Hi,


I'm really glad PharoLauncher has been promoted to the download page,
but it seems some people want to push PharoLauncher to *be* Pharo.
To me this seems a poor strategy.

The README file in the PharoLauncher zip downloads says...
   "Pharo 1.1-2018.01.16 This distribution was built January 16, 2018."

This seems strange to me and highly likely to confuse newcomers.
Pharo 1.1 more than a few years old.   How can something built in 2018 be named "Pharo 1.1" ?

And if PharoLauncher is instead published as Pharo 7, then it seems strange to use it to run Pharo 5 images and later Pharo 8 images.
Why not have the Downloads page just say "The recommended way to manage Pharo downloads is with PharoLauncher"
and allow PharoLauncher to exist as a separate entity.  This would be similar similar to those applications where you download 
an initial 500kB installer, which then grabs the other 100MB from the net to complete the install. 

Also, when maybe one day we can use Pharo as a command line shell, how will that relate to PharoLauncher being presented "as" Pharo.



What is clear is that people use many images anyway. And the more machines get bigger, this will happen even more. 

So any download can only be ���the VM + a Template image���. 
=> when you just start ���Pharo��� it starts the template (read only)
=> drag an image (or double click) -> opens that image.

To make that work for real we would need to have one release per version (Pharo6, Pharo7, Pharo8) that you install���

The launcher is a similar scheme that I think could be even better, it adds:

- easy find images online
- manage your images (you do not need to use it, you can just use the UI of your OS instead, too).
- manage VMs in addition.
- which means that it is just one download that people need to install to be able to run all old images, too.

So I think if can be quite nice��� it needs some iterations

- simplify the UI so people know what todo when they see it the first time
- make sure it works everywhere
- Sign it so installation is easier
- We need something that the images that end up on disk do not have the bit set that make drag-n-drop fail.
- integrate command line: There should be a menu to write scripts to /usr/local/bin to run pharo images easily
- Longterm: we need 1-file images��� a container that has the image itself + auxiliary stuff on ���disk��� but that is one file.
          
So for me this is a bit like docker: to use docker, you install docker on the mac. There is one way, it works.

Marcus