[wpkg-users] Ideas for features.

[K.E.Jones at bton.ac.uk]

*** Thanks to Tomasz for getting in touch so quickly about our mail
system not using the proper domain name, without which, this message
wouldn't have made it. I'll leave it up to you if this is bad or good
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Hi folks,

 I've been playing with WPKG for a while now and *think* I've just about
the hang of it :-)

 I had a number of ideas for various features or code designs that might
simplify some of the problems and make some good proposals. I'd have
thought you'd have already got them on the timeline but as I've written
a number of these bits into a custom version of the WPKG.JS already and
have a few bits of other useful code I thought it might be useful!

 I wrote a huge message outlining those but I didn't want to hit the
list with a huge message so I wonder if you'd find any of the following
useful;

 1) A very basic sprintf equivalent for text output.
	 To simplify message formatting and maybe offer language support
from an "language.XML" file? It could be very handy for the GUI :-)

 2) Extra <check> rules;
	 I have "Battery" checks; to detect laptops, "Disk Size/Free"
checks; to prevent installs clogged up and failing from disk space
problems, "RAM" checks; to stop installs failing because of
pre-requisites.

 3) Tidy up ideas.
	Some of the standard WScript objects are created globally AND
locally which is probably isn't necessary. A couple of processes can be
re-factored into functions etc. Just general stuff I'd be happy to
create patches for to make it easier to read the code and save some
typing :-)

 And last but not least;

 4) Two other alternatives to the Service/IE7/External command GUIs.
      I've got a working .NET ActiveX/Com object that might do the job.
I also have some experience with .HTAs that might be useful if you'd
like to encapsulate the WPKG.JS with a built-in dialog (The script I've
got is in VBScript so it might need a bit of time to convert it). It
might help save some of the service wrangling Rainer's doing at the
moment. If they work how I expect, it might also give Vista users a
chance to have a rough GUI for installs too :-)

Regards,

Keith

PS: I'd be interested in honing up my newly acquired JScript skills
(learnt from WPKG!) to start leveraging some of the object orientated
behaviour of JS as well. It'd make a nice change to C# and VB.NET so if
you need any small bits done or turned into object styled designs let me
know!