I'm new and jumping in late and really don't have much to add except you are both right. At its core I think it's important that OS X hold true to the concept that any Application can be installed and deleted through a simple drag and drop operation. Installers aren't a bad thing. They help users simplify the tasks of dragging and setup, but every app should be prepared to run clean after simply dragging it to the Applications folder. IMHO the real beauty of this design has been in the ability to drag the installed application to the trash bin when I'm done. I just can't understand why other OS's are completely incapable of cleanly uninstalling the ENTIRE application. I've wasted too much time cleaning all the leftover crude from PC's for friends and family. There is an old engineering principal KISS - keep it simple stupid. And nothing is simpler than drag and drop (or an installer scripted drag and drop)!
___________________________________ Thomas Fortmann Director of Development Xcape Solutions, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bill Royds Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 9:32 AM To: cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com Subject: Re: Cocoa-dev Digest, Vol 5, Issue 1598 On 10-Sep-08, at 04:59 , [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Anyway, if Mac software starts heading back down the road to > everything having an installer, the appeal of the Mac platform vs. > Windows will be severely diminished in my eyes. Drag and drop puts > the user in control - installers put the user at their mercy. > Whenever I see an installer that does nothing but put an app in / > Applications, I tend to think twice about using that app, because > it's often a sign of a poorly thought out product. Often I will send > an e-mail to the author complaining about this as well. But you are not a typical user so your preferences are not the most important. Most users who want to install software only want to b able to click on the downloaded package and have it install.It might ask some questions like password or ask whether you want advanced control, but even the concept of moving to /Applications is more than most users want to know. Windows installers are much easier for naive users to handle than anything that requires knowledge of the system structure such as drag and drop to /Applications. Of course, it is still better to have a simple install logic and a bundled app that you could drag and drop to /Applications is better than one that requires many different steps. probably the double click on an app package should just invoke a shell script the\at does sudo cp MyApp.app /Applications with the sudo password prompt in a gui window. _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/tfortmann%40xcapesolutions. net This email sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
