Re: Custom dialogs in PackageMaker?
Re: Custom dialogs in PackageMaker?
- Subject: Re: Custom dialogs in PackageMaker?
- From: Howard Moon <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 11:42:30 -0700
Thanks, Karl,
good points all, but our software is not something that is generally
installed by system administrators, or in the background. (How would
you handle the "normal" dialogs, like the license file and
acknowledgement, read-me, etc., if run that way?) They're audio plug-
ins (and supporting documentation files, etc.), and they run inside
audio hosts. We need to be able to run an authorization application
at the end of the installs to make it easier for users to authorize
their software, and we can't do this from within the hosts. So, prior
to running the authorization app, we display a message that says that
the installation has completed and that the authorization app will run
when they hit Continue.
In VISE-X installers, this is easy-peasy. In PackageMaker, I tried
using the Finish Up dialog for this (or whatever it was called), but
when I do that, the post-flight action to run the authorization app
executes before that screen is displayed. I need to display the
message, wait for the user to acknowledge it, and then run the app. I
really have no choice here.
I guess I'll have to look into pkg plugins, then. (Are they easier
to add to Iceberg than to PackageMaker?)
Thanks,
-Howard
On Aug 6, 2009, at 11:23 AM, Karl Kuehn wrote:
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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