Re: st: Updates to SSC

[Sergiy Radyakin <serjradyakin@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 3:30 AM, Christopher Baum <kit.baum@bc.edu> wrote:
> <>
> Per a recent interchange between Sergiy and Nick Cox, I did manage to update some packages recently on SSC. When a package is added (e.g., labellacking) it becomes immediately available via the ssc describe and install commands. It also shows up on ssc new. But the links from that command do not work until the next day, as it requires an overnight update by IDEAS in St Louis. Likewise changes do not take immediate effect for Stata's own findit or search commands--they seem to require an overnight refresh. A strong reminder: do not install packages from a web browser!! A couple of recent emails complained of problems, and in both cases it was due to not using ssc install.

Dear Kit, thank you very much for explaining the internals of how it
is organized. Note, that while nobody can "install packages from a web
browser" (simply because browsers know nothing about Stata) the use of
the RePEc SSC page remains a legitimate way of checking the package
contents (source) BEFORE actually installing the package or WITHOUT
actually installing the package, or from a system that does not have a
Stata installed (e.g. smartphone). It is also the only way to acquire
individual package files to be transferred to another system not
connected to internet (without creating a standalone package
installer, such as the one quoted here (see slide #19):
www.stata.com/meeting/dcconf09/dc09_lokshin.ppt

In any case the RePEc system should not present a broken link. And if
that is unavoidable, the announcer can imho delay the announcement by
24 hours to give a chance to all automated systems to propagate the
updates. And the message that "Windows users should not attempt to
download these files with a web browser." is something that is
unjustly strict and strictly not correct. Windows users are totally
safe downloading all those files with their web browser. They should
not expect that the file will magically install itself into Stata, but
that is also 100% true for osx and linux users. The reason was
probably because the *.hlp files were associated with the Windows Help
Viewer, and since these files are not in the proper Windows Help
format, they were reported as corrupt. At some point I wrote a program
which treated the *.hlp files correctly regardless of whether they
were Stata's help files or Windows's help files, but it is no longer
required: This issue is long gone since:

1) Windows is no longer using *.hlp files for help and it is not even
possible to open *.hlp files in Vista and later OSs by default as
described here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917607

and

2) Stata is currently using the *.sthlp extension, and these files
will simply open as any text files in your browser. However, programs
declared as compatible with Stata 9 or earlier (such as e.g.
-labellacking-, -ztnbp-) must use the *.hlp file extension (otherwise
the help file will not be available in those Statas).
More elaborate discussion of this took place in 2007 during the
release of Stata 10 and the switch to the new extension:
http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2007-06/msg00281.html   In any
case file associations can be done in any modern system, so the
statement that "Windows users should not attempt to download these
files with a web browser." is just as applicable to 'Snow Leopard' and
'Ubuntu' users.

Best, Sergiy


>
> There are a couple of issues with recent updates yet to be resolved, but my Internet connection is not adequate for that at the moment. I will hope to deal with those and a number of other updates soon, but I will not be back in Boston until 13 July.
>
> Kit
>
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