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As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

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Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#131

Post by philistine »

newdee wrote: post #126
pavlov wrote: post #94

I think the most confusing concept in this process for new users is the shortcut inside the disk image because it breaks the isolation metaphor. So, you download a file, and it's something called an "image" which opens in Finder like you'd inserted an external thumb drive. Fine. You open the image, and inside is... Your own Applications folder? Wait, how can the file I downloaded contain all of my apps? This kind of…

I don’t think less advanced users think that deeply about it. They just see “oh, I drag the app to applications”. The main issue I’ve seen is that people try to run the .app from the disk image, or forget to eject the image after moving the app. Well designed dmg drag-drop style deployments will actually put some background artwork with arrows and text instructions telling the user to drag and drop into Applications.…

> Still, I think .pkg package style installers are the most intuitive process for non-techies, especially those coming from windows where MSI and install wizard style exes are common.

Nope. It's an app that is simply the .app bundle, skipping the whole historical footnote of a .dmg completely. Once you first run it, it asks if you want to move it to Applications, and promptly restarts from its new location.

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#132

Post by philistine »

ianmurrays wrote: post #23
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user I don’t like installer packages as much because without special utilities, they’re opaque and it’s hard to tell what they’ll do. Of course copied binaries can cause plenty of trouble too, but I have much less of a reason to give an installed program admin privileges than I do an installer.

Same here. Especially because most installer packages rely on these specifically to install "obscure" things, so I'm immediately distrustful of them.

I moved to the Mac App Store version of OneDrive specifically because of the constant issues with the background processes it insists it must have running at all times.

The MAS version has only one of those and it works.

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#134

Post by pas »

wpm wrote: post #120
jocoda wrote: post #50

FYI - You don't have to drag the app to the applications folder in the install window. You can drag the app to a different location. I have an entry level mini 8GB/255 GB SSD with 1TB external SSD. Everything goes on the external. There are only a handful of apps that insist on being installed in the system Application folder. Even had xCode running on the external. Uninstalling is supposed to be as simple as moving…

Uninstalling has the same issue on every OS because the OS isn't keeping a log of every file an application creates over its lifetime being installed; it can only remove what it knows about.

in the age of containers, overlay filesystems, a decade of UX work regarding sharing data/files/content between applications on phones, it should.

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#135

Post by phtrivier »

Unrelated, but the gallery of "drag icon to Applications" contains a screenshot of Joost : does anyone remember that ?

It could have been Netflix or Youtube a decade before, if only there had been, you know, any good show to watch on it.

That was the first "mass market" piece of software I worked on, a good 20 years ago now, and it brings some memories of ye old time...

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#136

Post by t43562 »

jeroenhd wrote: post #106
t43562 wrote: post #81

A long while ago I found myself helping out with some products MSI installer. I don't think anyone can really point a finger at the Mac and accuse it of having issues by comparison with what seemed to me to be the nightmare from hell of trying to make an installer that would work on various versions of windows. It's not the fault of MSI per se, although its concept seems utterly frightful to me, but the way DLLs work…

Windows' CRT setup allows for binary compatibility with older versions. You can go without if you just statically compile the dependencies into your program, but many Windows developers choose to rely on runtime versions which may or may not be shared. MSI's biggest mistake was probably granting developers the capability of invoking any program they like. The format was originally designed similar to Linux packages.…

> macOS applications seem to just package every single DLL they need inside of their application folder rather than relying on the OS. I'd do the same if I were developing for macOS with how often Apple likes to make breaking changes.

That was almost what we should have done on the installer project I was working on because it was just too difficult to dance around it.

> The symlinking trick for .so files often breaks on Linux. Method parameters change, structs get altered,

I think its roughly orthogonal - any C/C++ based project is a huge pain in the backside when it comes to ABI compatibility because as you say changes that appear tiny can break everything. My major beef with DLLs is the way that they have a table of functions such that adding a new function can shift the indices of everything in the table. If they used symbols all would be well. But as you say it's incredibly easy to break compatibility and not realise it even without that.

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#137

Post by kingkongjaffa »

As a omni user of Linux, OSx and Windows, the most peculiar part to me is this:

> teaches you that the app is just a file that you can place anywhere, or trash when done.

It's actually kind of opaque and not obvious at all, how exactly to uninstall apps on a Mac.

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#138

Post by TZubiri »

I'm also a windows user, along with user of other OS.

What's surreal to me is the Windows Installation process, the concept of an installation process that allows any app to have complete unsandboxed access to the files of other applications. In the year 2026

At first the idea of dragging a file seemed unnecessary, I would have thought it's better for the installer to do that automatically, but now I understand that the user is in control, and the best installation mechanism is not the one with less clicks, users are expected to grant permissions to applications they control, and in this case they are showing the user where those files are, and that the installation is nothing more than moving a folder around.

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#140

Post by redeeman »

raffael_de wrote: post #125
PufPufPuf wrote: post #65

When I first got a Macbook, I tried installing an app and had no idea what to do once I saw the app icon, arrow and Applications folder with no additional instructions. I didn't figure it out and had to look it up. For an ecosystem praised for its "user friendliness", this was certainly not the best first impression.

As someone who grew up with Windows the canonical equivalent action would have been to select "install" from the dmg file's context menu (which is opened by a right click). The MacOS way to do it feels too gimmicky and different-for-being-different's sake ...

well.. its not like they were hiding it when they said "think differently"
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