• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Installer or not? That's the question

Do you want an installer with my tools?

  • Yes, I find it useful

    Votes: 1 100.0%

  • No, I prefer a ZIP file

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I don't really care

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    1
arno

arno

Administrator
Staff member
FSDevConf team
Resource contributor
Messages
33,153
Country
netherlands
I would like to know what the general option about the use of a installer for my tools is. In the last versions I released of my tools I used the INNO installer to take care of all the needed runtime files. This solved a lot of crashes because these files miss.

But there are also people who don't like installers and prefer a ZIP file (with the trouble of having to look for the missing files yourself, if they are missing).

So to get a better idea of what the general opinion about this subject is, I made this poll. Please take a little time to enter your vote :). I will use the outcome of this poll, when I decide about the release of the next version of ObPlacer XML (and future tools as well of course).

And if you want to say more then clicking on your option in the poll, please explain your opinion in a reply to this thread. Thanks.
 
I'd prefer an installer, but please use one that is capable of handling earlier installations.
I hate it, when the installer does not see, that there is an older version installed and later on I have two entries of the same programme in the software list ... :rolleyes:
 
As long as you provide all libraries needed and install them, I prefer install package. But, as I am an experienced user, I could live with zip also.
 
I think that they are really useful, and I use them on all of my releases (Except the AUKSP sceneries). They make installation so much easier. :D
 
Last edited:
Im with Joe W on this one I like the installer because that way I know that all the files are put in the right place. and that I have them all.

woody :wave:
 
I prefer an installer it is normally quicker (or that might just be me) and it ensures the correct files in the right place.

However, I will use zip.

Thanks again for all your great tools ;)

Britt
 
Thanks everybody for responding. The installer is even more popular then I expected (personally I am not a big fan of installers, unless they are really needed).

At the moment I am thinking about a method to offer both a ZIP file and an installer, but that would probably require a slightly better distribution page, as attaching a lot of different files to one post is only confusing.
 
Obviously, as a developer I could figure out with good instructions how to install any program I wanted to, put the files in the right directories, register .dlls and even make registry entries but, I'm just not an average user. I think it's incumbent on people distributing programs to have an installer available even though there are simply going to be computers that will balk at the install. I always took a personal oath that I would do as much work for my users as humanly possible and resist the temptation of trying to turn them into my inner nerd in order to use my software.

I got bit bad on trying to distribute my Autogen program with lots of crashes brought on by the terrible VB6 install wizard but the problem doesn't lie with my work or my dedication but instead with Microsoft themselves for putting out crap. I've downloaded the Inno packages and am going to try to find some time to get a new distribution package built with it. Shouldn't have to though. Paid a lot of money for VB6 and it's installer should be perfect and deal with any machine running a Microsoft operating system.

Art
 
That's what I expected - and the reason why I want an Installer in my scenery. :) But I'm not good in programming one. :eek:
 
Well, one cool feature in Install Shield is that you can have a nice installer with all files openly in the same zip. So when you extract the zip file you get the installer plus all the files.

Now if you want you can run the instller which will copy all files to where they belong.

Or you can just delete the installer and and copy all files manually.

I think this is the ideal solution for everybody :)
 
I used Inno Setup as the installer for 3Wire. Not only is it free, it has many features, and also allows you to add your own scripts. For example I added a function to check if the .Net framework was installed. And if you use ISTool its very easy to create installers.

Anyway my stance on installers is they are great for the install because they are fast, easy etc - BUT my pet hate is addon (aircraft, scenery) installers that automatically add shortcut items in the start menu or add an entery to the Add/Remove programs menu. I really don't have a use for start menu shorcuts for most addons (Programs are the exception) and so there should always be an option to NOT create them.
 
I'm not so sure about installers anymore. I had some problems with installers these days, because they changed my system-settings. It's OK if the installer copies the files to the right places, but I think they shouldn't change things like the scenery.cfg, terrain.cfg or fs9.cfg or overwrite files.
 
But what is the purpose of the installer in that case? If it is only to unzip the files, then the user can easily do it manual. I think an installer is only useful when you need to perform "difficult" things, like installing runtime files, adding your scenery to the scenery.cfg, etc.

Of course the changes to the scenery.cfg should be made in such a way that you do not "distroy" the current file. A backup should be made for example.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top