SIL Tools have long depended on packages like .NET or SQL that users would have to install and upgrade (and sometimes upgrade their OS) before using our software. Fieldworks kicked SQL though both Paratext and FLEx still depend on .NET (Which limits those apps to Win 10 and 11 after 2019). I understand why we use these plugins instead of reinventing the wheel.
It’s been nice to grab a version of Bloom and it just worked (as long as you had a PDF reader from this decade). We’ve spent the last little while trying to install Bloom Beta on a new machine, and it’s requiring Edge’s WebView 112. Bloom Beta requires WebView 112+. The machine has WebView 90 (with no uninstall option under programs and features) and the online installer for WebView won’t upgrade because it says it’s already up to date (BloomBeta complains that we only have 90). I’m now downloading the offline x64 installer for WV120 which weighs in at 164 MB. It seems like a headache to start to require a new large runtime that no one is likely to have on their machine.
FLEx and Paratext have always demanded admin rights to install, but Bloom didn’t. Requiring this WebView runtime now means that Bloom cannot be installed without Admin rights on the machine, which is a step backwards for the user. Is this a temporary dependency, will Microsoft roll it into Windows updates, or will we have to continue installing/upgrading this on future machines?
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