Message-ID: <3265A6E6.7F6@cs.com> Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 20:24:22 -0700 From: "John M. Aldrich" Reply-To: fighteer AT cs DOT com Organization: Three pounds of chaos and a pinch of salt MIME-Version: 1.0 To: grendel AT ananke DOT amu DOT edu DOT pl CC: DJ Delorie , eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il, djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: Install thingy References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark Habersack wrote: > > >2) Write the installer as a djgpp program and bind it with the _custom_ > >stub, then use a batch file similar to mine to interpret any resulting > >error. > That's the route to take. If you haven't already, you can grab a copy of the latest alpha of djverify and get the modified stub code and the makefile I use to compile it. It shouldn't be at all difficult to modify it for your needs. > Isn't Ctrl-Break handled by BIOS and intercepted by DOS which is, in turn, > intercepted by our signal handler? As I recall, Ctrl-Break as handled by CWSDPMI completely kills the program, bypassing any signal handlers the program may have installed. I imagine you could get around this with a direct keyboard interrupt hook, but that's a bit complex for so simple an issue. Note that I don't really care what happens when Ctrl-Break is hit, except that I _don't_ want a program exit code of 255. I'll test it tonight and tell you what happens. > They say there are zip2sfx converters that allow you to run a specified file > in the end of unpacking process. Have any idea on where to find one? I've no idea. I suggest a web search or a search of the SimTel archive. > Well, there's always RAR with its script language. What do you think? I have never heard of it. This of course exemplifies what I said originally, that we should try to keep things as simple and internally consistent as possible. Using an archive format that is radically different from the format of the rest of the djgpp files can only lead to user confusion. Besides, I would like to contend the following points in regards to "user intelligence," or whatever we want to call it. :) First, the djgpp files themselves are distributed in .zip format. Users have complained about many, many things on the newsgroup/mailing list, but I have never heard anybody ask, "What's a .zip?" Perhaps DJ has; nevertheless the number of users who have access to the Internet and don't know about zip/pkzip AND can't find out on their own probably numbers in the low hundredths of a percent (not counting AOLusers, of course). Second, any user who has not only used the 'net, but has heard about djgpp and is willing to learn to use it probably ranks higher than average in the "user intelligence" category. Third, anyone who has programmed in or intends to learn programming in C almost has to know _something_ about the way computers work; at least enough to know what DOS is and how to type "install" from a command line. Most games are installed this way, in fact. I contend that it is possible to deal with the very few users who do not fit at least one of the above criteria (and still try to obtain djgpp) on a personal basis without wasting enough time to justify an elaborate solution to the problem. Making a self-extracting zip with an "install.bat" file for the user to run should be more than sufficient. -- John M. Aldrich, aka Fighteer I -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCS d- s+:- a-->? c++>$ U@>++$ p>+ L>++ E>+ W++ N++ o+ K? w(---) O- M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP- t+(-) 5- X- R+ tv+() b+++ DI++ D++ G e(*)>++++ h!() !r !y+() ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------