Re: some notes on package maker
Re: some notes on package maker
- Subject: Re: some notes on package maker
- From: "Andy O'Meara" <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 08:58:57 -0400
> The following questions/comments about Package Maker are based on some things
> I discovered while playing with the software at the WWDC hands on lab for
> installers. I've had limited experience with the package maker, so if there
> are easy solutions to these problems I'd be interested.
>
> 1) Need to have ability to install into user's home directory, by specifying a
> location that begins with a tilde: e.g. "~/Documents/Ocean/" should save to
> user's directory, e.g. "/Users/fred/Documents/Ocean". At present it creates a
> literal directory structure "~/Documents/Ocean/"
>
> 2) The installer should support external files that are not part of a package
> payload - eg large data files on a hybrid CD. For example, if I have a folder
> "Databases" with 400Mb of data in it, I should be able to store externally to
> installer. I guess the alternative at the moment is to use an Applescript to
> perform the copy, but this doesn't seem an appropriate way to do things.
>
I recently faced issues (1) and (2) for my app, and thanks to the help of
Stephane Sudre and a couple others here I have good answers for you. Go to
soundspectrum.com and download the G-Force installer. Alongside the
installer sits a folder containing all the files to be installed when the
second half of the preflight copies files from that folder to the user¹s
home dir (via ${HOME}). The reason I have this scheme is that some of our
users prefer manual installation and we don¹t want to maintain two archives
for distribution (and I want the files in plain slight). Disadvantage of
this approach is that the install size is always reported to be 0k in the
installer and the progress bar effectively misreports the progress %.
There¹s an alternative to moving your items via shell script like I have
done... In your preflight, make a symbolic link named
\tmp\aVeryVeryUniqueName to {$HOME}/whatever/. In PackageMaker, of course
then set \tmp\aVeryVeryUniqueNam to be your target dir, and you¹ll be all
set! With this method, the install process will correctly report the
install footprint size when the user is interacting with the installer and
the progress bar will be accurate (something which may be crucial in your
case since you mentioned that you have very large data files to install).
Don¹t forget to get rid of your temp symbolic link after you¹re done!
Andy
P.S. New Zealand! I'm maybe looking to coming out there this Jan for a
couple months -- I hear so many good things
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