Installers

Features Ptolemy II needs

• Ability to install a custom, bundled JRE
• Multiple programs in the Start Menu.

List of installers

• java-source.net - List of Open Source Installers written in Java
• javatoolbox - Java deployment and installation tools
• Excelsior-usa: Java to exe

Free Installers

izPack

velocityreviews.com says:

The IzPack native launcher will first check for a JRE on the target system. If one is found, then it will launch the installer. If no JRE can be found, then it will help the user in installing one either from the internet or from a bundled one. To sum-up, the IzPack native launcher will allow your users to install your software even if they don't have a JRE at first sight.

The IzPack native launcher is a .exe file that looks for a file called launcher.ini in the current directory. The launcher.ini specifies:

• which jar file contains the IzPack installer.
• The setup .exe or script to run to install the JRE.
  Unfortunately, this does not meet our needs, since we want to use a custom JRE that includes packages like Java3D etc. For us to use this, we would need to create a JRE setup script.

Notes about IzPack Launcher and possible alternatives

launch4j

Can include a JRE, but really only for one application? We need to add multiple apps to the Start Menu.

Commercial installers

• Advanced Installer
• Denova JExpress
• Dobysoft NativeJ $49.95/$89.95
• Install4J edu pricing: $199/$349

Ptolemy installers

The way we do this is based on Notes about IzPack Launcher and possible alternatives.

1. We create an izPack installer that installs Ptolemy II
2. We use launch4j to invoke the izPack installer. The launch4j installer includes an optional JRE.

1. Create a jre that has JAI, Java 3D, Joystick JMF, JavaComm, X10 etc. in it. See Optional packages not shipped with Ptolemy used at runtime
2. Copy this jre to $PTII/adm/gen-X.Y/jre

IzPack notes

Things I wish were different

• IzPack should be easier to use with a custom JRE. The IzPack native launcher will allow me to invoke the JRE installer, but I want to use a JRE that is in the current directory. the IzPack wiki (see also Notes about IzPack Launcher and possible alternatives) describe using Launch4j.
  I ended up using Launch4j to create a .exe that invokes the jar file created by IzPack. I also used Launch4j to create my .exe files that are added to the Start menu.
• There should be an easy way to ask the user if they want to invoke a binary after the installation is complete.
• I'd like to add a message to the TargetPanel that describes why the default location in C:/Program Files won't work.
• In HTMLInfoPanel, the packing seems to change depending on my html file. Sometimes the pane that displays the HTML does not fill the width of the screen. It seem like using style sheets causes problems here
• I'd like there to be a JREPathPanel that is like the JDKPathPanel. In one of the installers, I provide a custom JRE that includes JAI, Java 3D, Joystick JMF, JavaComm, and X10. I'd like to give the user the opportunity to use the custom JRE, or to choose their own JRE or JDK.
• It would be nice if there was a way for the installer to unjar files on command. I provide source in a jar file, if the user chooses to install the sources, then that file should be uninstalled. The reason I use a jar file is because it makes it easier (faster) to build installers - my sources are a few thousand files, it is faster to copy one file around at installer build time than it is to copy lots of files.
• The IzPack Developer's page should state clearly how to build. Yah, I know, if you don't know svn, you probably can't devel, but I find quick instructions useful. The instructions should point to an online copy of the most recent Eclipse instructions. I found the TeX docs, but is there an online version of the manual?
  There should also be a link to How to build the native launcher

Building IzPack

1. Download from the trunk

   	    svn co http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/izpack/izpack-src/trunk
   	  

2. I followed the Eclipse instructions from the IzPack 3.9.0-M1 release One change was that when setting up the debug, I used

   	    c:\cxh\ptII\adm\gen-6.0\ptII6_0-devel_setup.xml \
   	    -b c:\cxh\ptII\adm\gen-6.0 \
   	    -o c:\cxh\ptII\adm\gen-6.0\ptII6_0-devel_setup.jar \
   	    -h c:\cxh\src\izpack\trunk
   	  

   Where

   c:\cxh\ptII\adm\gen-6.0\ptII6_0-devel_setup.xml

   My IzPack configuration file, usually called install.xml

   -b c:\cxh\ptII\adm\gen-6.0

   The base for my build

   -o c:\cxh\ptII\adm\gen-6.0\ptII6_0-devel_setup.jar

   The file to output

   -h c:\cxh\src\izpack\trunk

   The IzPack source directory.

3. Problems:

   No valid IzPack home directory found

   Building in Eclipse fails with:

   		-> Fatal error :
   		No valid IzPack home directory found
   		java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: No valid IzPack home directory found
   		at com.izforge.izpack.compiler.CompilerConfig.resolveIzPackHome(CompilerConfig.java:1908)
   		at com.izforge.izpack.compiler.CompilerConfig.main(CompilerConfig.java:1835)
   		at com.izforge.izpack.compiler.Compiler.main(Compiler.java:622)
   	      

   The solution is to copy ShellLink.dll

   		cp c:/Pro*/izpack/bin/native/izpack/ShellLink.dll izpack
   	      

   Uninstaller not found: c:\cxh\src\izpack\trunk\lib\uninstaller.jar

   Building in Eclipse fails with:

