Running P4 on Restricted access machines

[Gibson, A.P.]

An observation.

I recently had the need to run P4 on an access restricted windows machine. In order to install P4 I had to go through the pain of gaining access rights to that machine through a separate "software install" account. Having successfully run the installer I found I was still unable to launch P4.

I did some googling and found a link to the non-installer version of P4. For this I didn't even ever need install access rights and could have run it straight out of the unpacked Zip file. More than that, with the non-installer version I am able to carry a copy of P4 around on my USB stick - along with any interesting ontologies - which gives me the ability to boot up P4 on any machine whenever and whereever I like, even if that machine has no internet access or appropriate install permissions. In addition, this version of P4 feels a bit faster on loading itself and ontologies - but I have no evidence for this.

I would like to know why the non-installer version is not more obviously available through the Stanford download site. I can imagine many situations (like running a tutorial for example) where this version would be better for sharing the tool. Perhaps I would also like to know what significant advantages the installer brings at all. The one advantage that I would have thought it would bring - being able to double click on a .owl file and have it automatically open in P4 - doesnt seem to happen.

Cheers,

Dr Andrew Gibson
Universiteit van Amsterdam

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[Bijan Parsia-3]

On Jul 17, 2008, at 9:26 PM, Gibson, A.P. wrote:
[snip]

> I would like to know why the non-installer version is not more  
> obviously available through the Stanford download site. I can  
> imagine many situations (like running a tutorial for example) where  
> this version would be better for sharing the tool.
>

I couldn't agree more. I hate the installer versions and always  
pester people for the zip. A maintained webstart version would rock  
as well.
> Perhaps I would also like to know what significant advantages the  
> installer brings at all. The one advantage that I would have  
> thought it would bring - being able to double click on a .owl file  
> and have it automatically open in P4 - doesnt seem to happen.
>
Trade offs, I guess.

Cheers,
Bijan.
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[Alan Ruttenberg-2]

On Jul 17, 2008, at 4:42 PM, Bijan Parsia wrote:

Perhaps I would also like to know what significant advantages the  

installer brings at all. The one advantage that I would have  

thought it would bring - being able to double click on a .owl file  

and have it automatically open in P4 - doesnt seem to happen.

a) You don't need an installer to make the double click on OWL file thing work - at least on OS X.

b) The feature you (and others desire) is on the way. I sent sample code implementing it and Nick says it will be incorporated.

-Alan

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[Gibson, A.P.]

>> Perhaps I would also like to know what significant advantages the
>> installer brings at all. The one advantage that I would have
>> thought it would bring - being able to double click on a .owl file
>> and have it automatically open in P4 - doesnt seem to happen.

b) The feature you (and others desire) is on the way. I sent sample  
code implementing it and Nick says it will be incorporated.

Thanks Alan, much obliged.

a) You don't need an installer to make the double click on OWL file  
thing work - at least on OS X.

I didnt try too hard, but the best I could get is to double click on an OWL file which opens P4, but not the ontology I clicked on. I guess I'm still banging the rocks together with the other 83% of computer users [1] ;-)

Cheers,
Andrew

[1] http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox58-microsoft-windows-vista-global-usage-share.html





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[jvendetti]

Hello Andrew,

Gibson, A.P. wrote:

I would like to know why the non-installer version is not more obviously available through the Stanford download site. I can imagine many situations (like running a tutorial for example) where this version would be better for sharing the tool.

I'm a bit confused by this statement.  On the download page on the Protege website, the links for the platform independent installer program as well as the non-installer version (ZIP file) are displayed one right after the other:

http://protege.stanford.edu/download/registered.html#p4

How do you suggest we make this any more obvious?  Does the wording need to be changed?

Perhaps I would also like to know what significant advantages the installer brings at all.

The installer gives you the option to install a VM that is compatible with the version of Protege that you are downloading.  This is easier for non-computer geeks who may not know how to check their systems to see if the right version of Java is installed for Protege.  It is not uncommon for us to see problems reported on the mailing list that are caused by running Protege with the wrong version of Java.

Jennifer

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[jvendetti]

Bijan,

Bijan Parsia wrote:

I would like to know why the non-installer version is not more obviously available through the Stanford download site. I can imagine many situations (like running a tutorial for example) where this version would be better for sharing the tool.

    

I couldn't agree more. I hate the installer versions and always pester people for the zip. A maintained webstart version would rock as well.
  

A ZIP version has been available for quite some time now in the same location on the download page as the installer program:

http://protege.stanford.edu/download/registered.html#p4

Please advise if you have specific suggestions for making this more obvious.

