christopher Forsythe]

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 3:08 PM, Evan Schoenberg <eva...@dreskin.net> wrote:

On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Christopher Forsythe <ch...@growl.info> wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Peter Hosey <p...@growl.info> wrote:
>>
>> On Dec 27, 2009, at 16:41:16, Evan Schoenberg, M.D. wrote:
>> > I don't think that a .pkg on an internet-enabled disk image makes
>> > much sense, though.
>>
>> It makes very good sense, as when the average user downloads the image
>> in Safari, the Installer package will open up right away. No messing
>> around with a disk image.
>>
>
> Does it make sense with what Peter said here? Any other ideas outside of
> "drag this here"?
> We do have "drag this here" with Perian and it also works pretty
> well. http://www.flickr.com/photos/greyfodder/258271552/ is a screenshot of
> that with .5 before the
> prefpane, http://allforces.com/2009/01/14/flvs-in-quick-look/ is a
> screenshot of it with the prefpane like we have it currently.
> If we're trying to make things simpler, I don't know which is the better
> route to take. To be honest I want to make this as simple as possible, and
> whatever choice we ultimately make has that goal in mind.

My problem with installer packages is that:
1. Installer sucks.
2. Installer sucks.

Agreed, but we already have that work done which is why I felt that it was an acceptable thing to keep:

http://growl.info/hg/growl/file/f88f0bce40b7/Release/Makefile#l128

 

 

Double click to install a prefPane makes perfect sense to me, and
anyone who can use a mouse can follow the directions to do so.  The
only real problem we have with that is the issue of upgrading, since
currently an upgrading user and a first-time install user are faced
with the same steps, and the result is that since System Preferences
might already be open, there's the potential for serious conflicts as
the old bundle isn't unloaded from System Preferences' address space.

Is there any way we can get around that by say, versioning all methods/classes/whatever else? Just a thought.

PKG was my thought for getting around this and the whole "Growl-1.prefPane" problem.

 

Moving to a modern updater - that is, Sparkle 1.5 - will address this.

For the most part yes. Which is why I didn't want to change the package we deploy Growl.prefPane with much other than just changing the disk image delivery.

 

 Only a tiny percentage of users - primarily folks who are either (1)
so confused as to probably screw something else up anyways or (2)
savvy enough to deal with it - are going to be downloading &
installing on top of an old version.

 pkg addresses the rest of this except for the really problematic users for (1).

I'm not opposed to changing from pkg, it just seems like if we already have the work, why not use it?

Chris

[Christopher Forsythe]

On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 6:41 PM, Evan Schoenberg, M.D. <eva...@dreskin.net> wrote:

I don't think that a .pkg on an internet-enabled disk image makes much sense, though.  Why not a big icon that says "Install Growl" on a window that pops up, rather than it disappearing into a Downloads folder, if we can't go with a raw file (and I agree that we can't, as a second download would be Growl-1.prefpane and we'd get duplicate installations pretty easily).

For the record, I think this is a great idea, I just think it's more work.

Chris

 

Cheers,
Evan

On Nov 9, 2009, at 8:56 PM, Chris Forsythe wrote:

>
> Folks,
>
> I put a proposal up on http://code.google.com/p/growl/wiki/FutureGrowlInstallerPlusDMGPlans
>  for how I think we could change things for deployment. If some of
> you could look at it and provide feedback that'd be appreciated.
>
> Chris
>
>

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[Peter Hosey]

On Jan 5, 2010, at 13:08:37, Evan Schoenberg wrote:
> 1. Installer sucks.

What's wrong with it, specifically?

[Peter Hosey]

On Jan 5, 2010, at 13:23:21, Christopher Forsythe wrote:
> Is there any way we can get around that by say, versioning all
> methods/classes/whatever else?

What, put the version number in all the class names? The requisite
macro magic to automate that would make the code even harder to read
than CFification did.

[Chris Forsythe]

On Jan 6, 2010, at 3:19 AM, Peter Hosey wrote:

> On Jan 5, 2010, at 13:23:21, Christopher Forsythe wrote:
>> Is there any way we can get around that by say, versioning all
>> methods/classes/whatever else?
>
> What, put the version number in all the class names?

Yea

> The requisite macro magic to automate that would make the code even
> harder to read than CFification did.

Alright, not an option :)

Chris

[Evan Schoenberg, M.D.]

Well, for example, it doesn't deal with multiple existing installations in a way that is at all obvious when performing an upgrade: It replaces one, without saying which it is replacing, and leaves the other in place. I've ran into situations when it didn't run preflight or postflight scripts as requested, though I don't have an example case on me and don't want to try to reproduce it right now.

I dont have any strong objections to using it, ultimately.

-Evan