Nightmare installing Xith

Engines, Libraries and Tools Xith3D Forums
#1

Call me stupid…(if you like) but installing Xith at the moment is far too difficult for ordinary people.

EDIT: too late, you can’t call me stupid for misunderstanding the whole “java library path” stuff. I eventually spotted it on the page where it is mentioned. By way of explanation, when I want to “install” somethinig I don’t give a **** about reading lots of “What does X mean?” sections - I just want a one-click download. When I was confronted by these phrases (see below) I scrolled up and down and looked for a section titled anything like “install directories” or “java library path” but there were no headings that suggested to me that they would contain this info, so I didn’t read the paras themselves. Yes, this was stupid of me. But…an install guide should start with a numbered list of steps, and should only start explaining what directories are etc AFTER that, since people often can’t be bothered to read all that until they’ve got the thing working :).

We’re doing a game using it, and I just tried to do an install on a virgin machine, to see what would happen.

Here’s what happens:

  1. Go to Xith site, look for install. No. Nothing. Aha! There’s a download link!

  2. No install instructions on the download page. All it does is give me a tar.gz. WTF am I supposed to do with this? (Bear with me here, I’m acting like a normal person).

  3. WTF is it tar.gz, that lesser-known fileformat that tends to only be openable on unix systems by default - why not ZIP, which tends to be openable by default on both windows AND unix? (not that I’m saying this is a good state of affairs, just that that’s how it is). Is there some reason e.g. that OS X users can open tar’s but not zip’s? If it were bzip I could understand - that’s a compression format that saves a lot of space compared to zip, but it isn’t :(.

  4. OK, so that got me nowhere. Try again, this time look for docs. Aha! Found an install tutorial.

  5. Which then waffles on about “your Java Library Directory” and “the Native Library Directory”. Now, even as a professional java developer I’m not comfortable with those terms, so what are newbie developers chances of coping with this? At least I know where I can lookup what they mean (assuming these are the names that sun gives to the special directories in the JRE install) and I accept they are something I ought to know, but the thing is I use the terms so rarely I’ve forgotten by the time I next need them :).

  6. So I download all the “third party” files. But…the instructions say nothing about whether I need to maintain the hierarchies of sub-directories, or whether I can (or should or even must) flatten them to just one dir.

  7. Ahem. And after downloading all of those, I’m back to grabbing that TAR file. I don’t know what’s wrong with this brand-new PC (only recently arrived from a shop with Windows XP on it) but it’s winzip will open gz’s as expected but refuses to open TAR’s (I thought that winzip used to understand TAR?). So…I’m left with a bunch of files that may or may not be in the right place, one of which I apparently have to untar but I’m going to end up FTP’ing to a linux server rather than spend potentially ages searching for a free UNTAR for windows XP.

All of which is just to say: guys, Xith is great. But you’ve really got to fix this install situation. Making a ZIP available (in parallel with the TAR if some unix diehards refuse ZIPs :P) would be a great first step; updating the install guide to explain what directories it’s referring to AND WHERE THEY NORMALLY ARE would also be a great move that probably doesn’t take much time. If someone could do it for windows first, I would happily suss out the linux equivalents and confirm the paths for you.

NB: I do appreciate that Xith is not even at 1.0 yet; but that’s not a good excuse for it to be hard to get to grips with - presumably the more developers that are using it even pre-1.0 the better? Anyway, taken to the extreme, that excuse would also be an excuse for also having 0 documentation, 0 demos, and 0 tutorials.

#2

PS Am I being really stupid, or shouldn’t you just be offering the xith3d.jar side-by-side with the tar?

Now that I’ve expanded it, it looks like if I’m “installing Xith3D” I only need that one JAR, in which case 50% of my difficulties above were totally unnecessary - I should have just been able to grab that particular JAR ???

#3

I do not mean to be a total jerk but if you do not care for the status quo why don’t you zip it up in the format and offer it up for everyone. As for tutorials and demos, there are plenty if you look. Again, if you want to contribute then do it but do not just whine about it to other people.

Afterall, open source projects are only as good as the community that works on them.

#4

[quote]I do not mean to be a total jerk but if you do not care for the status quo why don’t you zip it up in the format and offer it up for everyone. As for tutorials and demos, there are plenty if you look. Again, if you want to contribute then do it but do not just whine about it to other people.
[/quote]
In fact, why don’t I just write version 2.0 right now, and save everyone else the trouble? While I’m at it, I’ll prune all the features I don’t like, because of course I own this project .

