Could it be this simple?

Jan Schenkel janschenkel at yahoo.com
Wed Jul 23 00:24:20 EDT 2008


--- Bill Vlahos <bvlahos at mac.com> wrote:
> I am ready to distribute my application but I need
> an installer for  
> Windows and I am programming this on a Mac. My
> installation process is  
> very simple. All I need to do is unzip the folder to
> the desired  
> location. No registry settings or any other
> installation processes.
> 
> Stuffit Deluxe for the Mac can create a self
> extracting archive for  
> Windows as a .exe file which unstuffs to the folder
> and I'm done.
> 
> I got to thinking that I can probably do the same
> thing myself in Rev.
> 	1. GZip the folder on the Mac
> 	2. Make a Rev Windows standalone that contains the
> zipped file in a  
> Custom Property that will Unzip/Install the folder
> when opened.
> 
> Distribute the standalone "Installer".
> 
> Could it be this simple? Other than not being
> "Signed by  
> Microsoft" (unless I go through the
> certification/payment process), is  
> there anything wrong with what I'm suggesting?
> 
> Or should I pay for StuffIt Deluxe to do this?
> 
> Thanks,
> Bill Vlahos
> 

Hi Bill,

While I've done this sort of installer myself (using
'compress' to store each file in a custom property and
then 'decompress' later on while reconstructing the
directory structure) it has a few caveats:
- on Mac and Linux, you'll have to do some shell calls
to mark your actual executable file as executable
(that's where 'chmod' comes in)
- on Mac you will have to save the 'fileType' of each
file and set it as you write your decompressed files
(the easiest way is to setup a separate 'metadata'
custom property set)
- on Mac you may also want to read/write  the
'resource fork' of files (easy enough to get/put with
'URL "resfile:" & tFilePath')
- the file creation/modification dates on the user's
computer won't match yours (which means you can't rely
on them for versioning)

But you could perhaps work around those limitations
using the 'revZip' set of external commands and
functions - I haven't actually tested if
'revZipAddItemWithFile' and 'revZipExtractItemToFile'
cover all these situations.

As a bonus, you can easily poke the Windows registry
using built-in Revolution functions without having to
learn some obscure installer scripting language.

Hope this helped,

Jan Schenkel.

Quartam Reports & PDF Library for Revolution
<http://www.quartam.com>

=====
"As we grow older, we grow both wiser and more foolish at the same time."  (La Rochefoucauld)


      



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