Ableton Forum

If there's one thing Ableton has learned it's that electronic musicians hate a simple integrated interface to complexity, and providing control over their product. Users hate that.

Instead the Ableton users prefer a nice 'no-option' solution that requires a visit to the weird, baffling and disjointed website while armed with a pen and paper ready to note down some cryptic numbers. It's fun - like a quiz! What else were you going to do on your weekend off?

Everybody knows that updating and installing software
#1 "only happens once" (*direct ableton quote) , and
#2 is best handled without any kind of automated version control (* a nearly direct ableton quote)

Wheee...

Sadly I failed the quiz, because I have not figured out which of my packs are up to date. I did start a text file filled with a big list of my pack numbers correlated to their server pack numbers, but after a few hours of digging into XML files and downloading gigs of stuff I belatedly discovered I already had... I just gave up and went back to Live 8.

Then you will have everyone complaning why they have to download and install all packs instead of choosing which ones they want.

See my image on the previous page.

My suggestion is that the preferences screen should show: what packs and instruments you own, whether they are installed, a download/install/update button for each, an "update all" button, an auto-update toggle.

That way the user can : see what they own, see if there is an updated version, update and install what they want, all from a central location within the application on he machine it is installed upon.

I believe this is preferable to having to visit a website and trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

I'd buy that for a dollar!

Angstrom wrote:said it before, and I'll say it again.



Proposed functionality : preferences tells user which packs are update-able, and which products are licensed

Oh yes to this.

Angstrom, please put this in Feature requests?

Angstrom wrote:See my image on the previous page.

My suggestion is that the preferences screen should show: what packs and instruments you own, whether they are installed, a download/install/update button for each, an "update all" button, an auto-update toggle.

That way the user can : see what they own, see if there is an updated version, update and install what they want, all from a central location within the application on he machine it is installed upon.

I believe this is preferable to having to visit a website and trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

Yes. There is another thread that has the list of the packs but we shouldn't have to do that. As you explained, live should know and update accordingly.

Evengy wrote:

102455 wrote:Surely it's not such a big step for Ableton to enable automatic updates for packs as well as the main prog?

....and preferably download just the bits that have changed, rather than the whole lot over again.

i suggested this in the live 9 beta forum but never heard anything about it

Dude, we didn't hear hardly ANYTHING when we were beta testing!

This is why I have a love affair with boxes. Seems to me that when I bought 8 (boxed), everything went as planned. It wasn't until all this downloading of packs and so on that I started having minor issues. I'm up to date now but it's a real hassle.

ark wrote:You can select all of them at once and drag them all on top of the Live window. That will install all of them in a single action.

Now how long would THAT take! I just had to go through this with the 9.05 update reinstalling my packs and it took all day. I don't know that I trust live to install all of them and just run that for hours and hours on end.

Angstrom wrote:said it before, and I'll say it again.

Current situation : L9 removes all information available in L8. Provides no new, or replacement functionality.


Proposed functionality : preferences tells user which packs are update-able, and which products are licensed

I've just dug out this post as having to install live again, and wow you really nailed it with that mockup. Have they fixed this yet?!?!?

+1 what Angstrom wrote about version numbers.
IMO it should be easy to check which versions you have installed AND Ableton website should show which version is the latest.
How else can people know what to download???

+1 ALSO.

Like with the Native Instruments Komplete and their Service Centre. You can instantly see what is installed, what is missing and what is new to release. I am still confused with what I have installed and what is a pack Vs Live 8 content.

On the plus side when randomly digging in here and there with Push I am finding all kinds of junk I didn't know I had paid for.

None of this is worth it when you actually listen to them....

Well, somebody got it right.

+1 @Angstrom!!

and a little i box next to every "update" button that will tell (mouse over popup?) whats new.