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February 09, 2006
Smart Crash Reports 1.1b1
There was a pretty heated discussion on the blogosphere on Smart Crash Reports' install API doing a silent installation of the tool. Granted, we initially left it up to the developer to alert/ask the user about Smart Crash Reports and whether they want to install it. However, it turned out that the ease of not writing a dialog at all has caused many (including ourselves, heh) to skip that step. So here it is, a universal build complete with the SDK that now puts down a nice dialog box asking the user whether they want to install or not when the developer calls  If the user dismisses the dialog by clicking the "Don't Install" button but does NOT check the "Don't Show Again" checkbox, then they will not see the dialog for next 24 hours, no matter how many times Other than that, this version has been tested and runs on the Intel and PowerPC boxes, and generally is one step away from the release. The only thing missing is localizations on the above mentioned dialog box. Give it a try!   Posted by slava at February 09, 2006 04:23 AMTrackback Pings: TrackBack URL for this entry: Related:
Comments
How does "don't ask me again" become "don't ask me again until 24 hours have passed"? Posted by: siracusa on February 9, 2006 4:44 AMif they do NOT click "Don't ask me again" they won't be asked until 24 hours passes. If they DO click "Don't as me again", they'll never be asked again. Posted by: Rosyna on February 9, 2006 4:46 AMSigh...too early in the morning for reading comprehension. Posted by: siracusa on February 9, 2006 4:58 AMSemantics... SCR doesn't help improve software.It helps developers improve their software. How about: SCR helps developers improve their software by notifying them when problems happen. Participation is voluntary, but your support helps developers fix bugs and solve problems. For more information, visit ... You mix "developers" with "our" - first you're talking as Unsanity talking about some other developers' app, then you're talking AS the developer when you say "our." Were I a developer, I'd roll my own. Now, in addition to leaving behind "stuff" when a user installs an app, a developer is faced with something John Gruber mentioned: a user's initial experience contains the words "problems" or "bugs" and "crash" - probably not what most developers want their users to see (before they even get to use the app). Posted by: on February 9, 2006 6:41 AMErrr, that last comment was from me. Bug in your form... ;-) At any rate, I WAS a developer, of course, but if I was in the past year I'd roll my own system. Once you figure out how to do POST from an app or send email, it's not terribly difficult. Posted by: Erik J. Barzeski on February 9, 2006 6:43 AMThe trick is in hacking the bug reporter… I’d rather have one patch there than have every app doing its own one. Posted by: Ahruman on February 9, 2006 6:48 AMThat said, I’m rolling my own interface – the SDK fortunately offers a “don’t do the alert flag” – since I’ve got multiple questions to ask on first-run and a series of different alerts ain’t elegant. Posted by: Ahruman on February 9, 2006 6:50 AMSlava, it might be nice to offer a version of UnsanitySCR_Install that lets the developer specify his/her own header and description strings, and his/her own icon. The checkboxes and button titles can probably be invariant. :) Posted by: Jason Harris on February 9, 2006 11:04 AMJason: then you can just run your own CFUserNotification ;) Just a few more calls. IMO. Posted by: slava on February 9, 2006 11:23 AMYou might want to add a small "We won't ask you again for 24 hours anyway" to the dialog, because users who restart an app several times a day can be surprised / disoriented / upset when the dialog only appears, and interrupts them, seemingly at random. Or maybe not. I don't know, just nitpicking. (Any idea why MT says my comment contains questionable content?) Posted by: garoo on February 9, 2006 12:02 PMThank you! I was *this* close to adding SCR to a few of my apps before the excrement hit the rotating cooling appliance. I started trying to "roll my own" by re-implementing crash reporter (not hacking the existing one in any way), but that's a lot of work and a *whole* lot of kludge. I think with this minor addition, I should be "safe enough" adding SCR. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead... Posted by: Zac Bedell on February 9, 2006 12:02 PMOh great. Oh fantastic. My other blog's address (ff00aa dot com) is seen as offensive or spam or something when I use it in my signature. Posted by: garoo on February 9, 2006 12:03 PMBug: if I pass kUnsanitySCR_GlobalInstall, I get a log message to the effect that chown can’t find the input manager in my home/Library/. Posted by: Ahruman on February 11, 2006 4:14 AM(to Semantics mentioning person as an end user) I am not getting into sad fact that Apple should build this kind of functionality into OS X as well as all Unsanity products. I switched to Mac fairly new, in 2003. When crashes happened I spared my time to "describe" what was I doing according to naive belief that Apple _does_ share them with the program developer. In 2004 or something, I had a chance to ask a "gold level" gigantic company about bug reports. They asked "Did you ever send us bug reports?" , I mentioned the Apple system bug reporting and learned the very evil fact that they don't get anything unless it is a huge bug affecting overall system usability and a OS X (system) developer decides to speak with them. You use a software product and it is a sign of your "trust" to developer. Why you should get anxious about CC: 'ing the bug report/crash report to developer which doesn't have your private details while sending bug report to Apple INC. which (clearly) does not care or doesn't have option to share it with the guy/gal coded that software? I used Mac Gizmo project here, an open source telephony application first time. It crashed on LAUNCH. Thanks to smart crash reports installed, I "reported" it and took some time trying to fix it myself. It crashed again and again. This time, sending bug reports, I _decided_ to include my e mail. In 15 mins, a developer contacted me to try a custom beta build which fixes that particular crash potentially shared by many. I tried, it worked really well. I immediately contacted the developer saying that problem is fixed. I must say I was really surprised. In 30 mins after that (totalling 1 hour!) I had versiontracker product alert in my mailbox mentioning a "new build". You must have really lost your mind with "terms" and "semantics" if you tell it doesn't help improve the quality of software. If I was a developer, I would not want an end user using my product if he/she hassles about a clearly documented, trustable source enhancement which is _NOT_ a haxie. That tinfoil hat will possibly create havoc on comment allowing sites in next build if I decide to put "software update check" into my program as "spyware spyware!" I keep getting it once and again, regardless of checking the "don't ask me again". I have clicked "Don't Install" AND checked "Don't Ask Me Again" many, many times... but still I get this f***ing nag every few days. This software WAS NOT installed on my my machine with my knowledge and consent, and so officially fits the description of Malware. Installing items on a user's computer without their EXPRESS PERMISSION is a malicious act. Posted by: Andrew on August 18, 2006 4:33 PMI'm with Hans, this has been happening on an annoying basis for quite a while. Posted by: eric on November 12, 2006 11:55 AMKeep comments on topic. If a comment is unrelated to this post, it may be removed or moderated. |