Installation wizard with multidimensional views

Mechanisms are provided for consistent and coherent layout for an installation wizard. The mechanisms divide the installation wizard into a plurality of actions. The mechanisms generate a graphical user interface panel for each of the plurality of actions to form a plurality of graphical user interface panels and generate at least one optional view for each graphical user interface panel. For each given action of the installation wizard, the mechanisms present a graphical user interface panel with a default view based on context of the given action and responsive to user input selecting an optional view, present the graphical user interface panel with the selected optional view.

BACKGROUND

The present application relates generally to an improved data processing apparatus and method and more specifically to mechanisms for providing consistent and coherent layout for installation wizards.

A software wizard or setup assistant is a user interface type that presents a user with a sequence of dialog boxes that lead the user through a series of well-defined steps. Tasks that are complex, infrequently performed, or unfamiliar may be easier to perform using a wizard. In contrast, an expert system guides a user through a series of questions to solve a problem.

SUMMARY

In one illustrative embodiment, a method, in a data processing system, is provided for consistent and coherent layout for an installation wizard. The method comprises dividing the installation wizard into a plurality of actions. The method comprises generating a graphical user interface panel for each of the plurality of actions to form a plurality of graphical user interface panels and generating at least one optional view for each graphical user interface panel. The method further comprises, for each given action of the installation wizard, presenting a graphical user interface panel with a default view based on context of the given action and responsive to user input selecting an optional view, presenting the graphical user interface panel with the selected optional view.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The illustrative embodiments provide a mechanism for providing consistent and coherent layout for software wizards. While the mechanism applies primarily to installation wizards, the mechanism may also apply to upgrades, migrations, or any other process that is based on an interactive wizard.

Regardless of whether one uses computer workstations, notebooks, tablet computers, smartphones, or any other electronic device that can provide any framework for graphical installation interface, one must go through the installation process to use particular software. An installation wizard performs environment detection, interacts with other applications that can have very customized configuration applied, and performs various validations. As long as the process goes smoothly, the user is not concerned about the operation of the installation wizard. However, if the installation process fails, the user must rerun the installation wizard, dig into log files to find errors and their descriptions, open other documentation to find a solution, call a support center, or simply give up. Problems that occur during installation are often fatal and prevent a product from being installed. Those problems often originate from misconfiguration of customer environment or other issues not related to installation wizard code.

Installation problems may result in the user requesting assistance form the product vendor. The user may expect all obstacles to be removed very quickly, perhaps according to a signed agreement. Thus, the vendor's support team may require considerable effort to solve the problem even if the reason of the failure is logged correctly and in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, many customers, especially those who are not experienced with the particular application or set of interacting applications, find it difficult to extract the correct error log information for the vendor's support team. This may happen because there are many logs in different places related to different applications that interact between each other. The amount of information to be searched may be quite large. Inside the logged information, there may be irrelevant information about errors that are follow-up problems and not the root cause or there may be more than independent problem, which may obfuscate the overall understanding of the failure. Generally, there is a lack of action-result connection in the logs. Even if the customer finds relevant information in the log, the information does not necessarily explain the circumstances in which the error occurred. These problems result in many issues being opened unnecessarily, because the customer may have easily solved the problem by running a simple command, such as turning on the database management system, for example.

One known solution to this problem is to simplify the installation wizard. A so-called one-click installation will install the software after a single click. This approach does not allow a user to correct any erroneous data during the installation process. This approach also does not give any possibilities for customization. Using this approach, in case of failure, the user only knows the installation failed.

Some installation wizards provide a quick installation, which installs the software after showing just a couple of panels questioning about the most relevant information. This approach allows a user to customize the product in a very limited way; however, in case of error, the user knows very little about the failure.

Another known solution is to complicate the installation wizard. With a full installation, the wizard installs the software after a lot of panels overfilled with options, questions, information, and description. This approach allows a user to fully customize the software; however, one may find such a full installation approach to be irritating when the same user must perform repeated installations on multiple systems. Also, for most users, the level of detail is too high. Still, when the installation fails, the user is shown some error on the panel. The more components being used by the installed software (e.g., database management system, application server, users and their roles repository, etc.), the more difficult it is to find the real cause for an error.

Another approach is to provide an installation wizard with some monitoring tools. This approach allows the user to open some lightweight monitoring tool written for a particular installation process that is able to monitor the installation, and as soon as any problem occurs, advise the solution. Usually, there is more than one tool to be run if the installation is based on many components.

