site_archiver@lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev@lists.apple.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.a... This email sent to site_archiver@lists.apple.com Kevin Brock <apple@kevin.com> wrote on 03/05/2010 02:34:03 PM:

On Mar 5, 2010, at 11:58 AM, Xochitl Lunde wrote:

I have recently spent several days testing with the DMG Canvas tool

from Araelium group.  http://www.araelium.com/dmgcanvas/ Version 2.0

released last month does build backward compatible disk images from

Snow Leopard and the background does show up for me.  There's a

Preferences menu in the DMG Canvas drop down from the menu bar, and

you have to check the box to enable backward compatibility. (I am

only targeting Leopard and Snow Leopard, I haven't checked Tiger.)

I noticed that they state on their web-site that it's a problem

Apple acknowledges but doesn't intend to fix.  I know Apple

sometimes doesn't worry about backwards compatibility much, but come on... XO: Yea, I thought that was lame too.  I don't know how Araelium figured out that Apple doesn't intend to fix it.  Maybe they had a developer ticket at some point?

I have noted a few things when building:

   *  Leopard and Snow Leopard wrap text at different widths.  I

can't seem to get around this.  Because my background has a very

"inside-the-box" feel, I've had to mess with the font size to get it

to fit on both platforms.

   *  When I build for backward compatibility using Snow Leopard,

DMG Canvas changes the way the file name text appears.  Instead of

having text wrap, it is only allowed to be a fixed size which looks

just a little wider than the icon itself.  So my Applications alias

can show up as "App...ns".  To get around this, I made the icons

bigger, and the text smaller.  It still doesn't look as good, and I

am still getting around to trying the other suggested packaging tools.

I don't think that text wrapping will be a show stopper for us. XO:  It's not a show stopper for me either, I just really disliked the fact that I couldn't see the entire word 'Applications' on the image without a little tweaking.  The names of my other files are pretty long, so it's not such a big deal on those ones.

So far, I only really got to try out the FreeDMG alternative suggested from

kelleycomputing.net.  I didn't like this one, I didn't see a way to

add a background image.  I started trying the iDMG tool from nscoding.co.uk

, but I was slightly confused when it came up and so I have only

gotten partway through reading the manual.

I took a look at both of those, and they seemed a) clunky, with

poorly designed interfaces and b) poorly documented, which is often

connected to (a) a bit.  On the other hand, if I can make them do

what we need, it'll be worth the pain.  iDMG didn't appear to help

with the background images.

I also ran across DMG Packager.  They say they have a fix for the

image problem with SL, but haven't had a chance to test it yet XO: I need to clarify, that FreeDMG and iDMG were the *alternatives* I tried to DMG Canvas.  So far, DMG Canvas is the best one I have tried, and I have verified that it does work in a backward compatible fashion.  I have not had any problems with my backgrounds being missing since using DMG Canvas with its backward compatibility option turned on, so long as I make sure not to move the disk image files around in my file system before building with DMG Canvas.

. . .

Can you point out any of the web discussions you referenced?  I

would like to see those too, because I think you and I are trying to

do similar things.  My software is also built on Snow Leopard only

because some of our developers only have Snow Leopard.

I'll see if I can track down the links.  I wasn't saving pointers atthe time.

Was DMG Canvas one of the commercial disk image builders you tried?

Which ones have you tried that have not worked?  I'm planning to try

the following if time allows:

No.  We've been looking at DMG Architect, iDMG, Free DMG & DMG

Packager.  We've been talking with the folks at DMG Architect about

the problem, but don't have a resolution.  I need to do more testing

with DMG Packager before I know how that'll work.  Just ran across it.

   * FileStorm (haven't tried yet)

Haven't tried that yet either.

   * DMG Packager ( www.skoobysoft.com/utilities/dmgp.html  -

haven't tried yet )

   * FreeDMG ( www.kelleycomputing.net/freedmg - I tried this one,

it was just drag and drop your folder and it packaged it.  Doesn't

look like it does much in the way of allowing configurable

presentation of the disk image folder )

   * iDMG ( www.nscoding.co.uk  - I downloaded this, but I didn't

get through reading the manual yet. )

I didn't see a manual for iDMG anywhere.  The download just has the

app.  Where did you find it? XO: Now that I am looking at it again, I can't find it.  My route to nscoding.co.uk seems to be broken now also. Maybe I was thinking of a different program.  Sorry, if I find it, I'll let you know.

Kevin