[svn.haxx.se] · SVN Dev · SVN Users · SVN Org · TSVN Dev · TSVN Users · Subclipse Dev · Subclipse Users · this month's index

Re: Not all overlays appear on Windows 7 with TSVN 1.6.7+

From: Valik <vampire.valik_at_gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:51:50 -0700 (PDT)

On Mar 13, 7:30 pm, Adrian Buehlmann <adr..._at_cadifra.com> wrote:
> I'm not convinced that asking the user is a good idea here.
>
> Given Stefan's approach, the unversioned overlay is simply unusable,
> because it will never be initialized on Windows 7 and thus defunct.

Right, that's my point. On Windows 7 the overlay is unusable. It
would be rude of TSVN (or anything using TortoiseOverlays) to just
unregister a Windows built-in overlay to make room for the Unversioned
overlay. For various reasons it's also impractical to say "It's
there, you want to use it, delete something on your own". Removing
the overlay as you suggest is certainly one option but the other
option is asking the user in a manner I outlined above. Leave it up
to the user to determine how they want TSVN to behave. I realize
those of you who use the TortoiseOverlays module are still out of luck
because, as Stefan mentioned previously, it does not have a GUI
component. However, surely there's some way for Stefan to provide a
re-usable installer page and pass the settings selected on that page
to the TortoiseOverlays module? Even if it's going old school and
requiring those of you using TortoiseOverlays to copy a block of code
into your installers to get the page, it's still better than removing
the overlay.

Another other option is to create a general purpose tool for managing
overlays. I would expect such a tool to contain TortoiseOverlays-
centric hints and description of the TSVN overlays as well as the pre-
installed Windows overlays. A simple checkbox by each overlay allows
toggling the state. This approach has the benefit that anyone can run
it at any time. With proper descriptions of the Windows overlays
users can be the choice what they can safely disable to allow
TortoiseOverlays to work.

Yet another stand-alone application approach is to just ask the user
how they use their machine with questions specifically designed to
determine if they are using any of the pre-installed Windows
overlays. Based on those answers one or more unused Windows overlays
can be disabled.

The moral of the story is, there's no need to remove the overlay or to
render it unusable on Windows 7. Neither is there any reason to take
the approach that if people really care they can go messing around in
their registry. A simple stand-alone tool with appropriate
descriptions of the known overlays kicked off at the end of
installation would be sufficient to give "power users" the control
they need to fully use the software they are trying to install.

------------------------------------------------------
http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ds/viewMessage.do?dsForumId=757&dsMessageId=2460160

To unsubscribe from this discussion, e-mail: [dev-unsubscribe_at_tortoisesvn.tigris.org].
Received on 2010-03-15 20:52:11 CET

This is an archived mail posted to the TortoiseSVN Dev mailing list.

This site is subject to the Apache Privacy Policy and the Apache Public Forum Archive Policy.