Seriously, I have used Xith far far too little to even know what should be distributed or how…my expertise goes as far as knowing that it’s unnecessarily difficult at the moment, and stops round about there. Even if I did know a lot more about the installation, any change to distribution still requires debate and discussion (e.g. there may be some really good reason for the status quo that I am simply too ignorant to be aware of; only discussion will bring such things to the fore).

In terms of doing rather than “whining”…well, who do you think is best placed to change the install? Any of the people with experience of the lib, or a random person who’s hardly even used it and knows very little beyond the API docs?

I have only so much freetime available, and I spend more of that than I should on volunteer work (have a look at JGF http://grexengine.com/sections/externalgames/ for one example - I’m the main person behind that, including getting things like Xith into the “all in one place” list of java libs). Hence my first comment above - I don’t have time to do everything I want myself, but I do at least have the time to kick off debate on the topic.

FWIW, I happen to think your response in particular is not helpful. I don’t mind the tone (I did invite you to call me “stupid” ;)) but your response is symptomatic of an attitude that shuts off any negative comment and feedback, which is definitely not a good thing for a community project. Assuming Xith is to be used (we all hope!) by thousands of developers, do you really wish that only the 50 or so who actively work on the project be “allowed” to comment on it? Would you really kiss goodbye to all feedback because you only care about those who “contribute” (leaving aside your implication that “highlighting a problem” is not in itself a contribution)? As I said, I don’t mind at all, but it’s not exactly going to encourage others to stick their necks out.

#5

[quote]EDIT: too late, you can’t call me stupid for misunderstanding the whole “java library path” stuff. I eventually spotted it on the page where it is mentioned. By way of explanation, when I want to “install” somethinig I don’t give a **** about reading lots of “What does X mean?” sections - I just want a one-click download. When I was confronted by these phrases (see below) I scrolled up and down and looked for a section titled anything like “install directories” or “java library path” but there were no headings that suggested to me that they would contain this info, so I didn’t read the paras themselves. Yes, this was stupid of me. But…an install guide should start with a numbered list of steps, and should only start explaining what directories are etc AFTER that, since people often can’t be bothered to read all that until they’ve got the thing working :).
[/quote]
Yes, but in this case it’s essential that the users know about these terms. Otherwise the same questions come up over and over.

[quote]1. Go to Xith site, look for install. No. Nothing. Aha! There’s a download link!
[/quote]
It’s under “docs”. That’s not that bad I think.

[quote]2. No install instructions on the download page. All it does is give me a tar.gz. WTF am I supposed to do with this? (Bear with me here, I’m acting like a normal person).
[/quote]
I added a link to the install instructions on the download page.

[quote]3. WTF is it tar.gz, that lesser-known fileformat that tends to only be openable on unix systems by default - why not ZIP, which tends to be openable by default on both windows AND unix? (not that I’m saying this is a good state of affairs, just that that’s how it is). Is there some reason e.g. that OS X users can open tar’s but not zip’s? If it were bzip I could understand - that’s a compression format that saves a lot of space compared to zip, but it isn’t :(.
[/quote]
AFAIK almost every program can open tar.gz, but of course I can’t say this for sure. I’d prefer bz2, too. Maybe some Windows users can comment, if this format causes problems.

[quote]5. Which then waffles on about “your Java Library Directory” and “the Native Library Directory”. Now, even as a professional java developer I’m not comfortable with those terms, so what are newbie developers chances of coping with this? At least I know where I can lookup what they mean (assuming these are the names that sun gives to the special directories in the JRE install) and I accept they are something I ought to know, but the thing is I use the terms so rarely I’ve forgotten by the time I next need them :).
[/quote]
The tutorial tries to explain these terms and doesn’t assume the reader to already be familiar with them. If you can come up with better explanations, you are welcome.

[quote]6. So I download all the “third party” files. But…the instructions say nothing about whether I need to maintain the hierarchies of sub-directories, or whether I can (or should or even must) flatten them to just one dir.
[/quote]
The tutorial says they have to be copied in the appropriate directories.

#6

[quote]PS Am I being really stupid, or shouldn’t you just be offering the xith3d.jar side-by-side with the tar?

Now that I’ve expanded it, it looks like if I’m “installing Xith3D” I only need that one JAR, in which case 50% of my difficulties above were totally unnecessary - I should have just been able to grab that particular JAR ???
[/quote]
Yes, that’s a problem. I think the install guide should be more clear about what files need to be downloaded. For instance it could tell the user to download only the latest build and copy the files from there. Currently it’s confusing for the user. What do you think Will?

