Again, my suggestion would be to simply link to macports and homebrew, perhaps with a note saying that experienced users of those managers might want to use them for gramps. Unexperienced people should not be encouraged to use either one of those. It’s just asking for trouble…or at least a bunch of support questions. 
I don’t think anyone here is adverse to the extra support questions. We like more options. (Although we can all be opinionated 'so-and-so’s about what is the ‘right’ approach.) As we refine the wiki, the repeat questions tend to reduce in frequency.
Craig’s tweaks definitely streamlined the MacPorts docs.
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Sure, but my point is that we shouldn’t be sending novices to places like macports or homebrew for no reason, and since there’s a .dmg here already, there’s no reason to go there.
PS I think the download page looks good for macOS right now (except the giant spellchecking note).
There’s a balance that has to be found. And I’m afraid we’re still a bit unbalanced.
Every volunteer project has attrition and needs to continually attract fresh blood to offset that. There are a number of hurdles where we trip up hopeful users. Some are unavoidably high hurdles: platforms where Gramps hasn’t been ported, people who are not fluent in English but whose language is unsupported in Gramps, shoppers who rely heavily on Review opinions, and a few others.
But the entry portal, the download/install process, the first-time experience, the responsiveness of the support community, and learning curves are hurdles that we can lower.
The community has limited energy to lower those. So we have to be selective. I haven’t seen a discussion of what segments of the genealogy community we wish to attract. So I’ve been shotgunning indiscriminately or going after ‘the low hanging fruit’.
In commercial products, Reviewer issues tend to get disproportionate energy because Reviews now have infinite lifespans. A well-written, evenhanded yet disheartening article from a respected reviewer could easily haunt products for decades. Fortunately, most reviewers can only have time for a shallow dive into products. So a few minor tweaks to make shallow dives look more impressive have surprisingly good return on investment. Coincidentally, initial user evaluations tend to dive following the same shallow arc.
Blatantly indicating that Gramps participates in highly customizable & broad integrations (like PortableApps, MacPorts & Homebrew) attracts a personality that likes a hands-on approach. The people who need handholding will be put off by how lightly we discuss those tools… yet we’ll still attract people willing to put in the work. And a good portion of those people like to share their expertise. They’ll improve the process and reference materials.
Not all “novice” Gramps users are the same. Some may have considerable experience with unix/linux systems and are looking for a package manager on macOS that functions in a similar manner to what they are used to (‘apt’ or whatever). Using MacPorts or Homebrew, they can install and manage all the open source software that they are accustomed to. It is a nice bonus, if they get into genealogy, to be able to manage their Gramps installation the same way.
To be honest, I think Gramps is tough sledding for a non-technical user. Creating a database and entering the details of the first family involves a lot of concepts and mouse-clicking that takes considerable determination to get past. OTOH, a person with experience using database-backed software systems are probably going to adapt to Gramps more easily. Someone with experience with another (more-limited) genealogy platform may be attracted to Gramps’ flexibility. IOW, I don’t think Gramps appeals to true “novices”; potential users are more likely to be attracted by Gramps’ power and openness.
Craig
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That’s what I didn’t say “novice gramps users”. I was talking about novice or un-advanced Mac users. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Again, I think the install page is good right now for Mac users. It has the .dmg and points users to the package managers without recommending them. People who know what they are will perhaps go look there (as I did), and those who don’t will ignore it. Really though homebrew at least offers nothing more than the .dmg does. The app is installed as a regular mac binary application. There’s no building from source or anything going on, so it isn’t really “hands on” in any appreciable way.
What you say is true if Gramps is the ONLY software you are installing via Homebrew or Gramps. OTOH, if you have 5, 10 or 50 things installed via a package manager, then managing updates is MUCH easier. One tool to check if any of them should be updated.
Craig