Drag & drop install & read-only status

[Jan Schenkel]

Hi Bob,

I've had this problem before. The solution I went for
was the following:

1) on the cd, i put a small file names "firstrun.yes"
in the same directory as the application.

2) on startUp, the application checks for the
existence of that same file.

3) if it exists, the application will run a batch file
"firstrun.bat" which will switch the read-only flag
off.

4) after that has executed, the application will
delete the "firstrun.yes" file.

"firstrun.bat" looks something like:

@echo "Finishing installation..."
@echo "Do NOT interrupt this program!"
@echo "1) Data files"
@cd data
@attrib -r *.*
@echo "2) Help files"
@cd ../help
@attrib -r *.*
@cd ..
@attrib -r firstrun.yes
@echo "Installation finished."

The "on startUp" handler looks something like:

on startUp
  # some other stuff...
  get shell("firstrun.bat")
  # really should check for the result here...
  delete file "firstrun.yes"
  # some more stuff...
end startUp

Note: of course you could use the shell() function to
read and execute the commands in "firstrun.bat" from a
field instead ; however, if something is wrong, it's
easier to send a batch file than a new cd...

Hope this helped,

Jan Schenkel.

"As we grow older, we grow both wiser and more foolish
at the same time."  (De Rochefoucald)

--- Bob Arnold <rfarnold at bu.edu> wrote:
> I have encountered another stumbling block --
> 
> Apparently, a file copied from CD on Windows will be
> set as "read-only" in
> the new destination (presumably since the CD source
> is locked). Is this
> correct?
> 
> This puts a kink in in the simple notion of
> drag-and-drop Windows
> installation of application stacks with read/write
> data or preference-saving
> substacks.
> 
> A. does anyone know how to get Windows to avoid
> doing this? --- or
> 
> B. Can a file's read-only attribute be changed from
> within a stack? My
> stand-alone mainstack checks to see if its substacks
> exist -- it would be
> nice if when checking, it could change the attribute
> to read/write as well.
> My cursory search for such a capability in the
> transcript dictionary didn't
> come up with anything. -- Even if it could get the
> attribute without
> changing it, I could add an alert to the user.
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Bob 
> -- 
> Robert Arnold
> Associate Professor of Film
> Boston University
> Tel (617) 353-7735  Fax (617) 353-1084
> News: http://people.bu.edu/rfarnold/Announce.htm
> 
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>
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