bugGNU Octave - Bugs: bug #51878, Windows installer: Include version...

 
 

bug #51878: Windows installer: Include version in links in start menu

Submitted by:  Markus Mützel <mmuetzel>
Submitted on:  Mon 28 Aug 2017 09:27:48 AM UTC  
 
Category: GUISeverity: 1 - Wish
Priority: 5 - NormalItem Group: Feature Request
Status: FixedAssigned to: John Donoghue <lostbard>
Originator Name: Open/Closed: Closed
Release: devOperating System: Microsoft Windows

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Thu 21 Sep 2017 11:50:21 AM UTC, comment #12:

Pushed http://hg.octave.org/mxe-octave/rev/1a3deda73484

John Donoghue <lostbard>
Project MemberIn charge of this item.
Wed 20 Sep 2017 08:36:18 PM UTC, comment #11:

@JohnD: I was finally able to build a copy of MXE Octave and test this; it all seems to work correctly so please go ahead and commit it and close this report.

Rik <rik5>
Project Administrator
Wed 20 Sep 2017 12:35:00 PM UTC, comment #10:

Patch attached that I believe covers all of comment #9.

start menu shortcuts renamed.

On install/uninstall, it looks up the latest installed version of octave and sets the desktop icons if they exist to it.

(file #41842)

John Donoghue <lostbard>
Project MemberIn charge of this item.
Thu 31 Aug 2017 09:08:19 PM UTC, comment #9:

Haven't heard anything, so I suggest the following:

1) Only two shortcuts on the Desktop. These do not use versioning. They point to the newest version of Octave available. (Alternative: this points to the most recently installed version of Octave). Names are "GNU Octave (GUI)" and "GNU Octave (CLI)"

2) Start Menu folder name is "GNU Octave-X.X.X". Shortcuts in folder drop "GNU" and are "Octave-X.X.X (GUI)" and "Octave-X.X.X (CLI)"

Rik <rik5>
Project Administrator
Tue 29 Aug 2017 08:29:24 PM UTC, comment #8:

Adding jwe to the CC list. Do we want to prepend "GNU" to "Octave" whenever the SW is described?

I was looking at some GNU utilities that I have installed on Windows and there is a folder in the Start Menu called GNUWin32. But inside, the folders are things like CoreUtils or Grep and do not inclued "GNU". In keeping with this strategy, the top-level shortcut menu item would be "GNU Octave-X.X.X" and the individual entries would drop "GNU" and be, for example, "Octave-X.X.X (GUI)".

Rik <rik5>
Project Administrator
Tue 29 Aug 2017 04:32:16 PM UTC, comment #7:

Currently none of the shortcuts themselves have "GNU" in them.

Should the start menu item itself also be "GNU Octave XXXXX" rather than just the current Octave XXXX.

Likewise for the other items in the start menu such as shortcuts to the documentation - GNU prepended to anything that starts with Octave?

John Donoghue <lostbard>
Project MemberIn charge of this item.
Tue 29 Aug 2017 04:08:42 PM UTC, comment #6:

Maybe Windows users are no "normal users"? (just kidding)

Mike does have a valid point in that the shortcuts (on the desktop and in the start menu) had better be called "GNU Octave".
Whether or not version numbers should be appended is IMO entirely a matter of (1) taste, but as the OP indicated (2) a very practical issue.
An appended version number isn't quite in the way, is it.

mxe-octave installers create a shortcut for octave-cli.exe and one for octave-gui.exe, so pertinent suffixes seem quite appropriate.

I wouldn't be so quick to assume most Windows users have only one version installed. ("Why bother to uninstall if you can just install a new version next to it?") And the proficiency of many Windows users is usually hard to underestimate.

Philip Nienhuis <philipnienhuis>
Project Member
Mon 28 Aug 2017 08:13:18 PM UTC, comment #5:

Taking a quick look on my computer, Matlab puts a versioned matlab shortcut as does Microsoft office and Visual Studio.

