sounds good to me. we do need to also worry about the cost of
downloading from the web for european users who often have expensive
slower connections. im lucky and have a unlimited usage so could use
the convenient web idiot-proof method.
Lourens Veen wrote:
>
> Jon Winters wrote:
> >
> > We should keep in mind that the vast majority of Gimp users are not
> > compiling from source. A shell script is not something those folks
> > understand. Their reaction will be... Heh.. Where are all the plugins,
> > this sucks!
>
> Yep. Most users won't read the README either so we need something that
> is immediately clear.
>
> > Xtns > Plugins > Update Plugins...
> >
> > And some sort of cuddley GUI driven crapplet that compares the users
> > plugins to the official plugin FTP archive or one of its mirrors. Users
> > could pick and choose the plugins they would like to upgrade or install
> > and have a chance to un-install stuff they don't like.
>
> 1 problem. What if the user has no internet connection (hard to imagine
> these days, in the USA but also in Europe internet use is now rather
> widespread, but still). On the other hand, there _has_ to be a way to
> install plugins from source, or everyone who's not on a supported
> platform would be stuck.
>
> So we need:
>
> 1) Simple and straightforward plugin installation from the web for
> completely non-technical users (useful anyway, since then we don't have
> to wait for distributions to start carrying the latest plugins). Could
> be source or binary, but probably source with a standardized building
> method. Gimp would have to come with generic makefiles (ie for any
> plugin) for each platform.
>
> 2) The possibility to pack the plugins into separate packages, so that
> they can be included with distributions properly (either source or
> binary, that's up to the distribution maintainers). This is for people
> installing a distro from CDROM.
>
> That way non-technical users can just pick out gimp in their distro, and
> select the plugins they want in their distro menu, and later update from
> the web in a straightforward manner. People building from source build
> from source and then install the plugins through the applet.
> And people who want to build the plugins themselves (plugin developers
> for instance) can still do so from the console using the generic
> makefile for their platform (which every plugin has to adhere to).
>
> Does anyone see any holes in this one?
>
> Lourens
