In article <36DF545E.4BFAB224@aol.com> , Bob Hughes <inv### [at] aolcom>  
wrote:

> Don't suppose there's any chance of getting the executable alone is
> there? I just had to see how the "d" version worked now. Seems
> unnecessary to re-get the unchanging demo scenes and includes, etc. each
> time an update is made. Or am I already overlooking a source for just
> the pvengine.exe (doubting that, since the idea is to produce complete
> official releases each time!).
>
>
> Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
>>

>> <ffj### [at] club-internetfr@club-internet.fr>  wrote:
>>
>> > One question : Will the 3.1e version fixes the bump_map bug found in the
>> > 3.1d version ?
>>
>> In fact that is the one main reason for the 3.1e! :-)
>>
>>     Thorsten

The problem is not on your side, the "problem" are the new users that might
potentially download the update and wonder what is going on - it would
create a support nightmare.  (If users would at least read a readme
file...well, ok, I never do either :-)


    Thorsten

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Bob Hughes <inv### [at] aolcom> wrote:

>Don't suppose there's any chance of getting the executable alone is
>there? I just had to see how the "d" version worked now. Seems
>unnecessary to re-get the unchanging demo scenes and includes, etc. each
>time an update is made. Or am I already overlooking a source for just
>the pvengine.exe (doubting that, since the idea is to produce complete
>official releases each time!).

We generally don't do this (at least for Windows) because of prior experience
with people who would download just the EXE, and no matter HOW CLEARLY we
marked it and told them 'this is only if you've already got the full version',
there was still some who tried it, found it didn't work (since they didn't
already have POV), then wrote to us and bitched about it.

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povray.org admin team wrote:
> 
> We generally don't do this (at least for Windows) because of prior experience
> with people who would download just the EXE, and no matter HOW CLEARLY we
> marked it and told them 'this is only if you've already got the full version',
> there was still some who tried it, found it didn't work (since they didn't
> already have POV), then wrote to us and bitched about it.

I would argue that the majority of people already have 3.1 installed and
don't need the full download. I certainly wouldn't want to get the whole
3.1e just to fix the bump_map problem. Perhaps you could make the
executable-only version a more difficult to access, so people would get
to it only when they really want it.
BTW, were there many who bitched you about it? Just interested as to how
commonplace stupidity is within our species...

Margus

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Sad, sad, sad... tsk! tsk!
Too bad there isn't a foolproof filter for such nonsense.
Got to admit though, and nice to see someone agrees, that a pvengine.exe
(or any other partial fix) would be great none-the-less through such
"difficult" channels.
Most any program allows for this kind of patching.
Maybe the "stupidity" factor goes with the territory when distributing a
program to the worlds public. Ashame that could get in the way. But for
the sake of the already tasked POV-Team I'm not going to demand such ;}


Margus Ramst wrote:
> 
> povray.org admin team wrote:
> >
> > 'this is only if you've already got the full version',
> > there was still some who tried it, found it didn't work (since they didn't
> > already have POV), then wrote to us and bitched about it.
> 
> I would argue that the majority of people already have 3.1 installed and
> don't need the full download. I certainly wouldn't want to get the whole
> 3.1e just to fix the bump_map problem. Perhaps you could make the
> executable-only version a more difficult to access, so people would get
> to it only when they really want it.
> BTW, were there many who bitched you about it? Just interested as to how
> commonplace stupidity is within our species...
> 
> Margus

-- 
 omniVERSE: beyond the universe
  http://members.aol.com/inversez/POVring.htm
 mailto:inv### [at] aolcom?PoV

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In article <36DFD201.F3B90098@peak.edu.ee> , Margus Ramst 
<mar### [at] peakeduee>  wrote:

> I would argue that the majority of people already have 3.1 installed and
> don't need the full download. I certainly wouldn't want to get the whole
> 3.1e just to fix the bump_map problem. Perhaps you could make the
> executable-only version a more difficult to access, so people would get
> to it only when they really want it.
> BTW, were there many who bitched you about it? Just interested as to how
> commonplace stupidity is within our species...

