New Stuff!

Great pictures and your article on Targeting Windows is excellent. I know this is an important issue. I am just as interested in getting my apps to look correct on Windows as I am getting them to look correct on the Mac. I am quite sure that a Windows user can smell bad UI a mile away, just like a Mac user can.

Now we need something like that for Linux. I haven't a clue about UI design on Linux. And even more importantly, what is the best way to offer an installer?

You wouldn't, by any chance, have some suggests, would you?

Thanks!

And I've been toying with writing a follow-up article on how to target Linux as well.

Installers on Linux are in one of two general forms. 1) .tar.gz files. These usually use the "magic three" -- ./configure, make, make install Basically, ./configure checks dependencies. make builds the application (which is a noop for RB apps) and make install sticks the app and support files where they belong. 2) Package managers. These are more user-friendly and picking up a lot of steam. Examples would be rpms or apt-get or emerge. These give you a way to package the file and the system figures out how to install them.

BTW, I'm a long-time windows programmer. Lately, I've been using "Advanced Installer" which has a free version, found here: http://www.advancedinstaller.com/

Thanks, I'll have to check Advanced Installer out. I've been using Inno Setup, which I like a lot.

As for Linux installers, I hadn't considered just using a makefile to install an Rb app, but there is, of course, no reason why that wouldn't work. I'll have to keep that in mind.

Thanks.

If you're going for easy and acceptable, then I would recommend using an RPM packager to package everything into an RPM file. If you're going for slightly harder to use, but something every long-time Linux geek knows about, then use make.