Re: ANN: Pacifist 1.0 Beta 1 Released
Re: ANN: Pacifist 1.0 Beta 1 Released
- Subject: Re: ANN: Pacifist 1.0 Beta 1 Released
- From: Charles Srstka <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 20:54:36 -0600
I've toyed with this idea, and currently I'm hesitant to try being a
full installer instead of a TomeViewer for the reason you mentioned - I
would have to have Pacifist run all the shell scripts. Like you
mentioned, it would be very easy to do this, but there is also an
element of danger involved. A month or two ago, the iTunes 2 installer
came out, with a nasty bug in one of its shell scripts that erased all
files on some people's hard disks. Currently, Pacifist is the safe way
to get the files you want out of an installer without having to run it.
I'm unsure if I want to sacrifice that, since 99% of the time, apps
installed without them work just fine without running the scripts, and
often those scripts are just concerned with removing older versions or
other such trivia. But who knows, this could be a feature for Pacifist
1.1 or 2.0. Perhaps I could have a menu item with items in it to launch
each of the scripts, so that it would be done only if the user elected
to and not automatically.
Point taken about displaying the EULA and the readmes. I should have
this implemented by the next beta, or at least by the final version.
As for the prebinding, however, Pacifist already does this. :-) If you
have it turned on in the preferences, Pacifist will automatically run
prebinding for files you install with it. You can also run prebinding
manually on a folder or on the whole system through the Prebinding menu.
Thanks for your suggestions! I welcome comments from people suggesting
improvements in my program.
On Sunday, December 2, 2001, at 08:30 PM, Ben Hines wrote:
Looks interesting. It seems to me that you should (very easily) be able
to take it one step further: a complete replacement for Installer.app,
fixing its deficiencies, AND letting you do the extra stuff that
Pacifist does.
that would entail displaying the EULA, running the pre/postscripts,
doing the prebinding, etc.
Also pacifist should have options to display/run the pre/postscripts in
case there is something critical in there.
-Ben
At 7:47 PM -0600 12/2/01, Charles Srstka wrote:
After much deliberation, I have decided to release Pacifist as Beta 1.
Pacifist is an application which allows you to extract individual
files out of .pkg installer packages, similar to the way the old
TomeViewer let you open Tome files under OS 9.
You can download Pacifist from here:
http://homepage.mac.com/csrstka/Pacifist.dmg
Here is a list of Pacifist's current features:
- Lets you install individual items or folders from .pkg packages,
either to their default install location or to a custom location you
specify.
- Follows all symlinks properly, instead of overwriting them like
Installer.app does
- Doesn't mess with existing folders, including their permissions
- Correctly gives the sizes of a package, both compressed and
uncompressed, instead of always saying 100 MB like Installer.app does
- Displays total size of currently selected files, letting you know
exactly how much space your installation will take on your hard disk.
Dynamically updates this size as the selection changes.
- Automatically converts AppleDouble files into resource forks and
metadata when installing on HFS+ disks (leaves the files alone if
installing on UFS)
- Automatically updates prebinding information after installation to
optimize system performance
- Multiple document interface
- Multi-threaded
- Has a working search feature
- Fixes a few of Apple's omissions in NSOutlineView, so command-left
arrow and command-right arrow to collapse and expand items work, as
does auto filename completion
- Works with compressed or uncompressed packages
- By default, p1rompts before replacing any files
- Uses the Security Framework if the files will need to be installed
as root
- If you install a folder and the folder already exists, Pacifist
installs the folder's contents and doesn't overwrite the parent
folder. The exception is .app bundles, which by default will ask you
what to do.
- The buffer used when piping to pax is configurable, unlike
command-line gzip, so you can tweak it to get faster decompression
with gz-compressed packages
- Most features can be turned off via preferences if you wish
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