Posted by gouessej on Dec 08, 2023; 1:53pm
URL: https://forum.jogamp.org/32-bit-Windows-natives-tp4043189p4043204.html

Dolda2000 wrote

Poor or not, as far as I'm aware, it's pretty much the only option if I want a single download.

Feel free to reconsider your expectations. A clean download page detecting the operating system and suggesting only a single program to download could be an acceptable compromise, couldn't it? Don't hesitate to ask for help.

Dolda2000 wrote

It should perhaps be noted that my current downloadable Jar is just a launcher program, which downloads the rest of the program (and keeps it updated on a per-file basis), and relaunches the JVM with any custom args I might want. One nice thing about that is that the direct download is less than 100 kB, which is particularly nice since I've made it so that the download includes a login cookie for immediately logging in as the same user as was logged in on the website when downloaded. Being a single, very small download means that it can be "throw-away", easily re-download if misplaced or lost, or the login cookie expires, or in any other similar event. 100 kB and 100 MB is a big difference in that regard.

You mitigate the problem I mentioned a bit yes, but your launcher program is still limited to the options available in the manifest. Moreover, your launcher program won't work without a compatible JRE installed on the system and it's technically possible to create a launcher program that wouldn't be a single executable JAR (for example by using Nullsoft Scriptable Install System). The difference between 100 KB and 100 MB is big when the network isn't very good but if your launcher program has to download some assets, won't it have to download megabytes anyway?

Dolda2000 wrote

While I can see that being the expectation, it actually hasn't been a huge problem for me. I have had exceedingly few complaints about that.

I don't want to be a killjoy but the end users who fail to run your program because they haven't installed a JRE might not complain at all, it doesn't mean that the problem doesn't exist.