[43] in installers
Re: Ksign installer and desktop file
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Scott G. McGuire)
Thu Mar 20 14:25:13 1997
In-Reply-To: <9703192014.AA13153@MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 14:21:47 -0500
To: installers@MIT.EDU
From: "Scott G. McGuire" <smcguire@MIT.EDU>
Cc: REPA@mitvma.mit.edu
Hi Jim,
I've looked into this problem and here's what I've found:
* According to the documentation, the VISE installer is already informing
the Mac (actually, the desktop file on the hard drive that you're
installing to) about each application that it's installing. So there's
nothing specifically more that we can tell VISE to do.
* The Mac OS has built-in ways of recognizing new apps as well.
* The KSign application has all the right bits and resources to be
identified properly by the Mac.
* Netscape has no none problem of having more difficulty finding
applications than anything else.
So, there doesn't seem (to me) to be a reason this would happen with KSign
more than anything else (there haven't been reports of the other installers
we've created with VISE and the ftp code resource having similar problems).
Thus, maybe it's telling them to rebuild the desktop because the desktop
really does need rebuilding! It's a good thing to do occasionally and
maybe they haven't done it in a long time, so my recommendation would be
just to have them do it, even though it takes a little while.
--Scott McGuire / smcguire@mit.edu
---------------
>We've noticed an intermittent problem with the Macintosh installer for
>Ksign involving the Macintosh desktop file. The Ksign application is
>a helper application for use with Netscape. Our installation instructions
>have each user run the installer and then configure Netscape to run
>the KSIGN application whenever it encounters a document with the mime
>type of "text/ksign". After pointing Netscape to the Ksign application,
>it still sometimes gives users an error message that it could not
>find the application with a suggestion that they rebuild the desktop.
>Doing so fixes the problem.
>
>Since rebuilding the desktop is a time-consuming process, I'd rather not
>make it a prerequisite for installing the Ksign application. Clearly,
>the Macintosh has ways of finding out about new applications without
>having its desktop rebuilt.
>
>Alternatively,
> (1) Is there something that one should do in the Vice installer
> to have it inform the Macintosh of the existence of a new
> application?
> (2) If not, is there a quicker way than rebuilding the desktop to tell
> the Macintosh of the existence of the Ksign application, e.g.,
> running it by hand by double-clicking it? (This will give users
> the dialog box for registering with the version server and then
> inform them that they're trying to run a helper application.)
>
> Jim