Jennifer


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[Gibson, A.P.]

Hi Jennifer,
> A ZIP version has been available for quite some time now in the same
> location on the download page as the installer program:
>
> http://protege.stanford.edu/download/registered.html#p4
Oh yes! So there is - its called Protege 4 Equinox though, which is a
bit confusing.
> Please advise if you have specific suggestions for making this more
> obvious.
Sure. I guess its not clear why anyone would want to download this ZIP
file given its current text annotation and location. I guess I was
looking for "no installer", "can be run from anywhere (including
portable memory devices)". It is also not clear (before you download it)
that the ZIP version is the most current build that you would get with
the installer which has a nice comforting message about the version on it.

How about an extra line on the Windows installer page that reads
something like "If you are trying to install or run Protege 4 on a
computer to which you do not have administrative or installation rights,
you can download and unpack a ZIP file <here> from which you can run
Protege as an executable, for which you will not need administrative
rights."
> The installer gives you the option to install a VM that is compatible
> with the version of Protege that you are downloading.  This is easier
> for non-computer geeks who may not know how to check their systems to
> see if the right version of Java is installed for Protege.  It is not
> uncommon for us to see problems reported on the mailing list that are
> caused by running Protege with the wrong version of Java.
>  
Understood.  Unfortunately in my situation institutional policy seems to
be not to allow administrator rights to desktop machines, presumably
just in case some non-geeks don't know what they're doing. I imagine
there are a lot of non-geeks working on machines without administrative
rights that might want to run Protege 4 but can't because they tried the
installer and failed. I probably fall into "geek" territory and went
googling for something like "protege 4 installer problem windows
administrator" and then found an old email from Nick with the link to
the Zip in.

I guess my original problem remains - which was that when I managed to
get installation rights to my machine, I could still not get the
installer version of Protege 4 to run in  my restricted account - which
if it is a bug would be important if i wanted to distribute Protege 4 to
a cluster of machines for teaching purposes for example.

Cheers
Andrew
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[Timothy Redmond]

Unfortunately I don't have easy access to a Vista machine and so I  
can't fully check everything that I am about to say.
> An observation.
>
> I recently had the need to run P4 on an access restricted windows  
> machine. In order to install P4 I had to go through the pain of  
> gaining access rights to that machine through a separate "software  
> install" account.
>

Based on some previous experiments and my understanding of reasonable  
operating systems (hmm... vista hmm...), I don't think that you would  
need special access rights if you installed to an unrestricted  
location.  Microsoft is (correctly in my opinion) viewing the Program  
Files area as restricted as it is the location where trusted and multi-
user applications should go.

If it turns out that installing Protege to an unrestricted location  
such as the Desktop requires administrative rights then we should know  
because it seems that this is a problem with either install anywhere  
or our installation process.

> Having successfully run the installer I found I was still unable to  
> launch P4.

This is something that I explicitly remember testing on Dilvan's vista  
machine.  Installing Protege 4 to the desktop meant that double click  
worked perfectly.  Installing Protege 4 to the default Program Files  
directory led to the permission issue.

The issue is that neither Protege 3 nor Protege 4 are well behaved  
multi-user applications.  The both generate preferences, data and log  
files that they place in the application directory.  This has not been  
a problem in the past because popular operating systems (windows and  
os x) have promoted lax security practices (e.g. permissions on  
application directories).  Both operating systems are changing this so  
it is becoming more of an issue.

However, usually people don't want to use Protege as a multi-user  
tool.  Perhaps we should make the desktop or the home directory the  
new default install location.  Alternatively we could fix the issue  
but I don't currently see this as a high priority (would you disagree?).

> I did some googling and found a link to the non-installer version of  
> P4. For this I didn't even ever need install access rights and could  
> have run it straight out of the unpacked Zip file. More than that,  
> with the non-installer version I am able to carry a copy of P4  
> around on my USB stick - along with any interesting ontologies -  
> which gives me the ability to boot up P4 on any machine whenever and  
> whereever I like, even if that machine has no internet access or  
> appropriate install permissions. In addition, this version of P4  
> feels a bit faster on loading itself and ontologies - but I have no  
> evidence for this.
>

I think that this is more about the unrestricted location (the usb  
drive) than about the installation as a zip file.

