[lokisetup] more menuitem voodoo

[Chunky Kibbles]

On Sat, Apr 05, 2003 at 08:29:50PM -0500, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> On Sat, 2003-04-05 at 20:19, Chunky Kibbles wrote:
> > On Sat, Apr 05, 2003 at 08:13:27PM -0500, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> 
> > > This is true.  One advantage of using somethign more descriptive than
> > > .run tho is the idea of a globally installed installation engine, so the
> > > logic for using/launching that can also be locally installed (so it can
> > > be installed anywhere on the system, and the mime handler/launcher knows
> > > where to look) versus making the install script have to handle that as
> > > well.
> > 
> > Lovely idea, but makeself, setup, and friends aren't only being used
> > for games; by way of example, one software licensing system I've worked on
> 
> What did I say that had anything specific to do with games?

Ah. Sorry, It's just the model you described would work fine with,
say, all the games that I have. All Loki's patches, marble blast, etc. It's
just anything more complex to install...

> > actually distributed the licenses in .run files, that just required
> > some extra voodoo/parameters when you execute them.
> 
> OK... this is quite possible to handle, if I understand you correctly. 
> It just requires the install engine to understand meta-data and such, so
> it can flexibly handle this kind of stuff.

Hmmm. OK. That'd be cool. But eventually, with the amount of metadata
required for support, it's eventually no easier [and possibly harder]
than a simple install script as we have now...

I'd love to be proved wrong, mind (=

> > There's simply no way to produce an all-inclusive installer system for
> > all the possible variants on .run files.
> 
> This might be because all the custom hacking that occurs because the
> engine isn't flexible enough...  Not to sound like a dink, but "other
> software" can handle it.  Just none I've seen that are Free/Open.  This
> is something I've been wanting to tackle for some time now, but time is
> always lacking.  Autoinstaller package is another that's making moves
> here, tho I haven't looked into their design much to see if it really is
> all that flexible or not.
> 
> I probably shouldn't complain too much about shortcomings without
> offering up code, tho - sorry.  :(

'tis more than OK. It's just as I see it, the amount of
metadata/extraneous stuff will very soon add up to more,
volume-and-difficulty-wise, than a script to do it for you...

As I said, feel free to prove me wrong.

> > Witness also, now I come to think of it,  the latest nvidia drivers (=
> > 
> > You're also requiring extra software to be installed so that someone
> > can run an installer. Which is one of the reasons for makeself
> > archives being like they are in the first place...
> 
> Not requiring.  Just offering it.  Again, say there is a bug in version
> X of the installer, that it can't run or operate on a certain system. 
> If the user can install a working version of the engine on the system,
> then that can alleviate the problem.

Aha. Like recent debian/mandrake/RH9 changes to the libc layer. Yeah,
makes sense. Write the code, baby (=

Gary (-;