On Tue, 28 May 2002 10:15:27 +0200, Mark Weyer
<wey### [at] fregemathematikuni-freiburgde> wrote:
> Picturing myself as a win user I would prefer the following solution:
> If I always click Ok during installation, no data is sent, but everytime
> it would be sent, I get a dialog offering...

Umm.. To inject a little sanitiy into this discussion, in general it is considered a
no-no to read info from the
users comp and send it to a remote site. Windows update doesn't and most others don't
either. I suspect
that in most cases the program simply sends a update info request and then the server
sends back info
about what is available. I.E. POV would know that the current version is outdated by
compaing the
internal version with the new one it recieved, but the server end only knows that a
request was made.

Same for news and such. The data transfer only needs to be one way in as much that the
users end needs
to know about it, but the server side only needs to respond approriately to requests
that are made. It doesn't
even have to keep track of what was sent since the last news blurb, since POVRay
should be doing that. Other
than sending the correct request for say Mac, Linux or windows version updates, there
is no need for any
information to be sent with the request.

In most cases these programs don't even bother to try to make such a request unless
you are actually online at
the time anyway, so no having it connect and make a request when you don't expect or
want it to either. As for
both messages and updates. Make flashing icons for them, then let the user simply
ignore them or read them as
they choose and add a delete date to them so that if ignored for x days they get
removed automatically. No need
to turn it off or worries about pop-ups.

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