Re: Custom dialogs in PackageMaker?
Re: Custom dialogs in PackageMaker?
- Subject: Re: Custom dialogs in PackageMaker?
- From: Karl Kuehn <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 11:23:16 -0700
On Aug 6, 2009, at 9:15 AM, Howard Moon wrote:
I'm new to this list and to PackageMaker. I've been using VISE-X,
and one of the things we do often is to add a custom dialog to the
installation. I can't find any way to do this using PackageMaker.
Overall, it seems like a much less useful tool than VISE-X (although
it's free, so that's something!). Is there a way to add custom
dialogs in PackageMaker?
So a few notes about this:
1) You can create pkg plugins that can have custom dialogs, etc. You
will have to do a little work, but it is not that tough.
2) You could put GUI things into scripts, but this is a really, really
bad idea (see item 4).
3) I have rarely seen things that actually need custom GUIs. Most
things will work with a thought-through custom package choices page.
The only exception I can think of is EULA pages, and that is already
part of the installer.
4) As a system admin I will STRONGLY caution you to rethink that
putting custom dialogs in and installer, for all the same reasons that
make VISE hated by system administrators:
- Your installers will be used in situations where the person doing
the install is not at the computer, and has no access to the GUI. Here
I am talking about ARD installs, automated imaging systems, and the
like. If you try and put up a GUI your installer may hang. These sorts
of systems are becoming more wide-spread. And do you really want to
get lumped in with Adobe in hatred by admins?
- Installers run in the background that pop up messages will surprise
users who may not know (or care) that IT is installing things/updates
on their computer in the background.
- Your program should more properly take care of anything you would do
in an installer on first-run (or better yet: whenever it needs the
information). Putting things in the installer only means that you
can't correct them later. Remember: users of your product might not
have access to the installer (that might be in the hands of IT).
I've also heard about a free program called Iceberg. Is that
something that might be more useful than PackageMaker (in Leopard)?
Can custom dialogs be added in that software (easily)?
Iceberg makes .pkg's, just like PackageMaker. So the outcome is going
to be identical to PackageMaker.
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