The new plugin installer looked great, until I realized that it didn't have an uninstaller counterpart. I thought that TC would ask me whether I'd like to remove the (now useless) files when I deleted a plugin that had been installed with a pluginst.inf file, but no such luck.
Anyway, I'd suggest this feature very strongly - or it'd feel like the old times when we had installers for the regular programs, but not uninstallers
And yes, I did a search before starting the topic, but didn't find anything... So don't hit me too hard if this has already been discussed
Physically removing of plugins would mean data loss, not sure if this is a good idea. TC would have to check which files have been changed after installation and this would mean that this information would have to be contained in the pluginst.inf.
I doubt that plugin authors who don't offer more than a bunch of files that have to be copied from an archive to the destination folder have any desires to update that info whenever something is changed.
icfu wrote:Physically removing of plugins would mean data loss, not sure if this is a good idea. TC would have to check which files have been changed after installation and this would mean that this information would have to be contained in the pluginst.inf.
I doubt that plugin authors who don't offer more than a bunch of files that have to be copied from an archive to the destination folder have any desires to update that info whenever something is changed.
What's pluginst.inf got to do with it? It isn't even copied into the destination directory! And that's right, since it's only for installation. The thing I have in mind would work like every other installer on the market, writing a log along with the plugin, which is then used to uninstall the plugin, like any other program. More work for Ghisler of course, but that's not what we're talking about
The thing I have in mind would work like every other installer on the market, writing a log along with the plugin, which is then used to uninstall the plugin, like any other program.
All installers I know are adjusted by the program authors, not the author of the target application... The authors decide which files to copy where, they decide which registry settings have to be made additionally and they decide which files to delete on an uninstall and like I said I doubt that plugin authors have any desires to keep this information up-to-date.
How can a log created by TC serve this purpose? Some plugin installations are complex, too complex to get handled by a very basic TC installation log. Sure, if you limit the abilities to "delete all files in plugin home directory that haven't been modified since installation" it can be done.
icfu wrote:How can a log created by TC serve this purpose? Some plugin installations are complex, too complex to get handled by a very basic TC installation log. Sure, if you limit the abilities to "delete all files in plugin home directory that haven't been modified since installation" it can be done.
Yeah, I know how installers work But the thing that TC has now, with the pluginst.inf file, isn't very complicated. For that, doing as you said would be fine, that is "delete all files in plugin home directory that haven't been modified since installation". Of course the plugin should also be uninstalled from TC, but that's there today I also mean that this system should only be applied to plugins that TC itself has installed using a pluginst.inf file.
Hacker wrote:Well, yes, but what about various INI files, the registry and other things modified by the use of the plugin?
Well, these are of course problems. I only talk about very simple plugins, and a switch in the pluginst.inf (named AutoUninstall or such) would be used to keep TC from making a mess....
Additionally, a variable named PluginIniSection would be useful for uninstallable plugins, and it should take a regex or at least wildcards. That could be used to remove plugin-specific data from fsplugin.ini or the appropriate INI.