-Timothy

> I would like to know why the non-installer version is not more  
> obviously available through the Stanford download site. I can  
> imagine many situations (like running a tutorial for example) where  
> this version would be better for sharing the tool. Perhaps I would  
> also like to know what significant advantages the installer brings  
> at all. The one advantage that I would have thought it would bring -  
> being able to double click on a .owl file and have it automatically  
> open in P4 - doesnt seem to happen.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Dr Andrew Gibson
> Universiteit van Amsterdam
> _______________________________________________
> p4-feedback mailing list
> p4-feedback@...
> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/p4-feedback

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[Bijan Parsia-3]

On 18 Jul 2008, at 00:33, Jennifer Vendetti wrote:

> Bijan,
>
> Bijan Parsia wrote:
>>
>>> I would like to know why the non-installer version is not more  
>>> obviously available through the Stanford download site. I can  
>>> imagine many situations (like running a tutorial for example)  
>>> where this version would be better for sharing the tool.
>> I couldn't agree more. I hate the installer versions and always  
>> pester people for the zip. A maintained webstart version would  
>> rock as well.
>
> A ZIP version has been available for quite some time now in the  
> same location on the download page as the installer program:
>
> http://protege.stanford.edu/download/registered.html#p4
>
> Please advise if you have specific suggestions for making this more  
> obvious.

I was wondering why I wasn't noticing this. Here's my usual way of  
getting to a release.

Google protege 4.

The first obviously useful hit is the CO-ODE page.

Which takes me to:
        http://protege.stanford.edu/download/prerelease-alpha/

Which, afaict, doesn't have the zip.

So, a breadcrumb back to the "download page" with "For other protege  
downloads" or the like might be helpful". Actually, I don't see why  
not have the zip right on that page. After "Other Java-enabled  
Platforms" just have 'Without installer.'

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Bijan.

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[Nick Drummond]

Right, I've updated the CO-ODE page to point to both.

Nick

On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Bijan Parsia <bparsia@...> wrote:

On 18 Jul 2008, at 00:33, Jennifer Vendetti wrote:

> Bijan,
>
> Bijan Parsia wrote:
>>
>>> I would like to know why the non-installer version is not more
>>> obviously available through the Stanford download site. I can
>>> imagine many situations (like running a tutorial for example)
>>> where this version would be better for sharing the tool.
>> I couldn't agree more. I hate the installer versions and always
>> pester people for the zip. A maintained webstart version would
>> rock as well.
>
> A ZIP version has been available for quite some time now in the
> same location on the download page as the installer program:
>
> http://protege.stanford.edu/download/registered.html#p4
>
> Please advise if you have specific suggestions for making this more
> obvious.

I was wondering why I wasn't noticing this. Here's my usual way of
getting to a release.

Google protege 4.

The first obviously useful hit is the CO-ODE page.

Which takes me to:
       http://protege.stanford.edu/download/prerelease-alpha/

Which, afaict, doesn't have the zip.

So, a breadcrumb back to the "download page" with "For other protege
downloads" or the like might be helpful". Actually, I don't see why
not have the zip right on that page. After "Other Java-enabled
Platforms" just have 'Without installer.'

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Bijan.

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[jvendetti]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for doing that.  I'm wondering though, about some feedback that
we just received from a user that the name of the ZIP file
(protege_4.0_equinox.zip) is obtuse.  I was thinking about changing the
name of the ZIP file to use the build number each time we do a build to
make it more obvious that the platform independent ZIP is being updated
along with the installer program.  This would keep breaking the link you
have on the CO-ODE page.  A couple of alternatives might be to:

1).  Have the CO-ODE page point to the higher level P4 section of the
download page on the Protege website:

http://protege.stanford.edu/download/registered.html#p4.

2).  Think of a different name for the ZIP file that is more intuitive
and not change it with every build so that the CO-ODE page doesn't break.

Any other suggestions are welcome.

Best,
Jennifer

Nick Drummond wrote:

