What about clean up?

[Conner36]

Where are the icons? I know a lot of people that get turned off because it isn't packaged well, no installer, no icons, the files seem like they are everywhere... Why isn't any one cleaning things up, you could include stuff in the blah.app. But if there was a simple clean up more people would try it out.

[Cha0s]

To be honest, the reason is that this isn't a critical thing and it takes time. Things that take time and aren't critical don't get high priority in a pre-alpha game.

[Conner36]

it's pre-alpha? Alphas don't have textures and stuff, i would call it a beta.

[Cha0s]

The alpha version of a product still awaits full debugging or full implementation of all its functionality, but satisfies a majority of the software requirements. It often lacks features promised in the final release, but demonstrates the feasibility and basic structure of the software

Emphasis added. Just so you know, Planeshift doesn't do what that underlined part says. There's a LOT not implemented yet. Some still very conceptual.

Sometimes a build known as pre-alpha is issued, before the release of an alpha or beta. In contrast to alpha and beta versions, the pre-alpha is usually not "feature complete". At this stage designers are still determining exactly what functionalities the product should have.

Emphasis added. Planeshift isn't nearly feature complete and the designers are certainly still determining what features to add.

Pre-alpha.

EDIT: added emphasis

[Karyuu]

I think we've dropped the "pre" part right now and settled on just "early alpha" :} Definitely not beta yet, but a little closer now.

[AryHann]

* AryHann shivers like usual when software engineer terminology is mishandled

[narita]

Also in Wikipedia,

The alpha build of the software is the first build delivered to the software testers.

Are we pre-testers ?

Read also the paragraph about white and black boxes test phases, we're already doing additional black box tests. Does that mean we're in a advanced alpha version ?

[AryHann]

Technically, usually alpha test is done within the company developing something and beta is done instead with testers who are asked to perform normal usage activities to verify the functionalities and not of the software (and whatever else).

I guess, since the way the term has been used within PS, that players can consider himself part of the "team", and the fact that there are the famous black box text let us understand that the status is quite advanced!

[dfryer]

I'm curious about the want for an "Installer" - to me they are unnecessary overhead that remind me of a bad day doing windows NT tech support.  For Planeshift, all you need to do is drag the folder from the disk image to wherever you want it, the way Steve intended.

I think the icon for PSClient is fixed in the latest disk image.

What else would you suggest putting in the .app ?  Many of those files are intended to be somewhat accessible to the user as people often have to dive in and fix things.  Inside the .app bundle you can see all the plugin files that we are kindly not putting in the top directory

[narita]

The prefered way is to drag and drop applications, not folders. The folder containts a lot of stuff and user asks himself on which one he has to click. Also, usualy the users preferences, logs, etc. should be saved in user folder, not on the directory next the application. It's better, because multiple users can share the same application copy and the preferences/logs/screenshots are keept when you reinstall.

I know it's not finished, then I don't complaint, but it looks like a Windows-like organization (a folder with all the stuff without a real order) with an Mac type installation procedure (drag and drop) and some users get confused.

[DaveG]

Windows-like organization is to put crap everywhere, such that you don't have a damn clue where it is.  Stuff ends up in files in the app's dir, the registry, buried in the user's folders (which sounds good, but they're a mess, also have lots of cache dirs, and nothing is garunteed to be there), and god knows where else.

This is a more of an older DOS style setup.  It's good for keeping track of where stuff is, but we don't use the OS's user dirs.