Detect reStyle and help set it up

[Madis0]

I have made a tutorial on setting up reStyle and I'm thinking NativeExt should do more to detect it's presence and help get it set up. Excerpt from tutorial:

• From the NativeExt options page that opened, click download.
• Double-click the file you downloaded. You should see a confirmation message.
• Go back to NativeExt options and click Apply under External extensions. You should see a notification titled "Done".

Instead of what I described, NativeExt could say something like

We detected that you have reStyle installed! To continue setting it up, please download this file and open it.

(User downloads and opens it. NativeExt applies "External extensions".)

Thank you, NativeExt is now set up. Please return to reStyle to finish setup. Close

(User closes the tab.)

[NiklasGollenstede]

Well, NativeExt is (statically) not aware of reStyle or any other extension that uses it, for that matter. It's a service provider and thus doesn't know it's clients before they contact it.

Technically the only installation steps that are actually necessary is the installation of boot the extension and the application (in either order) and the click on the Request Permission button (and then granting access). reStyle's setup page could thus just hardlink to the executable and the xpi and display the Request Permission button. There are a couple of things that could go wrong that way:

• reStyle would need to know the latest versions of the application and the extension, or use a redirect service (mental note: the application installer should quit if a higher version is already installed, instead of replacing it)
• the NativeExt extensions automatic profile detection can fail (e.g. it will unless I adjust it for the new storage backend of Firefox before that gets released (FF64?) or the profile is not in the default location)
• if the user installs the extension first, that will try to "Apply" on installation, fail, and prompt for manual setup

Bottom line it might still be a good idea to change reStyles (and thereby the recommended) setup that way. Basically that would be:

1) download and install the application (if you haven't already); clicks: download, save, open, [execute], OK 2) install the extension (if you haven't already); clicks: install, allow, add 3) Request Permission and click "Allow"; clicks: button, allow

It's still around 10 clicks (assuming automatic detection works), but I really can't think of any further optimizations.

I'll think about this together with some other UX improvements. Thanks for your input!