#7

Btw. Adam, xith.org has recently moved to a new design and uses a Wiki (thanks Will), so everyone with the appropriate rights can edit content. If you like you can help out. It’s possible that some things don’t work correctly after the transition, although most of it should be OK.

#8

Understood, and I appreciate quit how big a difference it can make to have this info prominent at the start; but IMHO it’s a slightly bigger problem that people impatiently skip text paras hoping for an easy install and then don’t even manage to install at all.

My suggestion of putting the explanations 2nd on the page, with the “idiot instructions” first is just a copy of an idea that I’ve seen used very frequently elsewhere. I’ve recently noticed increasing numbers of open-source projects doing it too, which perhaps suggests that they’ve found it reduces the number of “idiot” questions they have to field?

Clarification: as a user (or pretending to be a developer experimenting for the first time) I expect “install” NOT to be an item of documentation but instead a primary-level link on the main navbar. The only alternative I expect is that there is just a single file (or two or three) to download, and NO fancy manual work needed (i.e. it’s all automated) in which case a “downloads” page is all that is necessary - because the install has become self-evident / obvious / automatic.

but…

…that probably will be 99% effective in solving the location problem I was having :).

Well, now this is what I thought too - I was sure winzip opened TAR’s, but it resolutely refused to just now :(. I’m now wondering whether it’s something like only the latest versions of WZ support this…?

#9

Hi,

As xith.org is my creation I shall try to explain my reasoning. Perhaps it isn’t as complete as it could be - I’ve got a full time job too + many hobby projects of which this is just one. The near-total lack of help from the community with the website despite numerous requests doesn’t help either (however I do appreciate the help of those who did step up).

Here’s how I view the typical developer’s experiance which was obviously not your experiance:

  1. Hears about Xith3D - checks out the web site
  2. Screen shots look cool (actually we do need some more…) wants to run the program.
  3. Clicks on “Demos” expecting a demo - already has Java installed so JWS works great.
  4. Demo’s are impressive - wants to try it out
  5. Downloads a community build and reads the installation documentation
  6. Downloads the Getting Started Guide and compiles/runs first Xith3D application

In your critisism, you seem to get stuck on the whole ‘user’ issue. I’m not sure an installer is worth the effort - each person here probably has Xith3D installed in a different way (i.e. location of the various libraries). End users (those people who run xith3d-using projects) will never install xith3d directly as it currently stands. Perhaps this may change in the future - but currently it is not the case. If someone provides you with a xith3d app - they provide you with the lot (for example though Java Web Start).

Perhaps we need more linkage on the sites - I understand some of your confusion, but I think you have misunderstood what our goals here are.

I’ll say it again - xith.org is aimed at developers. How your end-users access your product is not our problem (and xith.org doesn’t have the bandwidth to support this either…). This is why it’s “middleware”.

Your question about xith3d.jar has the same answer. We are not distributing the binary - that is for you as a vendor of an application which uses Xith3D to do. Most developers need the source (due to current lack of javadocs) so its there. xith3d.jar is included precompiled to save some time.

I’m surprised to hear so much trouble with .tar.gz. Winzip handles them fine according to my tests. I get a dialog box saying something like “this archive contains another archive - would you like to open it”. Again - I really didn’t think developers would have problems with this. Would I offer [only] .tar.gz’s to end-users of my applications? No. As for bzip2 - it’s far superior, but far less compatable with the programs out there which is exactly why we’re not using it. Does anyone else complain about .tar.gz?

As for the third-party libraries? I’m not going to bundle them in with every version. xith.org currently has every single version of xith3d ever released, this would not be possible if the size was five times what it is now.

So the only person who is going to download xith3d is the developer who intends to use it. I even added this line a few weeks ago to the installation page to save people the trouble if there just wanted to run a demo: ``Note that you can test Xith3D without installing it by running one of the Java Web Startable Demos’’

Perhaps the web site does not meet these goals and needs tweaking - this I have no issues with and am happy to grant whoever asks permissions to do so. However you seem to question the goals of the site - this is where I disagree. One thing I’ve found is that everyone is quick to complain but silent when I ask for help.

blar^3 - thank you for your feedback. Without such feedback there’s no way we can improve (and it is probably this lack of feedback which is why you had troubles in the first place).

