[izpack-devel] Distrubuted install.xml files ...

[Hans Aikema]

Julien,

no problem.... (maybe you should sleep some more.... being too tired at
6 o'clock ;) )

The main issue is that (allthough not working correctly on my Vista;
more on that on a seperate message to this list) the ImgPacksPanel uses
a set of image-resources for each package.
If working correctly (deducing from the source-code) the image of the
package (defined as a resource with an id of
ImgPacksPanel.img.<sequence-number of the package) is shown when the
selection changes to that package in the package selection list.

When allowing for externally defined packages through the refpack
element the designer of the main install.xml file will most likely not
know in advance the packs that the developer will define in the
distributed xml-file (and he should not have to know, since otherwise he
might just as well get the entire pack-definitions to enter them into
the main install.xml, rather than allowing for a distributed definition
which is taken into account by IzPack at installer-compile time).
It thus would make more sense to at least allow the images to be used in
the ImgPacksPanel to be defined from the distributed file as well. It
will however be hard to maintain correct references to the pack-images
(regardless of the position) when using the array-index of the
install-pack in the install-packs array-list.

In the current situation (using the current patch) it might even
surprise the installation-developers. A small example:
<packs>
    <pack> ..... </pack> <!-- gets index 0 -->
    <refpack file="distributedsinglepackfile.xml" /> <!-- the single
pack that was defined in this file gets index 2 -->
    <pack> .... </pack> <!-- gets index 1 -->
</packs>

Most install-writers will expect a '0 - 1 - 2' instead of the resulting
'0 - 2 - 1' for this scenario. It gets even more complicated if the
refpack contains more than one pack.... and the install contains more
refpacks. How to compute the correct indexes to use for each of the packs?

Therefore it seems wise to change the selection of the pack-image for
the ImgPacksPanel, making the suffix of the resource-id not the
sequence-number of the pack, but some property/attribute of the pack
definition itself. It seems most logical to me to either use the pack
name-attribute or to introduce a new attribute dedicated to linking a
pack with its ImgPackPanel image-resource.

I was also wondering if there were even more parts of the install that
should be distributed (due to the fact that the developer writing the
distributed pack-definition should be responsible for providing all
details concerning the pack(s) in the distributed pack-definition file).
Rather than struggling through all IzPack code trying to find all
possible configurable options and deciding whether or not those should
be distributed as well I'd rather depend on the collective mind of the
IzPack developer-community.

hope this magical mumbo-jumbo ranting of mine clears your mind a little
and makes some sense

regards,
Hans Aikema

Julien Ponge wrote:
> Hi Hans,
>
> First of all thanks for taking care of the patch.
>
> I don't quite get it, so could you please re-explain what the
> different options imply? (or maybe I am just too tired to understand
> :-))
>
> Cheers
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