Going forward: backward compatibility.

[Brent_Easton]

Thus spake “Brent Easton”:

Now I think that the program itself should go wherever it is that
programs go on the user’s system, and that everything else should
be in the user’s home directory.

And all in My Documents with nothing at all in c:/Docs & Setting/<user

name>/

VASSAL

Er, shouldn’t the prefs go there? That’s the Windows equivalent of
~/.VASSAL, right?

No, that would probably be

c:\Documents and Settings<user name>\Local Settings\Application Data\VASSAL

but that’s a terrible place to put anything that people actually need to find like the Errorlog or the plugins directory.

Brent.

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[soft-bug]

[DISTURB MODE ON]

Sorry to disturb but :

Why do you have done a specific windows installer ?

Now, since the 3.0.x versions we all use an USB Key in which the VASSAL.zip manual installation is included. (we are all windows users)

This is really cool to travel with the USB key and to launch VASSAL.bat file to start.

It’s also interesting to have control about what is installed and where …

[DISTURB MODE OFF]

[uckelman]

Thus spake “Brent Easton”:

Er, shouldn’t the prefs go there? That’s the Windows equivalent of
~/.VASSAL, right?

No, that would probably be

c:\Documents and Settings<user name>\Local Settings\Application Data\VASSAL

but that’s a terrible place to put anything that people actually need to find
like the Errorlog or the plugins directory.

Brent.

Argh. Why did someone at MS find it necessary to bury config files like
that? C:\Documents and Settings\username.VASSAL would have been much
nicer.

You know, we could include a link in VASSAL’s folder in the start menu
which opens the errorLog in notepad—that would solve the problem of
people not being able to find it.

–
J.

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[uckelman]

Thus spake “soft-bug”:

[DISTRIB MODE ON]

Sorry to disturb but :

Why do you have done a specific windows installer ?

Because we encounter so many people who (1) don’t understand how to
use zip files, (2) need help but have no idea where they’ve installed
VASSAL, (3) expect apps to come with an installer, (4) want something
which will automatically clean up previous installs, (5) want
shortcuts on their destop, but don’t want to or don’t know how to make
them themselves, and (6) etc.

Now, since the 3.0.x versions we all use an USB Key in which the VASSAL.zip m
anual installation is included. (we are all windows users)

This is really cool to travel with the USB key and to launch VASSAL.bat file
to start.

It’s also interesting to have control about what is installed and were …

We’re not going to stop distributing the zip archive—it’s needed for
cases where a user can’t or doesn’t want to use an installer, and it’s
also the only install method right now for non-MacOS-X unices. I’m
glad the zip archive works well for you—the existence of a Windows
installer in addition to the zip archive shouldn’t affect you at all.

–
J.

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[bsmith]

@uckelman

You know, we could include a link in VASSAL’s folder in the start menu
which opens the errorLog in notepad—that would solve the problem of
people not being able to find it.

They’ll need access to the actual file I think Joel, most won’t want to look at the contents when it throws an error. As long as they can find the file easily and upload it to the forum or attach to an e-mail they should be happy. It would be nice if we eventually gave them the errorLog path when an exception is thrown. It may also be an idea to start calling errorLog errorLog.txt instead, spam filters may go haywire if they come across an attachment with unknown content. It also means they could attach it to messages here in the forum.

I’m happy with the decision to go with the “Advanced” install option by the way.

[bsmith]

@uckelman

We’re not going to stop distributing the zip archive

The introduction of a manual distribution has had an unexpected but very positive effect on testing; It’s so easy to unzip Joel’s builds then run and test.

I’d be the first one crying without the zipped distribution!

[uckelman]

Thus spake “Rindis”:

That sounds pretty good to me. I would recommend a checkbox per prior existin
g installation, so someone could do the equivalent of uninstalling 3.0.16 in
favor of 3.0.17, while keeping 2.9.9.

So…
The following previous versions of Vassal have been detected on your system.
Please uncheck any versions you wish to keep installed along with this one.
O Vassal 2.9.9
X Vassal 3.0.16

(I know I’ve seen a good example of this kind of UI choice, but I can’t think
of where.)

Note, I feel the default should be to uninstall them. Multiple versions of Va
ssal is an “advanced option”, and those should not be default choices.

I did something like what you suggested, here:

nomic.net/~uckelman/tmp/vass … indows.exe

If you select a Custom installation, then you’ll get a choice of which
old versions to keep and which to remove.

–
J.

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