Lets move forward and review the current goals of the site, then fix areas which are lacking.

Regards,

Will.

#10

[quote] 4. OK, so that got me nowhere. Try again, this time look for docs. Aha! Found an install tutorial.

  1. Which then waffles on about “your Java Library Directory” and “the Native Library Directory”. Now, even as a professional java developer I’m not comfortable with those terms, so what are newbie developers chances of coping with this? At least I know where I can lookup what they mean (assuming these are the names that sun gives to the special directories in the JRE install) and I accept they are something I ought to know, but the thing is I use the terms so rarely I’ve forgotten by the time I next need them .
    [/quote]
    I understand you now know I defined these terms - but I am interested, what would you call them? I twisted myself up in knots doing the tutorial at first, so I decided just to define two terms and use them throughout…

Will.

#11

Thanks :slight_smile:

Perhaps we need to also have a paragraph right at the top trying with a few words about the tutorial, and the JWS demos.

I’d be happy to include a text version in the build too - i.e. INSTALLING.TXT

And maybe remove the third-party individual downloads altogether? They are there in case someone needs to update say JOGL and doesn’t want the whole lot. But I guess there’s nothing stopping them just going to the JOGL page and getting them (although IMHO downloading jogl ain’t self explanitory either :P)

Will.

#12

[quote]Hi,
Here’s how I view the typical developer’s experiance which was obviously not your experiance:
[/quote]
OK, that’s a good starting point. I understand your cited use-case. I would label that the “developer who has used a lot of open-source software” use-case. They tend to expect “source-only” distributions and to have to do arbitrary amounts of setup themselves (from which viewpoint, Xith is actually unusually easy to install!).

However, here’s another use-case: “developer who’s never used open-source API’s, probably they are relatively new to Java programming”. They are typically aged 15-24, usually windows users. If they’ve never used OS API’s, then Java is probably their first “modern” OO language (they often will have already done some VB and/or Pascal and/or Perl etc). They expect things to install “without having to think about it”, and if the install fails, they assume this is “another one of those crappy pieces of software that just doesn’t work” and to spare their sanity (and their hair!) they are likely to give up easily if it gets hard.

  1. Single-click download + install
  2. Try and get a “hello-world” equivalent running in 15 minutes.
  3. If 2 succeeds, start digging deeper into this lib/api. If 2 fails, many devs give up and go looking for something that “actually works” (NB: IME as often as not it’s the developer’s mistake that made it “not work”, but…so much software works so badly that many people have the assumption “if I try 3 times and it don’t work, it’s probably broken”…this is a bit of a survival instinct: if you have ever tried to use a shoddy API you’ll understand how many years of your life expectancy they can burn up in just one day! So, people give up too easily. Sad, but true :frowning: ).

But when I made my attempt on the Xith install, I was actually following a completely different use-case, the “Developer trying to install his game on someone else’s computer”. This comes up in several different scenarios:

A. Developer wants to show a friend / family / etc his “cool game” that he’s not finished writing yet, so there’s no installer yet.
B. Developer intends to submit his “cool game” to be judged in some way - either by a publisher, or in some kind of competition (e.g. the Sun one). In order to do this, he has to keep doing exhaustive checks that it will work ON EVERY kind of machine, and has to have a “back up plan” in case the installer breaks, and he gets an email “Tell us how to install this manually within the next half hour or we won’t bother looking at it at all”.
C. Dev doesn’t know how to use JNLP/JWS (how sad :() and is trying to create their own installer OR is creating an “install guide” (just like on Xith.org) for their game (perhaps they don’t have time to write their own installer?). For obvious reasons, they want minimal download possible, and maximum simplicity. They may want the user to download 3rd party libs directly from respective websites. So…they want a one-click download wherever possible.

I would say that steps 5 and 6 are potentially a big disappointment to people following this list (unless it’s what they’re used to).

It’s all about expectations: in step 3 the developer has this wonderful experience: “I want to see it in action…(two clicks, no manual intervention, and a short download later)…Ah! Cool”. Whereas a short while later in step 5, they have: “I want to try it out myself…(many clicks, quite a lot of reading, lots of downloads, some manual decompression)…”.

So, you build them up with this idiot-proof demo to expect very short delay between wanting to do something and it happening (and no user intervention required) then give them a document to read and lots to do themselves. NB: The document is definitely good going by the “standard” of other libs I’ve used.

