[izpack-devel] Running the Installer twice without exit/launch ?

[Klaus Bartz]

Hi Markus,
some years ago I have written an installation (with InstallShield 5.5)
which contains the base server (product), the custom server data (project)
and the client to write the common parts only once. During maintenance
I have seen, that there was more work as in separated installations.
Now we have three IzPack installations, one server, one admin client and
one agent (the clients are installed with MSI).
For common used custom panels or custom actions normaly I write a base  
class
which do the most and the derived - type dependend - classes contains only
the differences (sometimes empty classes because the needed different
descriptions are automatically selected via the i18n stuff of IzPanel).
I never rued to use different installations. No problems with  
uninstallation,
no big installation for a admin client, no selection and dependencies
overhead. One installation for one product is better, I mean. For me the
problem begin at our admin clients because there are more than one, but  
that's
no separated products else features (in MSI syntax, in other words  
sub-products).
OK, that's my experience with a all-in-one device.

In the moment I have not a good feeling about changing the place of
writing uninstall data. And you have already the problem with one
uninstaller.jar; means you cannot uninstall one of your products.
It will be more or less a hack. If you use separated installation most you
need one with less panels and only rare two or three (also less)  
installation
which all can be handled (e.g. uninstalled) separatly.

Long time I am missing maintenance with IzPack. At this point MSI is better
than IzPack - nothing is perfect...
I think with this a behavior you need will be easy to implement.
But this implies some fundamental design changes. This will be needed much  
time.
Until now I have nothad this time and no working group was found to share  
the work.

Cheers

Klaus

Am 04.06.2007, 15:53 Uhr, schrieb Markus Schlegel <schlm3 at gmail.com>:

> Hi
>
> A very special question, I know, but it's a requirement to my  
> installer....
>
> We have three parts of our product (Client, Server, Admin) packed into  
> one
> installer (because they have a lot in common). The User can choose one on
> the first panel. In most cases, a user has to install only one product on
> each machine, but sometimes they have to install two (Server&Admin,
> Client&Admin) or even all three products.
>
> What we wanted to do is to provide a Button on a "CustomFinishPanel"  
> which
> when pressed returns to the first Page, so that the user can proceed with
> the next Product installation directly. So far so good, that part worked
> (with some CustomActions).
>
> What didn't work is the Uninstaller, because the uninstaller-log is  
> written
> inside InstallerFrame.exit() --> writeUninstallData(), which is private.
>
> - What's the design decision to place that writeUninstallData() inside
> exit() ? Wouldn't it be useful to write the InstallerData after all Packs
> have been written and all "InstallerAction.afterPacks()" have been
> performed?
>
> - Do you see other problems with this approach, or is it even a complete
> insane idea?
>
> Thanks for your input
>
> Markus



-- 
Erstellt mit Operas revolutionärem E-Mail-Modul: http://www.opera.com/mail/