Setup.exe new GUI "preview"

[Gary R. Van Sickle]

Hi Kevin,

> I took a peek. Here's a couple of random comments:
>

Great!

> 1. The list of mirrors to pick from used to expand vertically a bit more
> than it does now. Any chance it could have its longer status
> re-instated?
>

Yeah, I'm not real crazy about that either.  There's a few issues here.  First
and foremost, I of course want to get everything functional first, so some of
these largely cosmetic issues are taking a back seat for now.  The trouble with
just making it bigger is that then the entire property sheet gets bigger, and
then all the other pages look way out-of-whack.  It may be possible to
dynamically resize the sheet, making it bigger for that page, smaller for the
others, I'm not sure yet, but that idea doesn't really grab me.  On the other
hand, according to Microsoft's official "Do It Our Way Or Else UI Style Guide",
we're quite a bit too small for even the smallest "standard" wizard size, so
maybe by following that we can get a happy medium.  And then hopefully, at some
point, setup will automatically select the best mirrors for you and you won't
even need that page.

So to make a long story longer, it's in the queue, and definitely will be
addressed somehow.

> 2. I didn't see any jumping in the z-order behavior anymore. Kudos! But,
> I still notice that if I move the first window off to one side, and
> click "next", the next window re-centers itself on the screen. As long
> as the next window is the same size as the previous one, it would make
> more sense (to me) if it wouldn't reposition itself.
>

Way ahead of you Kevin, I noticed and fixed that just after I sent the email
(didn't upload it though).  You have to get up pretty early in the afternoon to
beat ol' Gair to the punch! ;-)

> 3. The only window without a minimize button is the package picker. I
> assume that will change?
>

So far I've taken as much of a "hands-off" approach to the chooser dialog (the
"official" name of what you call the package picker) as possible, soas to
minimize conflicts with Robert's work, of which he's doing a lot on that.  So
short answer: probably yes at some point; long answer: probably not in the short
term.  I don't think it's that big of an issue though; where you really need the
minimize functionality is during a long download, so as long as we have that
(which we now do), we're a long step further towards the setup promised land.

> 4. On the package picker, if there's "work" to be done, I think it
> should show on the screen (at least initially). This means instead of
> just showing the list of categories, you'd also show any installed
> packages that have updates waiting. Currently, if one of my already
> installed packages has an update waiting, I don't see it unless I click
> the "View" button 2x (once to switch to "full" view, and again to switch
> to "partial" view). I think if the category view is going to remain the
> default, that it should at least expand just far enough to show all
> packages that are pre-selected for action (e.g. updates).
>

If I understand you correctly, the released setup already does this.  Again
though, that's an issue best addressed to Robert.

As long as we're wishlisting, one thing I'd *love* to see on the chooser is a
total download size and an estimated download time, so those of us stuck in 56K
hell can better judge what packages are really "necessary right now".

> 5. Related to above, my real preference would be to split out the "full"
> vs "partial" choices from the "category" vs "list" choices. In other
> words, the "view" button should switch between just 2 things - a list
> view and a categorized view. Then, a new button should be added labeled
> "Expand" or "Show All", that would cause all packages to be displayed
> on-screen (in either view mode, with the initial default view being to
> show just the packages that are currently in the "partial" view). Once
> you click "Expand", it should change to "Hide Unselected" (or similar),
> so that the user can shrink the list back to just the items he's
> selected for action. Furthermore, if I switch from "category" to "list"
> view, the next time I use setup.exe, it should remember that
> preference...
>

Again I'll defer to Robert on that one.

> Looking forward to the final product. Keep up the great work!
>

Hey thanks, I'll do what I can. ;-)  Thanks for your comments.

> --Kevin
>

--
Gary R. Van Sickle
Brewer.  Patriot.