Windows installer options

[Stanzilla]

Adding to https://github.com/kvirc/KVIrc/issues/1517 I think we should add and remove a few options in the installer:

• [ ] 1. Start menu => Keep
• [ ] 2. Desktop shortcut => Keep
• [ ] 3. Quick launch icon => Remove, not used in modern Windows
• [x] 4. Autostart => Remove
• [ ] 5. WinAmp plugin => Remove, if people want those plugins they can get it from the website, no?
• [ ] 6. Pin to Taskbar => Add, Windows only
• [ ] 7. Selection for https://github.com/kvirc/KVIrc/issues/1517 => Add

Also @Dessa mentioned the possibility of moving to NSIS 3 (https://sourceforge.net/projects/nsis/files/NSIS%203%20Pre-release/3.0b2/)

[staticfox]

Enumerating my thoughts:

1. ok
2. ok
3. no, it was a feature until 7 and there's not benefit to removing it
4. ok
5. I can see it, it's always been grayed out for me on d00ps builds anyways
6. no, see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/09/03/54760.aspx

[staticfox]

Note: highlighting https://github.com/kvirc/KVIrc/issues/1573 because it's relevent

[Stanzilla]

@blindsighttf2 about 6, that blog entry is about XP and from the year 2003. I was actually talking about the Start Menu pinning that is used in Win8+ which is programmatically accessible

[staticfox]

Hmm.. I'll look in to it further, but I'm not going to touch anything until at least 2 other devs give feedback.

[un1versal]

I dont use windows by default so I cant really speak as a user but here are some thoughts.

:-1: to removing 3, more Windows versions that still support that option exist than those which dont. and while KVIrc supports them this is particularly hard —unless you know for sure the amount of users on any particular Windows version are— to make a properly informed decision.

:-1: for removing winamp but :+1: for adding support to other players, I mean the impact of this on installer size doesn't justify removing stuff like this plus only provide it buried in an outdated website which scares users away, not ideal imo at this time.

+1 to improving defaults but again seeing a PR with the proposed changes would make it easier to implement some improvements.

[wodim]

Remove Autostart, in fact I was going to remove it--there is no obvious way of disabling it once kvirc is installed.

[ctrlaltca]

Imho: keep 3 (quick launch), drop 4 (autostart); About 7 i'm unsure, i see:

• a weak pro: how many megs would an user save installing only his language?
• a strong con: need to reinstall to add a language (maybe the user forgot to enable it or NSIS didn't detect the correct one)

[Stanzilla]

How does other software that has language choice in the installer handle this? Also 7) is two parted, one is making the spell checker itself optional.

[un1versal]

Thats a good point there, ctrlaltca makes.

I wonder if it wouldnt be possible to install languages from within KVIrc like addons/themes etc.

spellchecker should be default but I have no strong opinion either way, clearly people cant spell generally. :smile:

[Stanzilla]

6. http://metadataconsulting.blogspot.de/2014/04/pragmatically-pinning-apps-to-start.html

[PKEuS]

Removing the "autostart" option was a really bad idea imho. Of course this option should not be selected by default, but it should be available optionally.

The point that "there is no obvious way of disabling it once kvirc is installed" is not true. The obvious way is, that something that is created at installation time can be removed by calling the installer again. The fact that updating KVIrc removed the existing autostart link prooves that this works. I guess there are no in-programm ways to uninstall kvirc, or to remove desktop link either.

Additionally, now users who want autostart have to create a link on their own, and this one will not get uninstalled once they decide to uninstall kvirc, leaving a dead link.

[Heufneutje]

I don't think I've ever tried to remove an autostart option by running an installer again. Most installers don't even work that way. Just manually adding/removing from the startup folder is a lot nicer in my opinion. Especially cause the old way of autostarting used the registry instead.

[PKEuS]

Removing it manually is no problem, adding it manually is, since uninstallation of KVIrc will leave a dead link then. Thus it would be nice to get the option back to install KVIrc into autostart.