On Wed, Sep 24, 2003 at 10:13:22PM +1200, David McNab wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm wondering if we can have a bit of dialog about ways we can improve
> Freenet's uptake.
> 
> In particular, facilitating the easy deployment of clients, by
> formalising some kind of fixed protocol for freenet *client* installers
> to test for presence (or absence) of freenet, and auto-download Freenet
> (whose installer will in turn download/install Java).
> 
> This is not an issue with modern operating systems like Linux and BSD,
> where there are dependency-resolving infrastructures (and a user-base
> not scared of reading README/INSTALL files).

Unfortunately, it is. Because we depend on a non-packageable JVM, we
have to include it in the tarball - so we can't really have a debian
package of Freenet.
> 
> It does become an issue with entropic legacy OSs like Windows.
> 
> IMO, the freenet Winstaller strategy of auto-downloading a JVM (with
> user's permission) is a winner, and one best used 'upstream' in Freenet
> clients as well. (Is this 'auto-download-java' implemented in the
> current official winstaller?).
> 
> Here's how I see freenet *client* winstallers working:
> 
> If there's no Freenet present, the client installer pops up a dialog,
> saying 'in order to run this application, you need to have the Freenet
> software installed on your system. Do you give permission for me to
> download/install this now?'. If user says no, the client winstaller
> terminates. But if user says yes, then a fred winstaller gets
> downloaded/executed (during which the fred winstaller in turn
> downloads/installs Java).
> 
> So, here are my questions about putting this into practice:
> 
> 1) What's the proper way to detect the presence of Freenet on Windows?
> Is there a fixed, stable registry key location for example?
> 
> 2) If Freenet is installed, what's the proper way to determine if it is
> running, and how to access it? Does the FCP port get written to a
> registry key? Or does the client winstaller need to parse freenet.ini?
> 
> 3) If the client winstaller has to parse freenet.ini, then how should it
> locate this file (given that the user may have chosen a non-standard
> directory)? Does the Freenet installer write the installation directory
> into a registry key? If so, which key?
> 
> 4) What other issues should a client-writer be aware of when writing a
> winstaller so that it can *reliably* auto-detect, auto-download and/or
> auto-start Freenet?
> 
> Many thanks in advance for your help.
> 
> -- 
> Cheers
> David
> 
> _______________________________________________
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-- 
Matthew J Toseland - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/
ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so.

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