Anyone interested in developing a Skin Plugin?

[imilne]

it's an idea that I like in principal

I agree.

First, I'm in agreement with mvallevand's opinion of putting executable code outside in the Documents / Users tree. It feels icky. It's just not a home for DLLs.

But not on this point. I understand your reluctance over it, but one of goals with Vista/Win7 (and partly UAC) was to make things a bit more like Unix and allow non-administrative users to be able to install programs that don't require admin rights. Therefore the only place these programs can go is outside of Program Files, because the user would need admin rights to put them there. Part of the historical problem with doing this is because programs insisted on writing to what should have been protected areas. Executable code is just executable code; it doesn't matter where it goes, what matters is who gets to run it.

...each of them require some level of config work after installation. As such, any sort of "install with the click of a remote" advantage is (for me) immediately lost anyway. And with that advantage lost, why bother going to the effort in the first place?

Again, I agree. But even being able to browse/download/install from within the Settings dialog would be better than the current situation.

Personally - and so far - all of my plugins (both released and in progress) can exist happily in their own plugin and skin subdirectories. One or two of them rely on 3rd party DLLs that can be safely bundled in the plugin directory with them. I always try to ensure that any config settings for them have usable defaults so they can be run with no configuration too. So in my case, a plugin manager that could do nothing more than automatically download and extract the files would be enough.

I know others have more complicated requirements though, but surely nothing we couldn't solve together as a community. If any of us could find the time

Iain

[steeb]

Thanks all for the info on this from Mr simple here

Also sorry Martin, I was very tired last night when I posted this initially and my Brain was a bit fuzzy I see what you meant now, I was mixing up 2 different things, a typical steeb thing to do

I guess re: the Skin thing what I meant was how the likes of Myth enable the user to change the skin from within the running menu and apply it (a bit like it was possible with the Community Skin Plugin and GB-PVR).

And then of course my 2nd thing about the common installer, all I meant was as Iain said:

But even being able to browse/download/install from within the Settings dialog would be better than the current situation.

But from what I read I see that this sounds very complicated and a huge amount of work?

cheers

steeb

[mvallevand]

But not on this point. I understand your reluctance over it, but one of goals with Vista/Win7 (and partly UAC) was to make things a bit more like Unix and allow non-administrative users to be able to install programs that don't require admin rights.

Partially but installing a DLL in the data folders means it can be updated by anyone anytime. It's just not good form.

Therefore the only place these programs can go is outside of Program Files, because the user would need admin rights to put them there. Part of the historical problem with doing this is because programs insisted on writing to what should have been protected areas.

Again, I agree. But even being able to browse/download/install from within the Settings dialog would be better than the current situation.

I think the goal was to allow this to be from the 10' interface. If it was settings it is easily, just launch NPVR as administrator.

I know others have more complicated requirements though, but surely nothing we couldn't solve together as a community. If any of us could find the time

If it was a question of time, I'd rather sub update NPVR to get daily patches online.

Martin

[mvallevand]

I guess re: the Skin thing what I meant was how the likes of Myth enable the user to change the skin from within the running menu and apply it (a bit like it was possible with the Community Skin Plugin and GB-PVR).

Now that I understand what you indented, making things easier to configure with a remote would be nice. The CS4 design was flawed because it wasn't UAC aware, at least NPVR will fix that.

Martin