Firefox does not.

John Donoghue <lostbard>
Project MemberIn charge of this item.
Mon 28 Aug 2017 07:33:45 PM UTC, comment #4:

I'm not a Windows user and I have little experience with what current Windows users expect, I don't know what is typical with other Windows programs.

But IMHO, in any operating system environment, you want the user to just see "Octave" or "GNU Octave" as the name of the program, without any version or "GUI" appended to it. For consistency I would think we want the launcher to be the same.

Does Firefox install a launcher calling itself "Firefox 55.0"?

Our standard launcher for GNU/Linux desktop environments has the label "GNU Octave".

Adding the version is mainly useful to developers, people who want to install and test multiple versions of Octave at once. Are these users not technically proficient enough to rename the launcher if they want to be able to differentiate multiple versions?

All normal users just want to run "GNU Octave" and the launcher should say just that.

Mike Miller <mtmiller>
Project Administrator
Mon 28 Aug 2017 03:54:57 PM UTC, comment #3:

Pushed http://hg.octave.org/mxe-octave/rev/8f0a309bf280

John Donoghue <lostbard>
Project MemberIn charge of this item.
Mon 28 Aug 2017 02:18:20 PM UTC, comment #2:

I'll take a look

John Donoghue <lostbard>
Project MemberIn charge of this item.
Mon 28 Aug 2017 02:09:35 PM UTC, comment #1:

+1

AFAICS this shouldn't be very difficult. I think in the <mxe-octave>/tools/makeinst_script.sh file (or better, the related .in file), in the stanza where the Start Menu en Desktop shortcuts are created (L.280+), this might easily be adapted.
It's just the names of the shortcuts that should be changed, not so much the file names of the involved executables.

Philip Nienhuis <philipnienhuis>
Project Member
Mon 28 Aug 2017 09:27:48 AM UTC, original submission:

In Windows it is convenient to open the start menu and type the first few characters of the application you want to run, e.g. "oct" if you want to run Octave. This "filters" the links in the start menu and shows a list of links that match these letters.
If there are several different versions of Octave installed on the same computer, there is no easy way to differentiate which link would open which version.

It would be helpful if the version was included in the link name, i.e. "Octave 4.2.1 (GUI)" instead of "Octave (GUI)" and similarly for the CLI.

Markus Mützel <mmuetzel>
Project Member

 

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Attach File(s):
   
   
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Attached Files
file #41842:  shortcuts.patch added by lostbard (9KiB - application/octet-stream)

 

Depends on the following items: None found

Items that depend on this one: None found

 

Carbon-Copy List
  • -unavailable- added by rik5 (Posted a comment)
  • -unavailable- added by rik5
  • -unavailable- added by mtmiller (Posted a comment)
  • -unavailable- added by lostbard (Posted a comment)
  • -unavailable- added by mmuetzel (Submitted the item)
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    Follow 10 latest changes.

    Date Changed By Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced By
    Thu 21 Sep 2017 11:50:21 AM UTClostbardStatusPatch Reviewed=>Fixed
      Open/ClosedOpen=>Closed
    Wed 20 Sep 2017 08:36:18 PM UTCrik5StatusPatch Submitted=>Patch Reviewed
    Wed 20 Sep 2017 12:35:00 PM UTClostbardAttached File-=>Added shortcuts.patch, #41842
      StatusIn Progress=>Patch Submitted
    Thu 31 Aug 2017 11:56:05 PM UTCrik5StatusReady For Test=>In Progress
    Tue 29 Aug 2017 08:29:24 PM UTCrik5Carbon-Copy-=>Added jwe
    Mon 28 Aug 2017 03:54:57 PM UTClostbardStatusIn Progress=>Ready For Test
    Mon 28 Aug 2017 02:18:20 PM UTClostbardStatusNone=>In Progress
      Assigned toNone=>lostbard

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