In accordance with an illustrative embodiment, a mechanism is provided to build an installation wizard in such a way that a user with a given level of general knowledge related to the software may successfully install the given product even though some problems occur during the installation process. The wizard provides the necessary information in such a way that applying the information depends on common knowledge of the user instead of the installation process restriction.

A goal of the illustrative embodiment is to reduce the number of incoming issues to the vendor's support team caused by problems during installation. The vendor's support team may then devote more time to real problems that exist in the installation wizard code rather than misconfiguration by the customer. This is done by increasing information, usability, and maintainability of the installation wizard. The installation wizard must be clear what is expected when asking the customer for input.

The installation wizard displays detailed information about activities. In the case of multiple validation attempts, or when any step is taken by the user after problem occurrence, the history of such activities should be available. The installation wizard keeps the history of validation attempts and steps taken within the boundaries of each and every activity. When a problem occurs, the installation wizard points out exactly which atomic action related to the activity causing the problem. The installation wizard presents a short summary of the problem when it occurs and provides a possible solution if one exists. The installation wizard minimizes calls to the support team resulting from failures related to the problems in the customer's environment. The installation wizard provides information about the status of all applications with which the installer interacts. The installation wizard filters out irrelevant details. This solution is incorporated into one easy-to-use installer.

The installation wizard according to the illustrative embodiment provides the user with a very intuitive and simple to use installation control center. The control center is able to guide the user through a complicated installation process. In case of failure, the installation wizard is able to point the user exactly to the problem that occurred with all relevant information including the cause of the problem, why it occurred, what pieces of software were involved, and how the problem can be solved, if possible.

The illustrative embodiment combines user input collection, simple validation, checklists, and related actions into chunks, each chunk referred to herein as an activity. An activity is represented by one or more interaction panels, each having zero or more optional views. If interaction with the user is not necessary, a particular activity may not have any interaction at all but still may have a panel. Each activity has its own context where the user input, appropriate data, logs, executed actions, etc. are kept. In this way, regardless of the navigation within the installation wizard, the contexts of all activities are preserved and may be shown on demand, such as when a user returns to a previous panel. Thus, the installation wizard solves the problem of the large amount of information to search. Information is always reduced to just the context of a single activity. With the installation wizard of the illustrative embodiment, the installation wizard may provide a history of any activity at any time.

The solution provided in the illustrative embodiments introduces different views inside every panel of the installation wizard. Depending on the panel specification, the number of views, as well as their content, may change. A first view may inform a user about health of every component that plays a role in the installation process. A second view may provide a short summary of the problem and clickable solution if possible (e.g., start database management process). A third view may show a user the consecutive steps, such as validation or other checks that are performed in the background for a particular action in form of check lists and progress bars. A fourth view may provide details of activities, such as commands executed or the like, in a very limited scope to allow the user to narrow down the problem as much as possible and user various text formatting to make the search easier. A fifth view may show the information about the environment, etc.

Thus, each activity has a multi-dimensional panel with a number of optional vies. These views provide additional perspectives (dimensions) to the activity. The views are available at any time as a dimension matrix and visualized, such as with a toolbar with a button for each view. The user is able to switch views simply by selecting the button corresponding to the desired view. In accordance with one example embodiment, inactive or unused views or views with no information may be hidden, grayed out, or disabled for selection.

An operating system runs on processing unit206. The operating system coordinates and provides control of various components within the data processing system200inFIG. 2. As a client, the operating system may be a commercially available operating system such as Microsoft Windows 7 (Microsoft and Windows are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both). An object-oriented programming system, such as the Java programming system, may run in conjunction with the operating system and provides calls to the operating system from Java programs or applications executing on data processing system200(Java is a trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.).

As a server, data processing system200may be, for example, an IBM® eServer™ System p® computer system, running the Advanced Interactive Executive (AIX®) operating system or the LINUX operating system (IBM, eServer, System p, and AIX are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both, and LINUX is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries, or both). Data processing system200may be a symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) system including a plurality of processors in processing unit206. Alternatively, a single processor system may be employed.

The illustrative embodiments provide a mechanism for consistent and coherent layout for installation wizards. Although the embodiments are described with respect to installation wizards, the illustrative embodiments may apply to any type of interactive wizards. The mechanism divides the wizard into a plurality of actions to be performed and generates a panel for each action. Each panel may have a data view and a plurality of optional views. The optional views may include help view, checklist view, issues view, details view, and/or environment view. The user may switch between views simply by using a toolbar located within the panel. Using these views, all of the information is available for display if the user so chooses but remains hidden otherwise. The content of the toolbar may be changed dynamically between panels based on the context of the panel and the action being performed. Unused views or views with no information may be grayed out or have selection disabled.

