Re: We're in a mess

In article Dave Higton <dave@davehigton.me.uk> wrote:
> 1) We're distributing an out of date version of SharedULib. We
> are sending out 1.12; the most recent version is 1.14 (or maybe
> 1.14-1).

While it may not be the latest, it's newer than 1.07 required by the
RMEnsure, so in that sense it's not out of date from NetSurf's point of view.

> 2) The file dates of the resources we ship in !Boot and !System
> bear no relation to reality.
>
> Here's what I propose: [snip]
>
> c) My best suggestion to assist updating of !Boot/!System is
> to provide an app along with the NS archive, which users only
> have to double-click on (where it is, in the archive) to perform
> the updates via the standard Installer tool.

To play devil's advocate: if I'm already Mr.L.Azy user who is ignoring the
!Boot and !System provided in the NetSurf archive, am I just as likely to
ignore some update app too?

In article Rob Kendrick <rjek@netsurf-browser.org> wrote:
> Upgrading !Boot and !System using the OS-provided functionality has been
> the "thing" for installing apps in RISC OS for the best part of 15
> years.

Yes, that seems to be the real cause here. One user has regressed to their
pre-RISC OS 3.80 ways and copied !Boot/!System updates in manually. The
!System one is particularly special since to manually navigate to the
Resources directory requires more mouse clicks than dragging the !System into
SysMerge in !Configure, which would have checked the module versions &
avoided the problem

Perhaps a cheaper solution here is to put the extra bits and bobs in a
directory within the ZIP called "Dependencies" or similar. Then they're not
tempting to fiddle with unnecessarily. Then change/update NetSurf's !Run file
to check for them (it already checks for the modules), so adding an
IfThere !Cache
IfThere !Unicode
or checking for Unicode$Dir and Cache$Dir being set would complete the set,
Sprow.