On Sun, 15 Aug 2010 18:33:41 -0500 "Edward K. Ream" <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 11:09 AM, Edward K. Ream <[email protected]> wrote: > > > 2. The best possible installer for newbies. > > I've made a quick review of the process of creating Windows > installers. It isn't pretty. > > By far the easiest approach will be to improve Leo's present NSIS > installer. The other ways are either horribly complex, proprietary, > or inflexible. Happily, the NSIS has a (new?) wiki full of useful > information, and I have just discovered the so-called "Modern User > Interface" section that should make the installer much better looking. > I am *highly* motivated to improve the NSIS installer--the > alternatives are about as attractive as being burned at the stake. > > Improvements are needed in various phases of the installer: > > 1. Determining the proper Python. The easiest way will probably be to > prompt the user for the top-level Python directory, possibly using the > Windows registry to show the list of valid options. Leo's installer > should probably warn if Python is not already installed. Although it may clash with the philosophy of the NSIS installer, what about including Python in the .exe installer? Leo needs to be installed in the system Python for use with other packages, but it's very unusual to see an installer for an application which requires you to use another installer first. If the user knows Python well enough to need Leo to see other packages, they can do a `c:\python27\python setup.py install`. If they don't, they don't want to have to install Python separately. > 2. Updating the registry to associate the proper file/program with .leo files. > > 3. Making sure that the uninstalling Leo removes the expected files, > folders and registry entries. > > I may be able to do all this in a few days. Any other way might take > weeks or even months, assuming that I didn't go mad first :-) A noble sacrifice. If only there were some way for an operating system to work without a registry... :-/ > Edward > > P.S. A "full" install of Leo involves installing Python, PyQt and > possibly bzr and easy_install. I don't believe that Leo's installer > should attempt any of these. Oh, pleh, didn't read down far enough. The installer behavior most people expect handles all dependencies, Python / Qt / PyQt in this case. If installing functioning Python+Qt is non-trivial in Windows, as appears to be the case, not handling this for the user isn't addressing the newbie issue. I don't think they need to be installed in the system, putting Python, PyQt, Qt, and Leo all in c:\program files\leo\leo seems reasonable to me if the goal's a "one click" install. Cheers -Terry > Edward > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor?hl=en.