I was thinking of BOTH users AND developers at the same time (hope my use-case above makes this a little clearer). Here’s an actual example of when a “user” needs to install Xith: e.g. I email a developer friend of mine with a recent build of my game and say “check this out, let me know what you think. It’s a pre-alpha, but you should get the general idea”.

Said friend has the experience of a developer, but probably has never used Xith before (although he may well have heard of it, if he’s a java games programmer). So, in many ways, he’s just like a user in terms of what he knows and has installed (although you credit him with a bit more experience in dealing with install problems).

At the moment, the complexity of installation (which is already better than average, from my experience) is sufficient to help scare people away from using that precious bandwidth :), but I’m not sure it’s good in the long run :). I am painfully aware of what a problem bandwidth is for free projects, but perhaps there’s something you could do to ameliorate this, perhaps put a “recent” xith3d.jar on java.net a little more often than you release alphas (although not necessarily for EVERY build that goes on the xith.org website)? Then encourage people to download that if they just want “a recent binary” and don’t necessarily need the latest version? Just a thought (and I appreciate that interoperation with java.net can be tricky :().

I’m assuming that a single game will have a couple of people who need the source and many people (other coders on the team, testers, friends, etc) who just need the binaries. So, packaging them separately could in itself save bandwidth?

What about a small project with e.g. 4 developers: only one is probably actually writing 3D rendering code that directly uses Xith. The other 3 are doing AI, menus, tools, game-code etc (actually, you’d hope one isn’t a programmer at all and is an artist :)).

But…it’s quite usual for small teams like this to distribute source to each other. So, you have 3 or 4 people compiling against Xith, only one of whom actually knows anything about the API (the others just need it there so that the 3D-guy’s code compiles OK).

Howabout three archives (If I understand correctly how it all fits together?):

  • the “stuff that changes on most builds” (basically xith3d.jar)
  • “stuff that rarely changes” (i.e. all the 3rd party libs).
  • “stuff that rarely changes but is platform-specific” (i.e. three versions, one for each platform, containing the native code)

The second and third ones the downloader would have to decompress themself (and given the problems I was having with WZ, perhaps it would be a good idea to offer these both as targz and as zip).

Just thoughts…

#13

I made some modifications to the install tute: http://www.xith.org/tiki-index.php?page=Installing

I splitted it into “Short Instructions” and “Detailed Instructions”, so there is now a short overview at the beginning. I also made minor modifications of the first paragraph in the section “Installing Xith3D”, so the user is not confused anymore by the two different download possibilities for the third-party libraries. As another modification I also added a symlink http://www.xith.org/download/builds/latest/, which is handy (needs to be updated for every new build).

The Wiki allows to go back in history, if the modifications are not welcome (especially since I forgot to ask Will for permission to change his tute before saving it). I hope this solves the mentioned problems or at least some of them.

#14

[quote]I made some modifications to the install tute: http://www.xith.org/tiki-index.php?page=Installing
[/quote]
IMHO that part is now very easy and clear, even for fools like me :).

One minor tweak - perhaps add a link in step three which jumps to an anchor on the section “Discovering the correct paths”, using link-text:


see "Discovering the correct paths" for details on where these directories are for your OS
#15

Blah, why would a “normal user” want to install Xith? It’s a 3d API for programmers. :slight_smile: Programmers are expected to read the important part of the docus. :slight_smile:

Users will want to download applications using Xith, and these apps bundle Xith anyway: either as Webstart or as a JAR package containing the xith.jar, vecmath.jar & jogl.jar (in case of Jogl) plus those DLLs for Jogl…

Well, don’t get me wrong: making the docu clearer and easier to understand is a good idea (I’m not restricting this to Xith), but I think “installing” Xith has already been pretty straightforward: basically it’s just one JAR, which needs another Vecmath.jar and and of course an OpenGL binding: however “installing” Jogl (for example) is another task and beyond the scope of Xith. (I still think it’s OK that the Xith docus show how to use Jogl, for example.)

PS: Of course I appreciated it a lot when the J2SE would include JOGL one day, so that there’s no need to install Jogl jars and dll’s/so’s/etc ! Then, it will be even easier to use Xith and other OpenGL featured apps…

#16

Jens,

thanks for the changes, they are good.

I added a line about the directories (I havn’t worked out how to link to anchors in Wiki yet) at blar’s request - and I changed the title to “Quick Start” - I hope that’s ok.

do you think we should say “CubeTest” instead of “YourApp”?

Will.

#17

The need for an easier Install

I’ll address your ‘end-user’ bit separately.

