Re: PackageMaker help
Re: PackageMaker help
- Subject: Re: PackageMaker help
- From: Don Montalvo <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:25:51 -0600
Sakshi Sachdev <email@hidden> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am new to PackageMaker and I have some seemingly basic queries. Hopefully someone on the list will be able to help.
>
> Some background for #1-3: We have a product staging area where the files to be installed are staged after every build. The .pmdoc (distribution package) contains multiple choices. Each choice contains content that points to folders in this staging area.
>
> 1. When I was handed the project, the pmdoc contained multiple xml files: looks like 2 for each choice. 01*-contents.xml is virtually blank. It just contains <pkg-contents spec="1.12"/>. However when I make a simple change like adding a postinstall step, this file gets populated with a lot more data. It seems to me that the data was intentionally stripped before the file was checked in. Could I be right? If so, is it safe to do so (as in should I keep following the trend and strip the data)?
>
> 2. 01*.xml refers to almost every single component that is to be installed. Other than the component id, it contains component paths. The paths are hardcoded absolute paths of my machine. This seems weird to me. How does this work? Is this file rewritten for every single machine it is built on? This would imply that every time someone would need to build something on their machine, they would have to check out the xml files...
>
> 3. One of the contained pkgs installs an application bundle and I am to stop installing a component within this bundle. Would it suffice to just stop copying the component to within the staged bundle? I would have thought so since it looked like PackageMaker was ditto-ing the application bundle to the /Applications/ area. Unfortunately #2 has me confused. Say, I've checked in the pmdoc from my system into the source control. The xml file would contain a reference to the component which I no longer want to install. If someone were to go and simply stop staging this component, how would the package creation on the build machine get impacted? That is, do I need to do something to the pmdoc before stopping the staging?
>
> 4. The install time UI offers the ability to install the visible choice to a different location. Unfortunately, when the user chooses a non-startup disk, the destination of the hidden choices also gets impacted. Thus if a hidden choice wanted to install to /Library/ABC/, it starts installing to /Volumes/MovedMe/Library/ABC/. Is there any way to work around this?
>
> Thanks,
> Sakshi
Hi Sakshi,
Interesting you should ask, we had a similar issue a while back. We needed to create an installer that prompts the user where the application should be installed (target volume), but we wanted some resources to go to the boot directory.
We weren't able to sort this out, so we created two installers and each had to be run differently. It would be interesting if someone chimes in to say an mpkg can be built that allows a user to specify different volumes for the different pkg installers in the mpkg installer. :)
PS, I have my fingers crossed that fully pkg/mpkg'd installers are coming with CS6...just kidding. ;)
Thanks,
Don _______________________________________________
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