A data view is analogous to a standard panel in a typical wizard. A data view within the illustrative embodiments presents messages to the user and/or collects user input. The wizard may switch the current view to the data panel automatically any time the user enters a new panel.

FIG. 3depicts an example of a screen of display for a main panel with help view of an installation wizard in accordance with an illustrative embodiment. Each panel, such as main view300, includes overall progress portion305, user input portion307, view toolbar302, next panel button303, previous panel button304, and cancel button306. Overall progress portion305presents the overall progress of the installation wizard. Responsive to the user selecting cancel button306, the installation wizard ends the installation. Responsive to the user selecting previous panel button304, the installation wizard proceeds to the previous panel. Responsive to the user selecting next panel button303, the installation wizard proceeds to the next panel.

View toolbar302presents the panel views that are available to be selected for the current action or panel. The options available in view toolbar302may be changed dynamically based on the context of the panel, action being performed, or progress of the action being performed. As seen inFIG. 3, several view options are grayed out indicating the views are not enabled for the given panel or action being performed. Responsive to the user selecting a view in view toolbar302, the installation wizard presents the selected view in the panel.

The main data panel is similar to the common information panel of installation wizards that guides the user through the installation process by asking for required data and showing the consecutive actions. Main view300has quick help to explain the current state.

In the depicted example, main view300includes help information portion301. The help information portion301may be a scrollable text area containing help text for the panel. Thus, in the example shown inFIG. 3, the help view is integrated within the main data panel, which includes an input control307for the user to specify an installation parameter.

In an alternative embodiment, a separate help view may provide useful information regarding the activity of the main data panel. A help view may explain in detail what is going on with the installation process during the current action. Additionally, in the case of some longer or more complicated actions, the help view may refer to learning materials for presentations including interactive educational materials such as quizzes, tutorials, presentations, etc.

FIG. 4depicts an example of a screen of display for a checklist view of an installation wizard in accordance with an illustrative embodiment. Checklist view400comprises checklist item portion401and progress bar403. Each item listed in checklist item portion401represents an atomic action and its property, which is derived from a user input field. In the depicted example, panel “DB2selection” consists of a single user input field for a DB2instance path and seven validation items: DB2version, DB2port, state of database manager, DB2instance, default store location for the DB2instance, result of command “drop node verify,” and current user permissions to create a database in the DB2instance. As seen inFIG. 4, the validation items include items that are validated and items that are not validated. Progress bar403shows the progress of the current action.

As seen inFIG. 4, view toolbar402has four view options enabled.

FIG. 5depicts an example of a screen of display for an issues view of an installation wizard in accordance with an illustrative embodiment. Issues view500includes an issues information portion501, which contains a short summary of errors and warnings coming from the validation of user input as well as cross-validation that is performed behind the scenes and any other installation steps. The issues information portion501is reset every time a user input is changed. In case of validation failure, the wizard may switch to issues view500automatically and provide information about the error with appropriate explanations, steps to take to correct the current state, default inputs, available inputs, etc.

As an example, consider the situation where the user wants to install a database on an existing database management system (DBMS) but the DBMS is stopped. The user runs the database installation action within the installation wizard, and the installation wizard automatically moves to the issues view500showing the information, “DBMS is stopped. Click the following link to start it: START.” This view presents a short summary of the issue when it occurs and provides a possible solution.

FIG. 6depicts an example of a screen of display for a details view of an installation wizard in accordance with an illustrative embodiment. Details panel600includes details information portion601, which details wizard activities. Details information portion601may provide different text formatting and colors for various kinds of messages, such as information, warning, error, standard output, error output, or structured query language (SQL) query.

Details panel600also may include a history of actions performed by the installation wizard in the background. In particular, details panel600may show details about external commands being run (command, return code, standard output, standard error output), SQL queries being executed (query text, number of rows returned, etc.), opening/closing Java™ database connectivity (JDBC) connections. Details are not reset between validations, although the start of the validation is clearly marked with a time stamp, and contain only entries related to the given panel. Therefore, the user may consider the details panel600as a panel history.

Details panel600may be integrated with logs. Thus, every entry added to the details log may also appear in translated logs. Additionally, details panel600may provide copy/paste functionality to enhance interaction between the customer and the installed software support.

The details view displays details of wizard activities triggered by the user or by the installer itself together with the effect of them across the whole environment. The details view may present the information created in different places, such as console output, logs, memory, etc., as well as different locations, which may be appropriate for the applications the installation wizard interacts with, for example.