> Right, I've updated the CO-ODE page to point to both.
>
> Nick
>
> On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Bijan Parsia <bparsia@...
> <mailto:bparsia@...>> wrote:
>
>     On 18 Jul 2008, at 00:33, Jennifer Vendetti wrote:
>
>     > Bijan,
>     >
>     > Bijan Parsia wrote:
>     >>
>     >>> I would like to know why the non-installer version is not more
>     >>> obviously available through the Stanford download site. I can
>     >>> imagine many situations (like running a tutorial for example)
>     >>> where this version would be better for sharing the tool.
>     >> I couldn't agree more. I hate the installer versions and always
>     >> pester people for the zip. A maintained webstart version would
>     >> rock as well.
>     >
>     > A ZIP version has been available for quite some time now in the
>     > same location on the download page as the installer program:
>     >
>     > http://protege.stanford.edu/download/registered.html#p4
>     >
>     > Please advise if you have specific suggestions for making this more
>     > obvious.
>
>     I was wondering why I wasn't noticing this. Here's my usual way of
>     getting to a release.
>
>     Google protege 4.
>
>     The first obviously useful hit is the CO-ODE page.
>
>     Which takes me to:
>            http://protege.stanford.edu/download/prerelease-alpha/
>
>     Which, afaict, doesn't have the zip.
>
>     So, a breadcrumb back to the "download page" with "For other protege
>     downloads" or the like might be helpful". Actually, I don't see why
>     not have the zip right on that page. After "Other Java-enabled
>     Platforms" just have 'Without installer.'
>
>     Hope this helps.
>
>     Cheers,
>     Bijan.
>
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>     p4-feedback@... <mailto:p4-feedback@...>
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>
>
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>
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[Nick Drummond]

Hi Jennifer

Yes, I agree that the build number would be much more intuitive.

I've change the CO-ODE site to point to the p4 section of the downloads page.

Cheers

Nick

On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 2:00 AM, Jennifer Vendetti <vendetti@...> wrote:

Hi Nick,

Thanks for doing that.  I'm wondering though, about some feedback that
we just received from a user that the name of the ZIP file
(protege_4.0_equinox.zip) is obtuse.  I was thinking about changing the
name of the ZIP file to use the build number each time we do a build to
make it more obvious that the platform independent ZIP is being updated
along with the installer program.  This would keep breaking the link you
have on the CO-ODE page.  A couple of alternatives might be to:

1).  Have the CO-ODE page point to the higher level P4 section of the
download page on the Protege website:

http://protege.stanford.edu/download/registered.html#p4.

2).  Think of a different name for the ZIP file that is more intuitive
and not change it with every build so that the CO-ODE page doesn't break.

Any other suggestions are welcome.

Best,
Jennifer

Nick Drummond wrote:
> Right, I've updated the CO-ODE page to point to both.
>
> Nick
>
> On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Bijan Parsia <bparsia@...

> <mailto:bparsia@...>> wrote:
>
>     On 18 Jul 2008, at 00:33, Jennifer Vendetti wrote:
>
>     > Bijan,
>     >
>     > Bijan Parsia wrote:
>     >>
>     >>> I would like to know why the non-installer version is not more
>     >>> obviously available through the Stanford download site. I can
>     >>> imagine many situations (like running a tutorial for example)
>     >>> where this version would be better for sharing the tool.
>     >> I couldn't agree more. I hate the installer versions and always
>     >> pester people for the zip. A maintained webstart version would
>     >> rock as well.
>     >
>     > A ZIP version has been available for quite some time now in the
>     > same location on the download page as the installer program:
>     >
>     > http://protege.stanford.edu/download/registered.html#p4
>     >
>     > Please advise if you have specific suggestions for making this more
>     > obvious.
>
>     I was wondering why I wasn't noticing this. Here's my usual way of
>     getting to a release.
>
>     Google protege 4.
>
>     The first obviously useful hit is the CO-ODE page.
>
>     Which takes me to:
>            http://protege.stanford.edu/download/prerelease-alpha/
>
>     Which, afaict, doesn't have the zip.
>
>     So, a breadcrumb back to the "download page" with "For other protege
>     downloads" or the like might be helpful". Actually, I don't see why
>     not have the zip right on that page. After "Other Java-enabled
>     Platforms" just have 'Without installer.'
>
>     Hope this helps.
>
>     Cheers,
>     Bijan.
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     p4-feedback mailing list

>     p4-feedback@... <mailto:p4-feedback@...>

>     https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/p4-feedback
>
>

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>
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[jvendetti]

Hi Andrew,

Andrew Gibson wrote:

Hi Jennifer,
  

A ZIP version has been available for quite some time now in the same location on the download page as the installer program:

http://protege.stanford.edu/download/registered.html#p4
    

Oh yes! So there is - its called Protege 4 Equinox though, which is a bit confusing.
  

Thanks for pointing that out.  We changed the download portion of the website so that the ZIP files are now named protege-major.minor.buildnumber.zip, e.g., protege-4.0.65.zip for the latest build that went up today.  The ZIP files are accessible from this directory:

http://protege.stanford.edu/download/protege4/zip/?C=N;O=D

... which is linked from the Protege 4 section of the download page:

http://protege.stanford.edu/download/registered.html#p4

Jennifer



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