Well I think it's a position from the old world, when the app was
literally the icon and didn't need support files.
One of the great advantages over the Windows world, because there
badly written installers would overwrite more recent files and screw
up your system, particularly with .dll's. When I was a sysop on a
CompuServe forum we had dozens of people each week who couldn't
connect after installing something which wrecked their internet .dll's.
Of course in the early days of dial up, there were many installers on
the Mac for ISPs, many of which overwrote your exisiting prefs
without so much as a by your leave.
As for the HIG. they are of course just that, Guidelines, though when
OS X was introduced there was a lot of discussion on this list about
complying with the HIGs because the HIGs are largely responsible for
the Mac's greatest asset: ease of use. And they still are. They put a
front end on what is now a hideously complex UNIX spaghetti of an OS,
taking over 2Gb and with maybe half a million files.
That's the bizarre paradox about the Mac - it has always hidden the
complexity of the OS from the user while at the same time giving the
appearance of the user being in total control. To some extent they
used to be, in that if you had a problem with an app, you trashed it
and problem gone. Even though System 7 introduced complexities like
extensions, which grew rather complicated by the time of OS 9, you
could still handle your system. Not any more. When a modern app can
easily install 15,000 files, you have no idea what it's doing.
And as you noted, it's almost Apple policy to recommend installation
on first run, meaning you have even less idea what an app has done to
your OS. So now we have hidden installers, so there's really no
escaping installers, and let's face it, we're not going backwards
here. OS X is definitely here to stay!
But I think the point is being a little lost on this thread. DMG is
just a disk image not an installer. It keeps the metaphor of Mac drag
and drop simplicity for installation even if a lot of installing goes
on during first run. Windows users on the other hand are completely
unused to anything that doesn't have an installer, and of course an
uninstaller, handy for when it's broken something.
The real point about any installation is care and thought regardless
of method. Your installation procedure should be careful, check that
the machine/OS/hardware will run your app or abort, not overwrite
newer versions of anything, should provide an installation log, an
uninstaller, and anything else to be user friendly. The installer log
may be huge, but the user can search it to see if your app has messed
with any subsystem that's suddenly gone wrong. And cool developers
will leave old versions unemptied in the trash so it's easy for a
user to go back if there's any problem.
And don't forget the Read Me, which should contain info on what the
app does, system requirements, what's new if it's a new version,
known problems/bugs/conflicts, and developer/company contact data.
Anything else (version history, cool comments etc) can go in a
subsidiary file. And of course the Read Me should be accessible
before any install process.
BTW, the worst Mac installer I ever encountered was an Apple one! It
was for the QuickTake 100 digital camera, which used a funny form of
jpeg that required a special extension, which conflicted with some
things. That wasn't the problem. The problem was it would overwrite
later versions of QuickTime with 2.1, without any option to omit QT
installation. That meant weeding out all the QT files from two
versions from your System folder, finding your later version, all the
updates, applying them, and then finding your QT Pro serial number
and re-entering it!
On 31 Jan 2006, at 05:12, Lars Jensen wrote:
I've watched a lot of Mac users install software, and I believe the
vast majority of them don't care one whit whether you give them a disk
image or an installer. The ones who truly dislike installers are the
developers who treat Apple's Human Interface Guidelines as the Word of
God. If you're selling to them, use a DMG. Otherwise it doesn't matter
much from the user experience point of view; read the HIG and make
your own call.
The HIG recommends the DMG as being a little bit simpler on the
margins, but even there, it's not a strong recommendation -- they say
that if you can handle installation needs on the first run of your
software, it's better to use a DMG, otherwise use an installer. I had
occasion recently to talk with Apple UI people on this very topic, and
they verified this sentiment.
Tony Spencer
St Rémy de Provence (13) France
tonyspencer at fastmail dot net
Jef Raskin, the Mac's original project leader before Steve Jobs took
the role, and the "father of the Mac": "In 1979, I specified a long
list that covered most of the things we would do with it [the Mac]
though I missed four major uses: gambling, pornography, sending spam
and spreading viruses."
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