Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 10:39:40 +0200 (MET DST) From: Mark Habersack Reply-To: grendel AT ananke DOT amu DOT edu DOT pl To: "John M. Aldrich" cc: DJ Delorie , eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il, djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: Install thingy In-Reply-To: <3265A6E6.7F6@cs.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 16 Oct 1996, John M. Aldrich 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 I already did. >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. As soon as I'm through with ZIP interface for zlib and script processing I'll get onto it. >> 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. That's why it dumps the stack! >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 But it bypasses all of your exit procedures if it's not handled by some signal handler inside your app. Or does it? If the interrupt doesn't get to program then the file buffers might remain unflushed. >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. But I think we should avoid making user download UNZIP to unpack the install package. It should be an SFX with all the initial stuff needed. >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). That's right. ZIP is so commonly know that we can assume everyone is familiar with it. However, now and then, I see some complaints from people using PKZIP that they didn't get an expected dir structure and they ask why? Besides DJGPP is being packed with InfoZip's ZIP which uses the newest Deflate algorithm. From PKZIP products only version 2 supports it. And I know many people that still use version 1 of PKZIP which will refuse to unpack such archives. I also that PKZIP doesn't see files in package that are stored with filenames in lower case. Facing that, I'd opt for an SFX ZIP archive that'd contain in addition to all necessary for install files, a copy of InfoZip's UNZIP utility. The latter is much more convenient to use as it does process ALL zip archives. >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. Well, I wouldn't be so sure. There are many complete newbies to both 'net and programming in general, not mentioning djgpp. It's obvious that djgpp differs from other, commercial, packages. It would make even users changing from other compilers to djgpp. There are many people that were advised to use djgpp and they want do it. I suppose there'll be even more of them when djgpp gets released on CD-ROM. >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. You said it, almost. But most games are shipped in cute boxes with huge 'Getting Started Manual' in the box. User has just to put the disk into the drive and type install. With djgpp s/he has to download ALL that's necessary to type 'install', namely: CWSDPMI.EXE, DJVRFY2.EXE, DJVERIFY.BAT, INSTALL.BAT, DJINST.EXE, INSTALL.DAT and possibly more. While all install.* files my seem obvious for anyone, the rest of them not necesssarily does. >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. Agreed in 100% ;-) /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Stand straight, look me in the eye and say goodbye Stand straight, we drifted past the point of reasons why, Yesterday starts tommorow, tommorow starts today, The problems always seem to be we're picking up the pieces on the ricochet /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ http://ananke.amu.edu.pl/~grendel \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/