[Glastonbury] Java

[Sean Miller]

> What is the "right directory" for
> elinks/links/Lynx/w3m/Opera/Galeon/Dillo/Gzilla/W3C Amaya/
> Epiphany/Mozilla Firebird/Netscape 3.x/Netscape 4.x/Netscape 6.x/
> Konqueror/Mozilla/Sun HotJava/Mosaic 2.7/W3C Chimera or the CERN client??

Erm, it is each browser that gives the "Click OK to download" message...
presumably *it* would know in what directory it has just looked to ascertain
the plug-in is not present? Or is that over-simplistic??! [I think *not*]

> Whose JRE and which version? 1.1/1.2/1.3/1.4?? Sun/IBM/Microsoft/Blackdown
> Linux port/GNU Classpath stuff??

Erm, again... when you click "OK" it downloads whatever it is it thinks it
needs... I believe Sun is most likely, but yet again it is the browser that
makes the choice therefore it is not unreasonable to expect the browser to,
having made that choice, complete the install without the user having to
mess around copying files manually afterwards.

> All of the above may be relevant.

A trait that I have noticed with both yourself and Martin is that if
somebody makes a perfectly reasonable comment regarding the usability of
Linux programmes versus Micro$oft your first reactions always seem to be to
bombard them with versions, applications and various strange techno-babble.
Of course this does nothing to actually answer the original point which was
that in Micro$oft browsers if it says "click here to download plug-in" you
click there and five minutes later you have the plug-in.... in Linux, imho,
you click there, it downloads, you close your browser, you return to the
page and it says "click here to download plug-in" again....

It is not good.

> I think that you'll find all of the browsers that support plugins have a
> configuration setting that will let you sort out where they load the
> plugins from.  If you've previously been running Netscape, I think
> Mozilla will understand the structure below your .netscape directory,
> for example.

As I said, I would expect Mozilla to know where it is looking and download
to the appropriate place. That does not seem, to me at least, to be
particularly unreasonable.

> > Unfortunately they don't.... one day they will, and that will be when
> > Mozilla etc. finally starts to challenge IE.
> >
>
> Unfortunately, I've possible bad news for you.  Microsoft have
> apparently stopped development of IE as a standalone product and have also
> announced plans to end Outlook Express.  You may now have to pay for the
> full version of Outlook.  Mozilla Thunderbird/Firebird/the Mozilla "full
> browser" and others remain available for Windows/Mac/Solaris/Linux/BSD.
> Fairly soon "free" browsers or low cost browsers such as Opera may be
> the only choice realistically available.

Erm, this is not bad news for me at all.  IE is not currently available for
Linux, so it is not an option. On PCs with Micro$oft operating systems that
are bought from major suppliers IE will continue to be bundled (just as
Micro$oft Word is on most at present) regardless of what it might cost as an
upgrade or standalone product for self-built machines, Micro$oft have made
that perfectly clear. Therefore they will continue to dominate the market.

Also, from memory, I think that the "click OK to download" functionality
*does* actually work on Windows Mozilla - I think it is only the Linux
version that has this strange "trait" so, perhaps, my original concern re.
competing is actually going back to a Linux desktop/Windows issue again...
is it the Linux developer community that are to blame, perhaps? If so, can
we borrow some Windows developers to teach us how to make things
user-friendly? Who knows... perhaps once they've worked in it for a while
they won't want to go back?? ;-)

Sean