external components

[Samapico]

msinet is a relatively common control, but vbuzip10 is not something everyone has...

at the moment (i.e. with upcoming version), it is very easy for users to get the missing components without even having to search for it. But would supplying them directly be better? atleast for these 2 components, because by combining these 2, we are able to provide additional files very easily if needed... msinet would download the file, and vbuzip would install it right away

[L.C.]

Yes. It's better "safe" than "sorry."

[Drake7707]

no don't include it, i'll just make a one-time setup.

 

Then after starting you can always update to the latest that way

[»SOS]

As long as no files besides that one-time setup are publically avaliable, it seems the best option.

 

Indeed, I think a "Web installer" would be the best way. Just download a program that takes the latest version and installs it. Or something.

 

But whatever you do, not including the files somehow is a crime <_<

[Drake7707]

lil question, why does it has to be in an archive ?

 

i mean, you can just download any file with inet, even just a url with http://..../***.ocx or http://..../***.dll

 

That way, the unzip dll is not necessary for dcme and can be removed.

 

The more dlls that has to be loaded when dcme starts, the slower it becomes. If you know the difference between the speed of psp7 and psp8 you know exactly what i mean. PSP7 starts in 5-10sec, psp8 takes a whole minute or more on my laptop

[Witchie NL]

no don't include it, i'll just make a one-time setup.

 

Then after starting you can always update to the latest that way

 

This would seem logic to me.

Most of the programs do it this way.

Like PSP. You instal it and it asks for "Updates are ready for you to instal" Just make it instal those 2 files and DCME.exe then make the user update DCME.

[Samapico]

i mean, you can just download any file with inet, even just a url with http://..../***.ocx or http://..../***.dll

That way, the unzip dll is not necessary for dcme and can be removed.

True... but for downloading the DCME program itself, its better if it is compressed cause it reduces the size by a factor of like 2 or 3... but then it could be a selfextracting archive ; hmmmm, now that I think of it, I'm not sure if we could make it auto-update&restart like that ; the self-extracting archive would always ask for confirmation to overwrite (which can be avoided using the zip dll)...

So we'd need some kind of installer that could do that

Version 1.3, however, should be a full installer ; then the updates would come in small installers...

 

But I have 0 experience in installers so don't count on me for that

[Witchie NL]

But I have 0 experience in installers so don't count on me for that

 

Same.

[Drake7707]

its easy, vb6 even comes with a package & deployment wizard (well the enterprise version that is). But you can use window installer wizard too (its also free)

[Samapico]

hm... actually WinRAR seems to have PLENTY of settings for self-extracting archives... we can make it create shortcuts, delete files, whatever... nice

 

So to make things simple I think the best would be to:

 

Provide a self extracting EXE for download, that would ask you the path to extract to, and that would include msinet.ocx, and that would create a shortcut

 

Then, additional updates are selfextracting exe's that would contain only the updated exe, and probably a history.txt file ; that archive would be executed automatically and would extract in its current folder...

 

Just noticed we can even make it run automatically after it is extracted... that's awesome

 

 

 

Once I'm done with the Tile Editor, i'll change back some of what I've done for the EZ update to adapt it to self-extracting archives, and we'll be ready to release version 1.3

[Drake7707]

don't forget to remove unnecessary dependencies or dll's that you needed before, it takes up memory and size