Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 5:38 am Post subject: Installing Process
I think what Neo Office miss to be widely used is an easy integrated installing and updatinf process :
The app should include all languages and (maybe) be an Universal app (i mean including both Intel and PowerPC version).
Its very painfull to install the app, than the languages, than the updates… pfff what a non-apple way of doing things…
Personally i do it because i'm a geek, sort off, but i tried to explain it to my family and they all choosed to installed some - illegal i guess - version of Word, just because it seemed more easy to install (and its true).
The patch should be an automated process too : the update should be downloaded from the app itself than the app auto update and reboot.
Maybe that sound odd for some but thats how things should rule for the normal ppl.
Please take a look at the previous threads on this subject. There are considerable practical, technological, and financial obstacles to changing the way that NeoOffice is installed and updated, as detailed in the many previous threads on this topic.
Additionally, the goal of NeoOffice is not to become the most widely-used office software on the Mac; it's to provide an alternative to people who need office-suite functionality but are unable (or unwilling) to pay the Microsoft tax.
Certainly in a perfect world we'd want these things, but unfortunately the world is far less than perfect
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Please take a look at the previous threads on this subject. There are considerable practical, technological, and financial obstacles to changing the way that NeoOffice is installed and updated, as detailed in the many previous threads on this topic.
To put these obstacles into simple terms, what the original poster is asking for is a 1.35 gigabyte download that expands to 2.5 gigabytes upon installation.
While nearly 4 GB of disk isn't a big deal for new machines, that is a significant portion of your average G4's hard disk. Of course, that assumes that the download of 350,000 1.35 GB files (that's 10 times our current download file size) doesn't melt all of our mirrors.
Well universal binary is an option, but what what i was talking about really, is including languages because installing a patch to get the right language is not really friendly. I guess languages files are not gigabites.
Another option would be to let the downloader choose the language before the download, after that he would be downloading a prepatched application with the right language. Just an idea, i'm sure there are other ones that could work to make the installing process a better user experience.
The auto updating option would be highly interesting too, seeing allthe patches that appear regulary.
But maybe thats just not possible as pluby seems to think.
Well universal binary is an option, but what what i was talking about really, is including languages because installing a patch to get the right language is not really friendly. I guess languages files are not gigabites.
Sorry, but my calculations do not support your assertion. The language packs consititute nearly 1 full gigabyte of my 1.35 GB figure (per a "du -sk" on the primary NeoOffice rsync server). While some language packs are not large, many are and it only takes 4 to 6 languages to double the size of the existing download.
i just pointing what i think is a problem for most normal people (most Office users are, normal people, it seems).
I'm sure you guyes have better solutions to fix that problem.
I understand and we aren't trying to give you a hard time. We just want people to be aware that our current system didn't get put together randomly but, instead, as a result of the technical and financial limits that we must work under. If we had tens of millions of dollars to work with per year like Mozilla.org or OpenOffice.org, we probably would have crafted a different solution. However, given that we are funded solely by users, I honestly doubt the financial limitations will disappear anytime soon and financial limitations do directly affect what we can engineer and support in any year.
Just looking at this topic, and noticed something. I recently installed neooffice onto my brothers mac and had to download and install the app then the service pack.
Surely it wouldn't be too hard to recompile the app with the latest (stable) patch so as to save time when installing and it would make it easier for those who have a smaller / limited net connection.
Don't really care about the language packs myself (english only spoken here!)
By way of analogy, "surely it wouldn't be too hard for Apple to recompile Mac OS X major releases with all the latest dot-release changes and put it on all the boxed Mac OS X DVDs to save time when installing and make it easier on those with slower or metered internet"
It's (nearly) as difficult and time-consuming and costly (bandwidth-wise) for us to re-upload new full binaries to all the mirrors every time there's a new patch as it is for Apple to remaster and rebox the consumer Mac OS X DVDs. Additionally, then *everyone* would have to re-download the entire new app on every patch, or we'd have to release new binaries *and* patches, which just compounds the time, complexity, and bandwidth costs.
The current system is not perfect, but it has the least margin of error and the least demands on limited resources.
I will note that a couple of times in the past when a patch has fixed a really, really, really critical bug we have done a new release to make sure everyone picked it up, but it's definitely reserved for exceptional circumstances.
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
The current system is not perfect, but it has the least margin of error and the least demands on limited resources.
I will note that a couple of times in the past when a patch has fixed a really, really, really critical bug we have done a new release to make sure everyone picked it up, but it's definitely reserved for exceptional circumstances.
Exactly. A full respin like for NeoOffice 2.2.2 took nearly a solid week of my time just doing the release engineering, web site changes, and mirror coordination. During that time, no bug fixing or new coding gets done as there is no other staff. Since I already work on NeoOffice about 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, adding one task must take away from another and, IMO, stealing time from fixing crashing or hanging bugs is not a good move for any of our users.
Joined: Apr 25, 2006 Posts: 2315 Location: Montpellier, France
Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 1:22 pm Post subject:
sardisson wrote:
Additionally, then *everyone* would have to re-download the entire new app on every patch, or we'd have to release new binaries *and* patches, which just compounds the time, complexity, and bandwidth costs
I think Giles meant releasing updated full installers alongside the patch installers, otherwise it wouldn't help people with a slow internet connection.
Still, there's always a lot of confusion when the full installer and the patch installer are both up-to-date (like when NeoOffice 2.2.2 was released), and people often download the full installer (or both installers) even though some of them only need the patch…
I think Giles meant releasing updated full installers alongside the patch installers, otherwise it wouldn't help people with a slow internet connection.
I assumed that this is what Giles meant when I talked about the time cost of releasing a new main binary. People probably don't realize that I toy with this idea before I release nearly every patch. Then I look at the Neo 2.2.2 Release Tasks and I remember how much time it really takes and it becomes obvious to me that any small reduction in support questions that may occur from releasing new binaries are going to get blown away by the cost to produce the new binaries.
including an auto downloading/updating thing IN the app (Ã la Adobe Update) would be very complicated i assume ?
There are two complications:
1. Ed and I would need to rewrite NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code to do this. Right now, the OOo code merely launches the default web browser with whatever URL we put in their configuration files.
2. Unlike Firefox, Thunderbird, Adobe, etc., NeoOffice requires admin permissions to install. Given how much negative feedback we got just opening a web page, I can only imagine the scare we would create by silently downloading a 20 MB file and then suddenly displaying an admin login dialog to our users.
Sure, this autoinstall is nifty for users who only have a single user on their machine, but I have personally experienced that pain they can cause when you are on a multi-user machine and they fail due to improper user permissions.
Additionally, since NeoOffice is used by a large number of education and non-profit organizations as well small businesses where the machines user does not have admin privileges, even if I had copious amounts of time to rework the OOo code, this process would likely cause some real pain for some of our users.
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