Best Update Standalone Scenario

[Sivakatirswami]

Chipp:

"up to you" right.. we have the same thing going on now on the Mac with


/HD/LIbrary/Application Support/

# better, I think, for the "mainstack.rev" than preferences, though I  
could be wrong...but on the Mac the "big boys" seem to have some  
criteria (which not everyone follows by any means) for what goes  
into /Application Support/ and what goes into /Preferences/   
Typically, in the past,  the latter-prefs can be 100% volatile  
without breaking your app.."Trash your prefs" being a typical first  
line of attack on a problem... while /Application Support/ carries  
critical components, with which the entire app or some funcationality  
of it, will fail completely without re-installation...

and

/HD/Users/Chipp/LIbrary/Application Support/

then, finally, just to be absolutely clear and in case newbies are  
lurking..
  and we haven't addressed this as yet...All of this assumes that the  
user can put the SplashScreen-Engine-Player.exe file anywhere they  
want to...

Right?

Typically you have no control over this anyway... one person  
("Whatever!")  has his desktop set as the downloads folder, other  
"Virgo Types" ("I Need Perfect order!") meticulously  set up  
downloads folders, then move their downloaded files out to other  
logically named (for them, their projects) folders...

Which would also mean that for a dual file distribution--where you  
ship both the

SplashScreen-Engine-Player.exe
MainMyAppStack.rev

together... they will land on the HD in some unknown location: you  
would need an additional procedure (not so far mentioned) to move/ 
copy MainMyAppStack.rev to the specialFolder on start up...

I'm finding that though developers tend to live all day long with a  
pipe open to the net, "out there in the real world" that's not always  
the case. so one has to consider a single download for installation  
with the possibility that the next time the person boots, they will  
not be online -- their teenage daughter is having a 2 hour session  
with her friend on the phone. Or,  people are using portables and are  
sitting in the dentist's office and they don't have a  
connection....and you don't want your splash screen to say "Sorry, I  
know you already downloaded this application but you have to be  
online to continue in order to *really* download it [to now get the  
MainMyAppStack.rev]

e.g. we just set up an agreement with eGranary for distribution of  
large portions of our web content to remote servers (e.g. big box in  
a high-school in Nairobi, Kenya) where the model is: download  
terrabytes of resources to a local server, then let 500 users on the  
LAN have access to the files with no outside connection to the the  
"real" internet required... of course this model breaks everything in  
terms of updates, which is an issue for eGranary that they are  
working on... but, you get the point.. lots of users will not be  
online after initial installation.

i.e. so, isn't the dual file "package" the normal initial distribution?

Sorry for dragging this out but it seems a "mission critical" area to  
have totally "smooth" and we are looking to launch some very  
"professional" apps in the not too distant future to a very broad  
audience for which support could be an incredible issue.. .we don't  
want to be drowning in a sea of bug reports.

Sivakatirswami


On Oct 22, 2005, at 9:06 PM, Chipp Walters wrote:

> Sivakatirswami wrote:
>
>> Aloha, Chipp and Mark:
>> Excellent, thanks... I have copied Chipps scenario to my own   
>> knowledge base.
>> Two questions:
>> 1)  How do you handle the Splash Screen-Engine-Player after the   
>> MainStack is opened... set it to invisible? Just let it sit in  
>> the  background behind everything? I would guess the former, which  
>> is more  normal UI behavior (I mean there is no Splash screen  
>> present in the  visible GUI once the user opens an MS word  
>> document, or any Adobe  document either...)
>> 2) Marie Signe recently said the special folder path to / 
>> Application  Data/ on Windows was (26)... this email say (35) ....
>>
>
> Sivakatirswami,
>
> I do the same as Mark, I close the startup stack *after* opening  
> the regular one.
>
> (35) is for all users, not just a single user. I chose (35) so I  
> don't have to deal with multiple users (logins) on XP, some having  
> problems launching the stack(s). Though I do have a few apps which  
> use the (26) one as well. It's really up to you.
>
> Sometimes I store the downloaded main stack in (35) and user prefs  
> in (26) so that multiple users can each have their own preference  
> setting.
>
> You might want to take a look at:
> http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/MagicCarpetAAA/default.htm
>
> There's a sample splashStack there as well.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> use-revolution mailing list
> use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your  
> subscription preferences:
> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
>