[Psi-devel] windows installer comment

[Mircea Bardac]

On Tuesday 09 August 2005 03:59, Hal Rottenberg wrote:
> http://halr9000.com/images/screenshots/filezilla_install.png
>
> What do you think of this way, rather than the checkboxes?

Preliminary note:
* Psi is a highly simple application when it comes to making it run in windows 
= you only need to unzip the archive.
* the installer is mostly used by normal users who want a certain degree of 
* therefor, I'm going to assume people installing Psi using the installer are 
not Windows sysadmins, in the true meaning of this 

The current implementation of autostart:
* depending on the rights of the user on the machine, the installer will 
automatically set the scope of the shortcuts:
  - all users, if user.isAdmin()
  - current user, if !user.isAdmin()
* it is presented as ONE checkbox
* given the above assumption that users are not sysadmins (not in the meaning 
of "admin rights"), this "thinking" of the installer might be enough, mostly 
because the users will be happy if Psi autostarts for their account only - I 
believe this is the main reason because nobody complained about this minor 
lack of flexibility
* the sysadmins (&& user.isAdmin()) which are preoccupied with the startup 
menu entries and don't want Psi to autostart could easily change the startup 
menu entries
* requires one click only

The Filezilla implementation:
* is more intuitive, because it has long text describing the action
* requires one more page in the installer (=one more step)=> +1 click
* requires 2 clicks (=current behaviour clicks +1 click)
* I personally believe the usability of the dropdown implementation is not 
very good (skipping the flexibility issue):
  - user needs to know that's a dropdown list and he/she has an option there 
(the user needs to know that the option is editable)
  - "Start manually" is not a great choice of words, when taken next to the 
other 2 options. Why so? Because the user can always start manually the 
application, even if the app is started automatically by default. A more 
correctly phrased option would have been: "Don't start the application 
automatically".
* requires more coding

General comments:
Autostart is an on/off option and therefore it needs to be a checkbox. 
Choosing what kind of autostart a user wants is a single selection option. 
When the number of options is very small (2-3) (and there's space), 
developers go for horizontal/vertical groups of radio-buttons. Dropdown lists 
should be used for >3 options, IMO.


Hmmm.. my flow of thoughts was somehow stopped during this afternoon, 
somewhere above the "General comments" section. Tonight (2am), I don't really 
remember my planned next arguments pro/against.

Anyhow, I haven't seen reports against the current implementation of autostart 
in the installer. I've rarely seen reports on a missing application 
functionality: "turning on/off autostart within Psi".


Mircea
/IceRAM

-- 
Psi Forums Moderator/Bug Tracker Manager
Psi Windows Installer Maintainer/ArchLinux Package Maintainer
http://mircea.bardac.net
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