I can't tell you about the other platform experiences, but for example on
the Mac we included a questionnaire application within the documentation
folder. We did not want the application to automatically e-mail the answers
(so users can be sure we don't access and infomration they don't want), so
we offer saving it to disk or putting it into the clipboard to paste it into
an e-mail. At the end of the questionnaire application this is explained in
detail:

"You can e-mail your answers to us at "pov### [at] compuservecom".
Press the Copy button to copy your answers to the clipboard. Then simply
paste them into your e-mail and put "Questionnaire" in the subject line.
If you do not want to send the e-mail now, press the Save button and your
answers will be written to a text file. Please copy the content of the text
file in the body of the e-mail when sending the e-mail.
Please remember to put "Questionnaire" in the subject line and please do not
send the text file as an attachment. We use automatic processing and
attachments cannot be processed."

And in the file the user will paste into the e-mail again the following
text:

"Please e-mail this file to "pov### [at] compuservecom"
and specify "Questionnaire" in the subject line.
Send it in the body of the e-mail. Please do not send
the text file as an attachment. We use automatic
processing and attachments cannot be processed.
Don't edit information in this file. Some numbers may
look strange but they contain the right information."


So we have clear and redundant information. We got about two per month who
somehow manage to ignore this. We got it as attachements, as compressed
attachments, we got the whole answers in the subject line (its about 2 KB of
text...) and some people manges to cut off parts etc, etc...

And now remember that there are many more Windows users out there, even if
there are only ten times as many I would guess that there would be at least
one of the complaints per day, maybe even more...

However, maybe giving it a try for a week or two and see how many there
really are might be possible (also I personally would not do that)   :-)


     Thorsten

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I understand the dumb user problem and, if I have to download a few
extra mb to save the POV-team's sanity, that's fine.  I use a pretty
nonstandard setup for good and unchangeable reasons, and I would
really like an option in the install prog to at least leave my
extensions alone.  I would like it better if it left the whole
registry alone, but then you would be back to the dumb user thing.
Jerry Anning
clem "at" dhol "dot" com

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>BTW, were there many who bitched you about it? Just interested as to how
>commonplace stupidity is within our species...

Can't remember - it's been several years since I posted a partial version.

I may put the upgrade here in the newsgroups or some such.

Post a reply to this message

Now how could you possibly go wrong doing that? <sarc>
Sounds like people are interested in upgrade-only downloads alright.


"povray.org admin team" wrote:
> 
> I may put the upgrade here in the newsgroups or some such.

-- 
 omniVERSE: beyond the universe
  http://members.aol.com/inversez/POVring.htm
 mailto:inv### [at] aolcom?PoV

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Thorsten Froehlich wrote in message <36e0a8ff.0@news.povray.org>...
>
>"Please e-mail this file to "pov### [at] compuservecom"
>and specify "Questionnaire" in the subject line.
>Send it in the body of the e-mail. Please do not send
>the text file as an attachment. We use automatic
>processing and attachments cannot be processed.
>Don't edit information in this file. Some numbers may
>look strange but they contain the right information."
>

Gawd! Lots of 'em fancy commpewter-words...

 I recently read a tech-support joke (from Real Life):

- My computer isn't working. What's wrong?
- First of all, check if the cord is plugged.
- I can't see. It's dark.
- Why?
- There's a power outage.
(!!!!)

There are many such stories. So no wonder some people don't get your
instructions (if they bother to read them at all)...

>we got the whole answers in the subject line (its about 2 KB of text...)

Wow! Now that's ingenious!

Margus

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povray.org admin team wrote in message
<36e0cdc4.14482390@news.povray.org>...
>
>I may put the upgrade here in the newsgroups or some such.

Yeah. And add:
If you still have problems, write to THIS NEWSGROUP FIRST!

Who knows, might work...

Margus

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