   		-> Fatal error :
   		c:\cxh\ptII\adm\gen-6.0\ptII6_0_devel_setup.xml:18: Uninstaller not found: c:\cxh\src\izpack\trunk\lib\uninstaller.jar
   		com.izforge.izpack.compiler.CompilerException: c:\cxh\ptII\adm\gen-6.0\ptII6_0_devel_setup.xml:18: Uninstaller not found: c:\cxh\src\izpack\trunk\lib\uninstaller.jar
   		at com.izforge.izpack.compiler.CompilerConfig.parseError(CompilerConfig.java:1523)
   		at com.izforge.izpack.compiler.CompilerConfig.findIzPackResource(CompilerConfig.java:1488)
   		at com.izforge.izpack.compiler.CompilerConfig.addInfo(CompilerConfig.java:1199)
   		at com.izforge.izpack.compiler.CompilerConfig.executeCompiler(CompilerConfig.java:316)
   		at com.izforge.izpack.compiler.CompilerConfig.main(CompilerConfig.java:1854)
   		at com.izforge.izpack.compiler.Compiler.main(Compiler.java:622)
   	      

   Solution, use ant:

   		cd trunk/src
   		ant dist
   	      

   I'm not sure how to do this from Eclipse. Eclipse can run ant but the setup instructions have us include files from src/lib, not src.

   Problems with the uninstaller

   The Uninstaller was failing for me, see The Unistaller.jar is not working

   I had a problem with OsVersion missing when I ran

   		  java -version uninstaller.jar
   		

   The solution was to check out the 3.9 branch and rebuild:

   		  svn co http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/izpack/izpack-src/branches/branch-3.9/
   		  cd 3.9.0-M1/src
   		  ant
   		

   I also had to edit build.xml so that we included izpack/util/os/*.class as per The Unistaller.jar is not working

   n

   It turns out that part of the install process updates uninstaller.jar. So, I had to copy the uninstaller.jar file over to the installed version of IzPack - copying uninstaller.jar to the installed application will not do it.

Setting up IzPack to unjar source files

The solution is to use the ProcessPanel and define our own class that does the extraction.

Problems

Cannot find Resource ProcessPanel.Spec.xml for language eng

	    com.izforge.izpack.installer.ResourceNotFoundException: Can not find Resource ProcessPanel.Spec.xml for language eng
	    at com.izforge.izpack.installer.ResourceManager.getLanguageResourceString(ResourceManager.java:137)
	    at com.izforge.izpack.installer.ResourceManager.getInputStream(ResourceManager.java:154)
	    at com.izforge.izpack.installer.ProcessPanelWorker.readSpec(ProcessPanelWorker.java:109)
	    at com.izforge.izpack.installer.ProcessPanelWorker.run(ProcessPanelWorker.java:233)
	    at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
	    Error parsing XML specification for processing.
	  

Solution:
Add the following to the configuration file

	    <res src="ProcessPanel.Spec.xml" id="ProcessPanel.Spec.xml"/>
	  

"Cannot find processing class"

The class needs to be present in the jar file that is created by IzPack. We use the -u command:

	    jar -fu c:/Program\ Files/IzPack/lib/installer.jar ExtractJarFile.class 
	  

We also have to update the standalone-compiler.jar file with the new installer.jar file. My solution was to rebuild izPack and run

      cd izpack/trunk/src
      rm ../lib/installer.jar
      ant build.installer
      jar -uf ../lib/installer.jar ExtractJarFile.class
      ant build.standalone-compiler
      cp ../lib/standalone-compiler.jar ../../izpack3.9.0/lib/standalone-compiler.jar
    

However, a better solution is to use <jar src="ExtractJarFile.jar"> in the install.xml file

Error accessing processing class

I modified src/lib/com/izforge/izpack/installer/ProcessPanelWorker.java so that it printed the exception, which was Class com.izforge.izpack.installer.ProcessPanelWorker$ExecutableClass can not access a member of class ExtractJarFile with modifiers "private".
The fix was to change ExtractJarFile so it no longer had a private constructor.

Packaging for the Mac

How the Mac apps are created

$PTII/bin/ptinvoke.in is read by $PTII/configure and $PTII/bin/ptinvoke is created. $PTII/bin/makeapp is a symbolic link to ptinvoke. Running make in $PTII/bin invokes makeapp and creates $PTII/bin/Ptiny.app/ and $PTII/bin/Vergil.app/.

Double clicking on Ptiny.app or Vergil.app invokes a binary listed in Info.plist. The binary changed between Java 1.6 and 1.8.

Packaging Java for distribution on the Mac under Java 1.8

In Java 1.8, we used http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/deploy/package_for_mac.html, which uses the Application Bundler.

Application Bundler is GPL'd, but Oracle releases it using the Classpath exception. The Application Bundler jar file includes JavaAppLauncher, which gets copied to Contents/MacOS/. That executable processes the Info.plist file. The executable substitutes $APP_ROOT when it is present in the Info.plist file.

The Application Bundler will include a JRE if runtime parameter is set in the build.xml file. We do not set runtime.

The Application Builder wants to copy the jar files into Contents/Java/. Instead, we use $APP_ROOT/../.. to refer to the jar files.

We created a temporary Ant target to create a prototype app directory and then modified the ptinvoke.in file to generate the proper Info.plist file.

Last Updated: $Date: 2014-11-19 09:18:52 -0800 (Wed, 19 Nov 2014) $