TMS Dashboard and Smart Setup first experience

TMS TMS Smart Setup
1

Hi, I apparently now have to use TMS Smart Setup and Dashboard to install the TMS VCL UI Pack if I want to use the 64 bit compiler. I realise this is a relatively new product but I think there are a lot of things that could be streamlined to provide a better experience. Having said that once it was up and running everything did work flawlessly.

Please find my (hopefully constructive) comments below.

  1. Since we only use one product, it now means we have three things to install instead of only one (fixing some of the below points would help mitigate this).

  2. Why are there separate installers for Smart Setup and Dashboard, can't you bundle these together? Even better build it all into a single app. Having them separate creates the following problems:
    a) I need to enter my registration details separately in each of them.
    b) In the Smart Setup installer it only briefly shows the path where it is being installed, with no way of copying this. The Dashboard then asks you to enter this path in the options.

  3. The Dashboard does not actually have an installer so I need to create my own shortcut.

  4. The Dashboard shows "Detected Delphi versions" and installs things for "Delphi 12" etc, but I only have C++ Builder not Delphi. This is confusing as it is not clear that the package was really installed to C++ Builder.

  5. I see Smart Setup has a "tms self-update" command, it would be nice if this could be done from the Dashboard.

  6. Does the Dashboard update itself?

Side note: In all the version history documents it would be great if there was a release date next to each version number.

3

Thanks for the feedback. I'll pass this along to my colleague. TMS Smart Setup was released as a command-lline only tool. It meanwhile has it's own small GUI application to install with. The reason why TMS Dashboard is not automatically installing TMS Smart Setup is because up until now there was no detection mechnism to where TMS Smart Setup command line tool was deployed. It would mean that automated deployment could potentially install 2 versions of TMS Smart Setup in different locations, and each have their own sandboxed environment. This would conflict in installation behavior. Either way, we have made steps forward and are planning on integrating this in an automated setup.