[postal2mac] Installer

[Ryan C. Gordon]

On Sun, 2004-09-19 at 12:16, Aric Pedersen wrote:
> OK. The download worked.
> 
> I'm busy installing it now.
> 
> Note to others: Again, you need to burn the image to CD before installing it.
> 
> Comment:
> 
> Is the installer the same one used for Unreal Tournament 2004, et 
> al.? It looks the same.
> 
> The Postal installer works fine for me, but the reason I ask is it 
> has that same completely non-standard installer look of UT2004, etc. 
> Except the UT2004 installer doesn't like my system.

It's the same installer, although there are some fixes over ut2004's
build.

Forgive the upcoming rants:

The problem is that there is no "standard" Mac installer, since the one
that Apple ships is totally insufficient for lots of common installation
tasks...a problem they will largely remedy when they ship Tiger, but
this presents a different problem...looking aside the fact that this
installer is still 6+ months away, no one is going to require Tiger just
for the installer. Apple says they will definitely not backport the
updated installer to Panther, Jaguar, etc...sadly, this basically
prevents third-party developers from using their installer for 3+ years,
if ever. If you want a standardized installer, consumers need to start
telling Apple to stop fucking this up for everyone.

There is a lot that I don't like about loki_setup (which is what
ut2004/postal use), but it's quickly becoming a popular utility for
games, mostly because:

1) It's open source
2) It's free for commercial use.
3) It handles multiple CDs (apparently the only other installer that
does costs like 8,000 dollars a year, and if you stop paying, you have
to remove your product from the shelves. So I've been told. This is
explicitly why MacSoft financed loki_setup for ut2003).
4) It allows CD key entry/validation in the installer.
5) It's relatively easy to use to create installers.
6) Big name games are using it, which tends to increase enthusiasm. I
used it for UT2003, then Transgaming started using it for Indiana Jones,
Tron 2.0, etc, and now I'm getting email from other publishers asking
about it. Everyone that's had to build a Mac installer has gotten burned
badly, so they're always on the lookout for better solutions.

loki_setup has its problems, too, though:
1) It's ugly...
2) ...and so is its source code.  :/

Likely nothing will change for postal's installer beyond minor patches,
but installer feedback is _very_ welcome, since I do want to slowly
improve the program for other people's benefit.

>  For most games 
> using that installer I have to boot up from a different partition 
> where I have a clean copy of Mac OS 10.3.5 installed and then move 
> files around so it works properly on my preferred boot partition. The 
> installer always quits otherwise. I don't have problems with any 
> other installers, just that custom one.

I think we fixed this since ut2004 (specifically, I think it got fixed
for Shrek 2). Postal 2 definitely _doesn't_ have this problem, you are
saying?

> I also don't particularly like the fact that there is a button 
> completely unlabeled in the installer. I should never have to guess 
> what a button does, it should be clearly marked/labeled. It is pretty 
> obvious to me what it does (allows me to choose a different install 
> location), but that's not the point.

Yeah, that button pisses me off, too. What should it say, do you think?
I'm trying to find something small that is more telling than that
button...

> Looking forward to testing the new version of Postal 2.

Thanks!

--ryan.