[Wocky] MIT Adium 0.86 (Beta 1) installer available for testing

[Atticus O Gifford]

Thanks for the detailed results.  I've interspersed a few comments below.


Quoting Ken Raeburn <raeburn at MIT.EDU>:

>> <https://web.mit.edu/swrt/releases/adium/installer/>
>
> If I understand it right, your .htaccess.mit file in that directory  
> limits access to people in two groups, swr-core and wocky.  Problem  
> is, the wocky group in Moira and AFS doesn't contain any users, it  
> just contains the one string wocky at mailman.mit.edu.  This may explain 
>  why I wasn't able to download it.  (Or, it may be related to the  
> problems I've been having just recently with email access from my  
> laptop too, if it's something certificate-related.)  Fortunately I  
> was able to copy it out of AFS.

Whoops, I didn't realize wocky wasn't a standard list.  For the moment, I've
made the installer available to is&t at mit.edu and I'll leave the AFS open as a
backup.  I'll figure out something a little more appropriate later.

> So, now I've got /Applications/MIT containing MIT Netscape 7.02, and 
> / Applications/MIT Adium 0.86.  The Netscape install is kind of old, 
> so  maybe things have changed, but does MIT (SWRT) have a consistent  
> policy on what level to install MIT Mac applications at?

Yes, all our installers install to "MIT <product> <version>" under
/Applications.  Netscape on Mac was a little wacky (to say the least) and is
quite old, so its odd location isn't too surprising.

> The installer asked for my Kerberos id, which I gave it.  When I  
> started Adium, I then had two raeburn at mit.edu accounts with basically 
>  the same configuration data.  (I've been using Adium for a while, 
> and  already had configured an mit.edu account.)  The installer 
> should've  checked for that, and either told me nothing needed to be 
> done, or  checked that the data was correct and updated (offered to 
> update?) if  it was not.

You're definitely right about that.  That's slated for the B2 installer next
week.  The main focus of this installer was getting the code together 
to add an
account correctly and making sure it worked.  So far so good on that 
front.  Now
I need to add validation, doll up the UI (dialogs) and add the rest of 
the code.
I suspect the installer will work something like:

1) Ask for Kerberos username
2) Check for an account of that name
3) If not found, add
4) If found, offer to add anyway, overwrite (update?) the existing or 
just leave
it alone.

Hopefully that should all be in the next version.. if you get a chance to look
at that one let me know if it works better for you.

> So I deleted one of them, the one listed first, which I assume was  
> the old one.
>
> Signing on to the account, I'm asked for my password, so I assume  
> this version doesn't have the Gaim patches to use Kerberos  
> authentication.  Is there anything interesting to this version  
> besides having MIT's installer and prefs installer on top of the  
> standard Adium distribution?

The installer right now is just the main Adium distribution with configuration
added.  Now that there are framework installers for Windows and Mac, we can
probably discuss additions at the Tuesday meeting (if any).

> I took a look at the prefs installer.  (Why is it buried in yet  
> another subdirectory, one which contains only the one program with  
> the same name as the directory?)

That's a hold-over from how we've always done the installers.  We used to
include a text file in the folder called "What's this?" or something 
similar. Since most other installers don't have a prefs installer or 
config wizard or
whatever, it seemed easier to abstract it a bit and associate it with a text
document.  I'm not sure if that's the best way to do things anymore, and we're
going to be revamping our mac installer standards over the next 2 months
(hopefully).  Any ideas or input you have on that front is most welcome.  I'm
happy to just move the file up a level and not include a description if that
seems less confusing.

> It says it will create an Adium  account for use at MIT; fine.  It 
> also says ``Items will be installed  on the disk "Mac OS X"'' -- what 
> items?  The account data should be  stored wherever the account data 
> is stored under my home directory,  regardless of what disk that 
> happens to be on.  (If my home directory  is not on the boot 
> partition, will this report even be correct?)

I thought I had turned that off, but I'll check again.  It may be that since
we're using the VISE installer as a wrapper, its text always assumes it 
will be
installing files of some sort.  If nothing else, I can just edit the resource
string for that text to reflect something more accurate.

> After I click "skip", the message says I can run "the Adium 0.86  
> Prefs Installer in your Applications -> MIT Adium 0.86 folder".   
> Except, that's not the name of the program ("MIT Adium 0.86 Prefs  
> Installer"), and it's buried in a sub-folder.  Is there a right-arrow 
>  glyph that might be used instead of the dash greater-than construct? 
>   (The Character Palette shows Unicode code points for Rightwards  
> Arrow →, Rightwards Double Arrow ⇒, Rightwards White Arrow ⇨,  
> and Black Rightwards Arrow ➡, for example, in the Arrows and  
> Dingbats tables, but I don't know if these characters are always  
> available; some other code points listed in the Character Palette  
> aren't displayed for me.)

That's a good point in general.  I try not to use that sort of 
construct, but I
should keep that in mind in case I can't get around it.  In this case, I think
the poor writing (and poor arrow :) of the dialog are a result of slapping
together a Beta installer around the configuration script.  I definitely
planned on rewriting all of that.  I'll see what I can polish up for 
the Beta 2
installer, and I'll use a proper arrow if the need remains.

> The downside for me, semi-paranoid person that I am, is that I don't  
> appear to have the option of simply copying in one program or folder  
> without running an installer program, as I get with the standard  
> Adium package.  Sometimes it's nice to know that (1) nothing's been  
> installed outside that folder, so it's easy to throw it all away at  
> once, and (2) it's not configuring any path-dependent stuff during  
> installation, so renaming it or moving it to another folder is okay.  
>  The former may not be a problem if the installer program deigns to  
> leave me a log file to look at, which this one appears to, though  
> it's hard to tell that before running it if you don't already know,  
> and impossible to decide whether to install a program based on  
> whether it installs stuff in shared system folders, replaces system  
> libraries, all that fun stuff you find on Windows.  I know I can move 
>  Adium.app around without breaking things, but I'm less sure about 
> the  MIT Prefs Installer.

That's also a good point.  When we write installers on the Mac platform, the
primary reason is usually to add customization.  The problem is, we haven't
thought up any system to handle customization that is substantially 
more clever
than the sytem we're using (a prefs installer) without being more invasive or
path-dependent.  The only time we install items to non-Application folder
locales is when the vendor installer does the same thing.  The new TSM
installer is a good example: it installs binaries in unix locations as well as
under /Library/Application Support.  Adding a log file is trivial, but as you
say it doesn't solve the initial uneasiness.  Part of the problem is balancing
experienced users' trepidations with novice users' skittishness.  Too much
information and too many decisions tends to make novice users nervous, whereas
the reverse seems to be true as experience increases.

We're going to try to move all our installers to .pkg installers in the near
future for those users who are using Apple Remote Desktop to manage their
users.  I suspect that will only obscure the installers' workings even 
further,
however.  If you have any ideas or more issues you'd like addressed about
installers in general (or this installer obviously) please send them 
along. It's hard to get input on these things, and the more info we 
have moving
forward with a redesign the better.

Thanks for all the info,
Atticus

P.S. The prefs installer only adds accounts to ~/Library/Application
Support/Adium 2.0/... btw (in case you were still wondering).