[PD] how-do-i-install-externals-and-help-files page (was Re: Linux Global folder for externals)

[Alexandre Torres Porres]

2017-03-02 7:42 GMT-03:00 Roman Haefeli <reduzent at gmail.com>:

>
> I don't think that was the conclusion. Why should be the user-specific
> search path auto-created only on Windows?
>

Oh, it's not only on windows... not what I meant.

If I'm not mistaken, it seems that in MAC OS this is somehow created (am I
right? Maybe not... help please)... anyway, I did realize that in windows
it wasn't created and that started that older discussion, but now I see it
doesn't also create for linux...

I think that you, Alex, are with me in believing the current situation is
> unfortunate


totally, and besides user specific folders, I also think *Global folders*
should be created as well... and it seems that they're not created in *any*
of the platforms. Anyway, this is why, yesterday, I did in fact create a
ticket about it, see it here: https://sourceforge.net/p/pure-data/bugs/1287/


Proposal:
>
> First time Deken is used, it asks to install to the user specific
> folder regardless whether it exists. If the user confirms, it
> automatically creates it and download/extracts the installed external
> there. If the user says "no" the first time, Deken remembers this
> decision and doesn't prompt for the user specific folder anymore from
> then on as long as it does not exist.


nah, I think this is bad, you're considering that people are consciously
doing something, which is not the case...

pros:
>   * People do not have to know about Pd peculiarities before they can
>     successfully install and use external.
>

actually they do... they need to know that it is a peculiarity that Pd has
a Standard Path which is not created (which is more of a countersense to me
than a peculiarity - the oficial folder is hidden and not created, and we
need to know and create it ourselves if we want to...) and not only that,
but also know that their first decision may prevent that folder to be
created. So they not only need to know about this peculiarity, but they
need to know more!

2017-03-02 11:38 GMT-03:00 IOhannes m zmoelnig <zmoelnig at iem.at>:

> On 2017-03-02 15:11, Roman Haefeli wrote:
> > On Don, 2017-03-02 at 14:47 +0100, IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote:
> >
> >> https://github.com/pure-data/deken/issues/140
> >
> > What about prompting for the user specific folder, even if does not
> > exist, and creating it when confirmed? Do you, too, think this would be
> > desirable? Should I open another issue for this?
>
> this is probably a solution that makes both parties (those that want
> directories to be autocreated, and those that don't) happy.



So what happens if I didn't choose the user specific folder in the first
time? If I want then to do it later, I'll have to create the folder
manually, and then ask deken to download it there, and it's quite tricky
cause these folders aren't really easily accessible - I might need to
create ugly simlinks on top of everything - anyway, it's still very
peculiar...

I'm still to hear what's bad about creating such folders automatically when
installing and running Pd for the first time...

but I don't care really when they are created or not, if it comes down to
the deken plug-in doing the job, I don't care. But this still doesn't
really solve the issues...

UNLESS... unless deken has these options very clear and easily accessible.
It actually makes a lot of sense that deken offers us these system folders
quite easily as a preset. In a drop menu or something, we could chose:
a) Global
b) User-specific
c) Application-specific
d) Other (opening up the 'openpanel' so one can navigate and choose
wherever/whatever is desired).

Combine this idea with the other one, where deken remembers and asks for
the last chosen path until you tell it to choose something else, and then
it'll prompt you for those options again...

Now, wether these (Globel/User) are created by deken or not, I don't care
and don't wanna make a case of it, though I think it makes more sense that
these folders are created automatically outside 'deken' - but if the idea
is that it's 'deken' that creates the folders, I'm not really asking for
anything new... I'm just proposing something that makes it really easier
for the end user.

Another thing is to have a good and proper documentation available
somewhere easy to find, so the user can learn about the difference between
these options. This is related to another thread here, where I'm doing that
myself. I'm hoping to provide a very extensive, detailed, clear and
straightforward documentation on how to (and where to) download and load
externals.

cheers
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