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Old 23rd January 2011, 19:21   #100  |  Link
LoRd_MuldeR
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mariush View Post
re: folder in 8.3 notation, see:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...=VS.85%29.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...=VS.85%29.aspx

Feeding a long path to these functions won't do any harm, so no matter what path you'd give them, you'd receive the long nice path in return.
I know about these functions.

But if I only deal with "long" and fully-qualified path names all the way, and that's what I do, there is no need to explicitly convert to "long" names.

The only way how a "short" name can slip into the application is by explicitly calling the executable with a "short" path name (as WinRAR probably did). And then you'll get what you have requested.

I don't think that is a case we should worry about. Normally the user will launch the application from Explorer or Startmenu and then it get's called with a "long" path name.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mariush View Post
re slow load: you can't ask users to disable the antivirus software to load the app fast, and considering most users will have some sort of antivirus installed you should work around it, not users around your app.
Sure, we can't request people to turn off the Anti-Virus software. Still what my application does is legitimate work and an Anti-Virus software is supposed to not impair legitimate actions of legitimate applications! So this certainly is not something that I'm supposed to fix on my side. It's something they are supposed to fix on their side. As soon as legitimate software needs to implement workarounds against bothersome Anti-Virus software, something is seriously wrong. Consequently while people shouldn't turn off their Anti-Virus software, the should report the problem to the A/V vendor. And if the A/V vendor doesn't fix the problem, they should switch to another product. If nobody complains about slow Anti-Virus software, the developers of these products will think that it's no worth to spend any resources on speed-optimizations...

Quote:
Originally Posted by mariush View Post
re theme: i completely understand but as I said... consistency and everything
For "consistency" you can switch to one of the native Windows themes at any time. The "Classic" style gives you consistency to Windows 2000, even under Windows 7. That's as much consistency as you can have (except if you want consistency to MS-DOS or Windows 3.11 ^^). Still I doubt that the average user cares about consistency that much. Compared to the fancy user-interfaces you see in many popular applications (just think of Skype/YM! or the infamous "Ribbon" interface of MS Office 2007 ^^) even the "Plastique" style of Qt still is extremely conservative.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mariush View Post
re license : if you aim to make the zip version "portable" then it shouldn't touch the disk in any location other than the default temporary folder specified by the operating system. Users who don't wish to "install" something obviously don't want to create files in various locations (application data for example) or may not have the rights to create files there.
LameXP doesn't create files in any location, except for the system directories that are intended for exactly that purpose. So temporary files go to the %TEMP% folder and configuration files go to the %APPDATA% folder, as intended. Storing configuration files in the same location where the EXE file is located is not an option, as the EXE file quite often will be located in "C:\Program Files (x86)", where Non-Admin users don't have write access (with UAC even Admins don't have access there). But somewhere the configuration must be saved! However I will implement a workaround that allows LameXP to store/load the configuration file to/from the "EXE directory", if explicitly desired by the user. Re-naming "LameXP.exe" to something like "LameXP-Portable.exe" should be the easiest method. This might be useful for people who have the software on their USB stick and use it on different computers. Also in this case it will be up to the user to ensure that write access to the "EXE directory" is granted. Of course the installer will create files (shortcuts) in the Startmenu as well as on the Desktop and it also creates a few Registry entries, but that's what one expects from an installer. You can choose the ZIP package if you don't want that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mariush View Post
It should also not prohibit me from running the application again.. for example I start application, I see the license but I'm too tired today and I want to read the license tomorrow and understand it so I cancel the process and I see tomorrow that I'm no longer able to use the application because it saved the "no" answer in an .ini file somewhere on the disk without letting me know.
Right.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mariush View Post
re license text: it's either full text or nothing - the full text is not required but it should either be a link to the license or the full license shown, not just a couple of paragraphs - user may understand by those paragraphs that those paragraphs are the full license and ignore the other terms of the license describe further, making it void.
Still, the GPL text says "If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms. To do so, attach the following notices to the program." Followed by exactly the text that I have attached to my program. Regardless of whether displaying this text to the user has legal meaning or not, it still is a valuable information that should be presented to any user at least once (and doing that at the first startup seems reasonable). For the rest, there already is a link to the full text.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mariush View Post
A simple license.txt in the ZIP file would be actually enough, I believe. Virtualdub loads the full license text in a window using a text area with vertical scroll and only an OK button, then lets user decide if he wants to continue using the application or not, as there's no requirement for a user to accept the license
I will add the GPL as plain text file to the ZIP package and the installer. I just forgot about this.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mariush View Post
(by continuing to use the software, it's an implied acceptance of the license):

from the GPL 2.0 license text:

The GPL 2 license, as far as I understand reading it, does not prohibit user from running the application. It only prohibits user from modifying and re-distributing it when certain conditions aren't met. Running application is neither modifying or re-distribution. So refusing user to run the application is silly if not above what the license requires.
Okay. But even if the GPL does not imply that the user has to agree to the license before using the software, my software "as-is" does ask the user to agree. And (according to the paragraph you have quoted) without agreeing to the license, the user is only allowed to use the software "as-is" (which in this particular case means including the license agreement dialog, as that is part of the software) but not to modify or redistribute it. If the user wanted to remove/skip the license agreement dialog, this would require a modification of the software. And for such modifications the license has to be agreed anyway...
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Last edited by LoRd_MuldeR; 24th January 2011 at 03:02.
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