Fair enough. I had assumed that due to the availability of one-click demo’s, anyone reaching step 5 would be fairly motivated to do the install.

Writing a NSIS installer would not be hard for this (it’s possible to find Java’s location fairly easily). But - it’s another thing to be built and maintained. If there is sufficient demand I am happy to make this and try to maintain it (but at a lesser frequency than the .tar.gz’s and not archived).

We could have 3 distributions:

  • xith3d.jar for people who just want it
  • .tar.gz for most developers
  • .exe for first time windows developers

only the .tar.gz would be archived.

ok - lets try make a .exe :stuck_out_tongue:

Bandwidth isn’t a huge worry - also maintainability of the archives is important. If bandwidth becomes an issue - hosting the “hot” files on java.net is of course quite possible.

I disagree that this is the role of xith.org. The developer of this team would be the one pushing the xith3d.jar’s out to the other team members. You don’t want your artist updating xith3d.jar when the developer hasn’t upgraded his code to work with the lastest version for example .

ok - I see jens has also created a “latestbuild” directory. We’ll put the latest .exe, .jar and .tar.gz there.

Will.

#18

[quote]Blah, why would a “normal user” want to install Xith? It’s a 3d API for programmers. :slight_smile: Programmers are expected to read the important part of the docus. :slight_smile:

Users will want to download applications using Xith, and these apps bundle Xith anyway: either as Webstart or as a JAR package containing the xith.jar, vecmath.jar & jogl.jar (in case of Jogl) plus those DLLs for Jogl…

[/quote] I agree with bombadils statement.

Xith3D is currently not like Java3D, Java or every other “runtime” out there. Who knows what it will be in the future- but for now, it is more like a static library (thinking in C). You currently have to distribute the xith3d code with your application.

While a .exe installer may solve the “new windows developer” syndrome it doesn’t really solve this.

I can only see this changing if and when Xith3D stabalises.

Personally I find JWS without a doubt the best way to test and distribute alphas.

It’s easy to setup (i’ve made a tutorial on it). Spending 1 hour setting up some automated JWS stuff saves a LOT of time down the track. Signing jars can easily be done automatically with a shell script (ask me for mine if you like). Copying .jar’s to your local webserver is also easy. Test on your local server - if someone wants an alpha - uploaded it for them.

Personally I think for any distribution of your program - alpha or otherwise it should “just work”. Be that with JWS or just unzipping. Remember that you don’t have to do anything with java paths if you don’t want and it’s better that your users don’t (as it may cause you headaches down the track when they have 10 versions of JOGL installed). Personally if I wasn’t using JWS - I’d just create a big batch file listing every java and native library on the command line. Putting .jar’s into the /ext is a conveniance that many developers would like - but it can cause more problems then it’s worth if your users are inexperianced and since they really don’t need them there anyway it’s pointless.

To summerise - if Xith3d moves into a user orientated distrubtion then xith.org will have packages to reflect this change. Until it does, I really do not see the need. I’m not stopping anyone else doing it but - in fact I’d happily give them some space on xith.org to do it. It’s just not something I feel xith3d currently needs.

Will.

#19

[quote]do you think we should say “CubeTest” instead of “YourApp”?
[/quote]
OK, done.

#20

[quote]Xith3D is currently not like Java3D, Java or every other “runtime” out there. Who knows what it will be in the future- but for now, it is more like a static library (thinking in C). You currently have to distribute the xith3d code with your application.
[/quote]
At that will be the case for quite some time until there are stable releases. Even with stable releases it could still be better to distribute the libs with your medium sized and large games, because this avoids a lot of problems and doesn’t add a lot of size.

[quote]Personally I think for any distribution of your program - alpha or otherwise it should “just work”. Be that with JWS or just unzipping. Remember that you don’t have to do anything with java paths if you don’t want and it’s better that your users don’t (as it may cause you headaches down the track when they have 10 versions of JOGL installed). Personally if I wasn’t using JWS - I’d just create a big batch file listing every java and native library on the command line. Putting .jar’s into the /ext is a conveniance that many developers would like - but it can cause more problems then it’s worth if your users are inexperianced and since they really don’t need them there anyway it’s pointless.
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That’s the right way to do it. If you distribute a game I strongly suggest not to copy libraries directly to an existing Java installation. That’s just a way to make it easier for developers.

All in all I’m not sure, if we should make it more complex, than it is now. This depends on how many people would actually prefer a windows installer and a seperate xith3d.jar.