timppu: I fail to see how including
a Galaxy installer stub into every GOG offline installer would have ensured that offline installers never fell behind in versions compared to Galaxy-installed versions.
etc ...........................
Timboli: You misread what I wrote.
I specified one download for all. Not a separate Offline Installer and a Galaxy Online Installer.
And Galaxy would not be inside that installer, it would be a user query to download (if desired) when executing the installer ... much like how the placebo (shell) Galaxy Online Installer does now (though not via a query).
The installer would be the same as current OfflIne Installers, but have optional executed Galaxy elements, so 99% the same as is now.
In that case I didn't misread anything because that is exactly what I meant as well. By a "stub", I meant exactly what you proposed, that Galaxy installer (stub) would download the actual Galaxy client install files online (that is also what I suggested to GOG as a remedy, back when they just added the whole Galaxy client installer to each and every GOG offline game installer; just in order to reduce their size; and that is what the Steam installer is like, it doesn't contain all the files needed for a Steam client installer, but it is a stub that goes online to download the recent Steam installer files, and installs that).
However, how GOG eventually fixed it, ie. by removing the Galaxy installer (full or stub) from the offline game installers altogether, and instead adding a separate link to download the Galaxy client installer for those who want it, is the best solution IMHO.
Timboli: If GOG do that right, it would mean less work for them overall, especially if they make it modular, and the installer would remain up-to-date always.
I still fail to see how adding the option to install the Galaxy client within the offline game installers would benefit anyone, and ensure the parity between Galaxy-installed games and the offline installers. It didn't back when GOG added the Galaxy client installer to the offline game installers, so why would it do that this time either?
It appears the generation of the current offline installers is already automated if the gog developer pages are to be believed, so in that sense they should be in parity with the Galaxy-versions of games. However apparently that automated system was somehow broken recently (which caused there to be almost no updates to offline installer in past two weeks or so), but anyways...
However, if GOG wanted the "non-Galaxy" versions of their games to be in total and near-instant parity with the Galaxy-versions of games, then the most straightforward and simplest way might be that GOG abolishes the current (innosetup based?) GOG offline installers, and instead the "offline versions" that you can download either with the Galaxy client itself (with its backup function) or hopefully also your web browser, would be just some kind of compressed zip file of the Galaxy-installed version of the game, and some additional script the user needs to run if there are some dependencies and registry entries that must be created for the game (it could be that script is always run automatically when you run the game itself, to check if everything is in order). Maybe there should be another script too to uninstall the game, without Galaxy... (so that all those registry entries etc. are removed).
Timboli: What the Galaxy Online Installer installs to your PC now (Galaxy Update excepted), is roughly 99% the same as what the Offline Installer installs to your PC.
What exactly do you mean by the current "Galaxy Online Installer"? Do you mean that big blue "Download and install now" button in each and every GOG download page for each game? That is definitely not "99% the same" as the current game installers, because that installer behind the blue button has only the Galaxy client installer, which in turn will then download and install the actual game files separately. It is 100% different from the offline installers as it doesn't contain any of the actual game files.
Timboli: So it makes sense to combine them, leaving Galaxy itself out of it, having that as it is now, an online download if desired, by user response to a query. If you are offline, you don't even get that query, it just skips the Galaxy elements and installs the offline elements only, especially if you don't have Galaxy installed.
If GOG are only updating one installer file, and there is no other, it stands to reason it will be up-to-date.
So are you still suggesting that each and every GOG game installer should also have Galaxy installer
stub within them? And on top of that there would also be a separate Galaxy client installer so that you can install the Galaxy client without having to download any actual game installer first?
Sorry, I still fail to see what would be the benefit of that, and how exactly that would ensure that the game installers (that you can download from the gog.com web page without the Galaxy client) would be up to date compared to the versions of the game you download and install through the Galaxy client. I don't see the logic in that.
I think you are misunderstanding something about what those different installers actually contain, and how they currently work.