On Sat, Jul 19, 2014 at 9:20 AM, Partha Bagchi <partha1b@...400...> wrote:

To answer Josh's questions,
1 & 2. I am not sure what is a proper installer? I have used NSIS in the past and can do so in the future, though my current thinking is that installers don't add anything other than headaches (to me).

Yes, NSIS is the "proper" way in that it is what we use and have used for the win32 installers. That's not to say we wouldn't accept suggestions for alternatives in the future. As for installers not adding anything, in a corporate or otherwise managed environment they're generally considered a requirement. MSI's are actually preferred from my understanding... but I don't think we've delved too deeply in that water yet.

I have started using a launcher (for Gimp and Inkscape) which automatically sets up the environment and runs the app. Once done and you close the app, the environment disappears and so no footprint on the user's machine.

Does this mean no recent documents listing in the File menu? Also, does this not take time to extract files or is it fully self-contained? Details please... as a non-windows user I'm intrigued.

I also built Inkscape to use its folder structure to create the user space and hence can easily be installed on an external drive and carried with you. That's portable for me.

Well I'm talking "portable apps" portable. They helped us with our portable stuff in-tree, that's specifically what I refer to when I talk about portable.

3. Don't know what this means.

We provide the installer, and a zip & 7z that can just be extracted and run. The portable is also another we provide too.

4. I always respond to people who ask for help on my website. For Gimp, I respond on G+ and Flickr.

I'm talking about via official channels. IRC, bug tracker, etc and getting fixes pushed out if needed. That is if we're going to lump them in with the official builds. If it will be under an unofficial title, it will be a little critical for us to take care of quick fixes.

Cheers,
Josh