In a gallery when visitors should never have the fourth-wall of interactive experiences broken, you never want an experience sitting there with an error message or a desktop showing.
Here are a few tips for keeping applications going through application crashes or sneaky user input on Windows 7 and
Mac OS X.
Windows
Keep Alive
- knas Restarter (Free. Windows 2000,XP,7)
- This program will monitor your application and restart it if it’s accidentally quit or crashes
- Let’s you specify the working directory of the application. Super useful if you have an openFrameworks app loading local assets from the data directory
- Restart on Crash (Free. Windows 2000,XP,7)
- Similar functionality to knas Restarter
- Lighter weight, but lacks the ability to specify a working directory, so it’s best to stick the EXE in the same directory as the application you’re trying to keep alive.
Removing Windows Crash Error Messages
Don’t forget to disable Windows error reporting messages (make sure you specify DontShowUI)
- In Windows 7 Professional, use Group Policy Editor to disable Windows Error Reporting
- If you have Windows 7 Home or Home Premium, you’ll need to edit the registry to accomplish this.
Mac OS X
Keep Alive
On a Mac, you’ll want to use the built-in launchd program to keep applications alive. However, configuring launchd can be tricky, so I recommend using Lingon. It comes in two flavors, one that’s on the App Store ($4.99), and a version that is available from the developer that can be run as root ($9.99). This program simplifies the settings you need to tweak to keep your application alive using Launchd.
Power Control
For turning machines on and off remotely with a power cut, Windows users can configure units like APCs easily using the built-in configuration tools. On a Mac, you’ll need to download the APC UPS Daemon (apcupsd) software. This open source project allows you to configure the power profile of your APC and will allow a power fluctuation to trigger a graceful application close with an OS shutdown.