3 ms·

Apparently the the drag/drop install thing is not intuitive to even technical users. I don't remember what my reaction was to this the first time I encountered

by jsolson 16y ago

Apparently the the drag/drop install thing is not intuitive to even technical users. I don't remember what my reaction was to this the first time I encountered it, but I'd guess it wasn't entirely positive. There's a perfectly good system wide Installer on the Mac, but nobody uses it unless they have to, because installers suck (they ask, among other things, which drive you'd like to install the software to -- what normal user knows the answer to that question?). A number of vendors are working to improve application downloads by distributing applications as self-extracting zipfiles that put the original archive in the trash on extractions, and making it so that if the application is launched from the downloads folder or the desktop it initially politely asks if you'd like to "install" the application. This is pretty foolproof. Even if the user declines to move it, the Application will still work from the Downloads directory or the Desktop, it just won't be as easy to find.

alextgordon 16y ago
There's a perfectly good system wide Installer on the Mac, but nobody uses it unless they have to, because installers suck (they ask, among other things, which drive you'd like to install the software to -- what normal user knows the answer to that question?). It didn't help that PackageMaker used to be one of the oddest, most incomprehensible pieces of software you ever had the misfortune to use. It's a bit better now, but most developers I know have sworn off it for good. Apple does have a technology called "Internet-Enabled DMGs", which automatically mounts, copies the application, then unmounts and deletes the dmg. It's not widely known about or used.
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  That's sounds like the feature that was needed. The software I've had to suffer under, had me do that by hand. No, drag-and-drop is NOT unintuitive, and if that was all that it took then great. But Mac guys are so used to the ringamarole that they forget this part: "Oh yeah, then mount the dmg, then open the virtual drive, then drag one of the various icons (which one???) to your Applications folder, oh yeah open that first in the finder, then close the virtual drive and unmount the dmg, then find the downloaded wad (what was it called again?) and delete it." All of those operations accessed from different menus/tools.
  - jsolson 16y ago
    A few things used to make this process a little less painful. First, Safari used to download things to the desktop. This meant the DMG file was sitting right there, looking ugly, taking up space. Second, Safari used to, by default, open "Safe" attachments (which included disk images), and open the Finder window to the newly mounted image automatically. The upshot was that, assuming the developer had made an effort to indicate what to drag where with a big honkin' arrow, after your download was done there would be a pretty clear sign of what to drag where to install the app. Unmounting an deleting the DMG has always been an issue (and the internet-enabled DMGs are better for this), although only the unmounting bit is unique to OS X. Under Windows you're still going to have an installer file lying about that has to be deleted. Both of these things went away, though, and many developers haven't caught up with the times.
barrkel 16y ago
I guess the users who don't care about which drive the installation targets don't have multiple drives. Few things irritate me more than installers which don't ask that question, as space on my primary drive (SSD) is precious. Actually, I get the impression that most Mac users have laptops. Meanwhile, junctions on Windows largely solve the installation location problem, except for those apps that use hard links behind the scenes (especially for transactional installation changes) and expect those hard links to work, especially across temporary directories etc. In practice, I've found this is only Microsoft apps.

by jsolson 16y ago

alextgordon 16y ago

There's a perfectly good system wide Installer on the Mac, but nobody uses it unless they have to, because installers suck (they ask, among other things, which drive you'd like to install the software to -- what normal user knows the answer to that question?). It didn't help that PackageMaker used to be one of the oddest, most incomprehensible pieces of software you ever had the misfortune to use. It's a bit better now, but most developers I know have sworn off it for good. Apple does have a technology called "Internet-Enabled DMGs", which automatically mounts, copies the application, then unmounts and deletes the dmg. It's not widely known about or used.

JoeAltmaier 16y ago
That's sounds like the feature that was needed. The software I've had to suffer under, had me do that by hand. No, drag-and-drop is NOT unintuitive, and if that was all that it took then great. But Mac guys are so used to the ringamarole that they forget this part: "Oh yeah, then mount the dmg, then open the virtual drive, then drag one of the various icons (which one???) to your Applications folder, oh yeah open that first in the finder, then close the virtual drive and unmount the dmg, then find the downloaded wad (what was it called again?) and delete it." All of those operations accessed from different menus/tools.
- jsolson 16y ago
  A few things used to make this process a little less painful. First, Safari used to download things to the desktop. This meant the DMG file was sitting right there, looking ugly, taking up space. Second, Safari used to, by default, open "Safe" attachments (which included disk images), and open the Finder window to the newly mounted image automatically. The upshot was that, assuming the developer had made an effort to indicate what to drag where with a big honkin' arrow, after your download was done there would be a pretty clear sign of what to drag where to install the app. Unmounting an deleting the DMG has always been an issue (and the internet-enabled DMGs are better for this), although only the unmounting bit is unique to OS X. Under Windows you're still going to have an installer file lying about that has to be deleted. Both of these things went away, though, and many developers haven't caught up with the times.

barrkel 16y ago

I guess the users who don't care about which drive the installation targets don't have multiple drives. Few things irritate me more than installers which don't ask that question, as space on my primary drive (SSD) is precious. Actually, I get the impression that most Mac users have laptops. Meanwhile, junctions on Windows largely solve the installation location problem, except for those apps that use hard links behind the scenes (especially for transactional installation changes) and expect those hard links to work, especially across temporary directories etc. In practice, I've found this is only Microsoft apps.