Re: Cached distribution contents in PM 3?
site_archiver@lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev@lists.apple.com Hi John, Andrew Hi I'm converting our PackageMaker v2 installers to use PM 3. I have several packages that I then bundle into 1 distribution. It seems that PackageMaker caches the contents of the packages into the distribution at the time the package is added. If I remove files from my staging area and rebuild the individual package the distribution does not seem to reflect those changes. Am I missing something? Also, I notice a lot of crashes when switching from Raw Editing Mode to the Normal Editing Mode. Is this a known problem? And 1 more question: Is it possible in the PM 3 UI to rearrange the choices in the distribution? Thanks -- John Williams Sr Software Engineer Typefi Systems Pty Ltd _______________________________________________ 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/apeckover%40pgmusic.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... I've puzzled over this too. Actually I've never used earlier versions and I just recently started using installers on Mac, so I'm a "newbie". But yes, going from raw to normal mode very often crashes it, especially when trying to configure choices and subchoices. In my opinion, this program is quite buggy. The crashes are often cause by legitimate errors I've made in the code (although sometimes I will in fact get an error message (error at line such and such) rather than a crash). But other crashes happen even when no errors are made in the code. I have a specific set of steps I follow to prevent the crashes when making an installer. Maybe this will help you. First, I will have gone into raw editing mode and already created my distribution script how I want it. Then I'll save the script in a text file. Then to make the installer, I: 1. Open the PackageMaker document. 2. Type the title of the distribution. 3. Add packages by dragging them from finder. 4. ***here's the key - save and close the PackageMaker document*** 5. Make a duplicate of it, in case it crashes or whatever, then I'll have a backup. 6. Open the PackageMaker document, immediately go to raw editing mode without making any changes in the UI. 7. Paste in my distribution script, then return to normal editing mode. 8. I can now do some other things in normal editing mode, such as setting permissions and so on. One reason I've had to use the raw editing mode is because, strangely, there doesn't seem to be a way to configure subchoices in normal mode properly, and I use subchoices alot. ----------- I'm not sure about your first question (caching the contents etc.). Not sure if this is what you mean, but when you look at the contents tab it will show you all the files that have been in your source, even if you have removed them since. I think the list of folders and files there is strictly involved with setting the permissions of the files - since if I uncheck any of the items, they are still included in my distribution. (i.e. checking or unchecking files doesn't affect whether they are included in my installer.) But I could be wrong about that. Anyways, just to be on the safe side, if I change my source files, I usually do this: 1. Set the source folder to a different location. That is, the "Install" field in the Configuration tab, I just set to a bogus directory. 2. Save and close the pmdoc. 3. re-open and set the correct directory. Unfortunately, I then need to reset the permissions and file filters. Now there is also "snapshot" feature to investigate if you want, under the package menu - maybe it will help you (in my testing, it didn't work presumably because my source is not on my system drive, and it also crashed the program) ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Williams" <jwilliams@typefi.com> To: <installer-dev@lists.apple.com> Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 8:57 AM Subject: Cached distribution contents in PM 3? This email sent to apeckover@pgmusic.com This email sent to site_archiver@lists.apple.com
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Andrew Peckover