The "Yes to all" option in the installer window

Ideas and suggestions about new features
ErikJon
Posts: 431
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2012 11:24 pm

The "Yes to all" option in the installer window

Post by ErikJon »

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The other day I had to install over 295 modules, some of which I already had installed, in the past two years, and some of which I had never got around to installing. I was excited to see that the new installer since version 4 allowed multiple simultaneous installations. What a wonderful idea. It used to take me hours to install all the modules, and now it takes only minutes. Thanks!

Consequently, I decided not to sort through all 295 manually, and try to remember which of them were already installed, and which were not, but decided to let TheWord filter out the duplicates for me, in a sense. I dragged them to the window (nice option, there), and the process went smoothly and quickly.

However, when it would tell me that I already had a certain module installed, and ask me whether I wanted to replace the existing file, my only choices to respond were "Yes," "No," or "Yes to all." On many of those already-installed modules I had lots of formatting already done, such as underlining and highlighting, and since these modules that I was installing did not include updated versions, but only a few duplicates, I did not want to replace any existing files, but only to add the new ones among them. Nevertheless, there was no option to skip the duplicates and keep the unique modules.

My suggestion is that you include the option "No to all" in the dialog box, so that the user does not have to hang around for fifteen minutes, waiting to click "No" every time that there is a conflict on the screen.

I would also suggest the same for any other dialog box in TheWord wherever "Yes to all" is one of the options. (If we can choose "yes" to all, why not "no" to all?)

You will remember that I suggested this for the Bookview indexing process, as it formerly required up to thirty minutes sometimes, just because it would hang whenever a defective file was encountered, asking for user input. You chose to include a 40-second timeout, but I think that "No to all" would be so much faster, in the long run, provided that you have time and resources to make such a change.

Back to the Installer issue. If you feel that this suggestion of "No to all" is somehow too difficult to implement, I would suggest including the option on the Installer screen itself, as a question that from the start required user input for the installation to proceed. This could be in the form of either a dialog box or else three radial buttons from which to select the appropriate choice. Something, such as this:

If any duplicates are found while installing your modules, how would you like for TheWord to handle them? () Install them anyway () Skip them () Ask each time

Incidentally, I also had some defective files among those 295 modules that I had installed recently. I don't remember what I had to do, but I think that the Installer window paused the installation and forced me to decide, in each case, before continuing. That would be bothersome, as well. In such a case, I would suggest that you include the same three options, on the Installer screen, if possible, regarding what to do with defective modules, such as:

If any defective files are found while installing your modules, they will not do any harm, but they may not display as desired. If any are found during installation, how would you like for TheWord to handle them? () Try to install them anyway () Skip them () Ask each time
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I'm an Independent Baptist running TheWord portable v 5.0.0.1481 from an external 500GB hard drive with over 1,900 modules installed and loaded in my current module set. I'm using 32-bit Vista Ultimate SP1 with a 2.7gHz processor and 4GB RAM.
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