I remade the component zip files on the VPython download page (Doc, Demos,
etc.). I discovered to my chagrin and amazement that the Doc zip file for
example also contained the Program and Tools folders, even though these
files didn't display in WinZip itself!
I've also made a tiny name change to prepare for an improved Mac packaging,
so that F1 in Idle invokes Python20\Doc\VPython.html rather than
Python20\Doc\\idleindex.html.
Ruth Chabay and I are interested in better ways to handle this stuff. There
are two problems. We find experimentally that novices, including
intelligent college students, cannot dependably unzip into a specified
place: "I installed VPython and nothing works" turns out to translate into
"I installed Python 2.0 and then installed from your zip file into a random
folder and I can't figure out how you run the program."
The second problem is that WinZip doesn't provide for specifying a
destination directory but mimics the directory in which the file currently
resides. So if I want to make a zip file of C:\Python20\visual, in such a
way that someone can install into some other location of Python20, I have
to copy to C:\visual before zipping. Annoying.
Do any of you have experience with various installer engines? For Windows
we're thinking that maybe Wise InstallMaker might be the right tool (GUI
interface and not too expensive). What do you think? And for the Mac there
is Vise, but while it is free to independent shareware builders it is
something like $700 to people at universities. Suggestions?
At a minimum, the tool should suggest C:\Python20 as the place to install
files into. It would be even better if the tool could seek out the location
of Python, no matter where the person had installed it. It would be awfully
nice not to have to learn yet another scripting language but to be able to
use a GUI for this work.
Bruce Sherwood
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