To increase usability for this important view, the installation wizard may provide different functions, such as text formatting or different colors for various kinds of messages. For example, information by be displayed in blue, warnings may be displayed in bold orange, errors may be displayed in bold red, standard output may be displayed in black, error output may be displayed in red, and queries may be displayed in green.

An environment view (not shown) may be provided. The environment view depends on the aspects related to the environment where the installation wizard runs. The environment view may describe the operating system with its settings, a browser that supports the installation wizard with its job, or a distributed environment configuration where the product is being installed. Monitoring those aspects inside the installation process reduces problems raised by customers related to such things as lack of memory, unsupported operating system, disconnected machine, etc.

FIG. 7depicts an example of a screen of display for an application view of an installation wizard in accordance with an illustrative embodiment. The content of the environment view, as well as dialog window700, which is triggered by the view, depends fully on panel content. That is, dialog window700depends on what is considered as the environment relevant to the user input being collected on a particular panel. Dialog window700may present operating system details or any data related to a particular component (e.g., details of Tivoli® Integrated Portal application container on which the product is being installed).

While the illustrative embodiments described herein show various views of the installation wizard, the invention should not be limited to these views. An installation wizard in accordance with the illustrative embodiments may include more or fewer views. Additional views may be added using the open architecture of the illustrative embodiments.

Moreover, by using a filtering mechanism on all panels, particularly in the details view, the installation wizard of the illustrative embodiments shows only data appropriate for the current action. For example, if one view consists of logs related to database management system (DBMS) and part of the installation process is creating a database on such DBMS, the details view may show only logs related to database creation, filtering out all other logs produced by the DBMS. Using this solution solves the problem of irrelevant information inside the logs that may be misleading to the user. Any unrelated errors may be ignored.

FIG. 8is a flowchart illustrating operation of a mechanism for consistent and coherent layout for an installation wizard in accordance with an illustrative embodiment. Operation begins in block800, and the mechanism divides the wizard into a plurality of actions (block801). The mechanism generates a panel for each action (block802) and generates optional views for each panel in the installation wizard (block803). The optional views may include at least one of a help view, checklist view, issues view, a details view, and an environment view.

The mechanism proceeds to the next panel of the wizard, which at this point is the first panel (block804). The mechanism then presents the panel with a default view (block805). The default view may be a standard data view, for example, although the default view may vary depending on the context of the installation wizard and the current panel.

The mechanism determines whether the user selects to switch the view of the panel (block806). If the user selects to switch the view, the mechanism switches the view in the current panel of the wizard (block807). Thereafter, or if the user does not select to switch the view in block806, the mechanism determines whether the user selects to proceed to the next panel (block808). If the user does not select to proceed to the next panel, the mechanism determines whether the user selects to return to the previous panel (block809). If the user does not select to return to the previous panel, operation returns to block806to determine whether the user selects to switch views.

If the user does select to return to the previous panel in block809, the mechanism proceeds to the previous panel of the wizard (block810). Then, operation returns to block805to present the panel with a default view.

Returning to block808, if the user does select to proceed to the next panel, the mechanism switches to checklist view, if available (block811) and performs validation (block812). The mechanism determines whether validation is successful (block813). If validation is not successful, the mechanism switches to issues view, if available (block814), and operation returns to block808to determine whether the user selects to proceed to the next panel. If validation is successful in block813, the mechanism determines whether the current panel is the last panel (block815). If the current panel is not the last panel, operation returns to block804to proceed to the next panel in the wizard. If the current panel is the last panel in block815, the mechanism completes the wizard (block816), and operation ends in block817.

Thus, the illustrative embodiments provide mechanisms for consistent and coherent layout for an installation wizard. The mechanisms divide the installation wizard into a plurality of actions. The mechanisms generate a graphical user interface panel for each of the plurality of actions to form a plurality of graphical user interface panels and generate at least one optional view for each graphical user interface panel. For each given action of the installation wizard, the mechanisms present a graphical user interface panel with a default view based on context of the given action and responsive to user input selecting an optional view, present the graphical user interface panel with the selected optional view.

With the illustrative embodiments, a user is able to switch between views to have deeper knowledge of what is occurring and to be able to investigate the problem, if a problem occurs, from different perspectives. The user can start or refresh any component if it requires such action. The user knows precisely which step from the check list failed. The user is able to see all of the commands that were executed one-by-one and see, when necessary, if such order may cause a problem. The user can easily monitor the logs online for any particular component, action, or installation phase.