On Mon, 18 Dec 2000 17:11:00 -0800 (PST), Howard Schwartz wrote:
> One of the, at best, annoying, and at worst down right difficult parts
> of installing an arachne upgrade, is retaining those files, and parts
> of files from the older version that you want to keep.
> Typically, for instance, one must reinter the same data in arachne.cfg
> for the new distribution.
> In this regard, I wonder of some system of patches, at least for the
> setup and configuration files, might make sense? Most ``modern'' software
> control systems (e.g., CVS), and even archivers (e.g., arc) store past
> versions or multiple versions as ``patches'' -- files that change what
> part of a file has changed, and leave alone those lines or parts that
> have not changed. This allows compact storage of a series of updates,
> and retrieval of any particular update, if desired.
My opinion is that something like this should be done, the problem _is_
annoying, BUT this change shouldn't go to the top of the list.
One neat way of doing it is to use profile files that are read and
written by an install utility. Eric Meyer's VDE text editor does this.
Anytime one gets a new version of VDE, a new version of VINST comes with
it. First thing the user does is to start VINST. Any new VINST can
"read" the installation and "optional profile" files created by a VINST
that's two or three versions old. The settings for the new installation
are copied and, if necessary, converted from the old installation and
saved. Any "optional profile" files read in and then saved are
converted, too. Difference is that in VDE, the installation is actually
"written" into the executable. For the present, that wouldn't be
necessary with Arachne.
I don't see any reason why a utility couldn't be written by someone
who's not developing "Arachne proper". Perhaps it can be done by someone
who appreciates the effort of developing this browser, but thinks that
(registration price)+(trouble of registering) > (benefit of non-SSL,
non-JS browser), or is, frankly, broke. Someone like...
...
Bob
Starts April 1, 2001
PS - I've a large project going right now, and I'm generally just plain
slow, but decency dictates I at least make a start on this. If you get
there first, more power to ya.
-- Arachne V1.69, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
