Author Topic: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?  (Read 15324 times)

Offline lennon

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Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« on: January 17, 2005, 10:54:44 AM »
Is there a tutorial about how to get your zip file into a self extracting, location discovering, weidu running download?

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Offline jcompton

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2005, 11:26:20 AM »
Um. Mostly it's been "I'll send you my NSIS file and you can adapt it." :) I think the Gabardine Tree have worked out how to do it with RAR SFX as well.
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Offline igi

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2005, 01:06:43 PM »
I feel compelled to point out that it's probably harder to make a reliable, path-discovering, multiple install friendly self-extracting archive file, than it is to educate someone to double click a file, press the unzip button, and pick the game folder.
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Offline jcompton

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2005, 01:50:04 PM »
I feel compelled to point out that it's probably harder to make a reliable, path-discovering, multiple install friendly self-extracting archive file, than it is to educate someone to double click a file, press the unzip button, and pick the game folder.


It's far easier for one person to use an NSIS packager than to educate thousands on the proper use of dearchiving tools.

Sad but demonstrably true.
Cespenar says, "Kelsey and friends be at the Pocket Plane? Ohhh yesssss!" http://www.pocketplane.net

Offline lennon

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2005, 01:41:14 PM »
What's NSIS? (Please  :) )

Offline jcompton

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #5 on: January 18, 2005, 01:54:03 PM »
http://nsis.sourceforge.net/

A very good free installer builder.

I can send you the script I use, it's fairly easy to open it up and adapt it.
Cespenar says, "Kelsey and friends be at the Pocket Plane? Ohhh yesssss!" http://www.pocketplane.net

Offline lennon

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #6 on: January 19, 2005, 10:42:58 AM »
Script'd be good, I'll need to read up at sourceforge

Thanks

Offline jcompton

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #7 on: January 19, 2005, 10:54:48 AM »
Sent.
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Offline weimer

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #8 on: January 22, 2005, 11:10:08 PM »
It's far easier for one person to use an NSIS packager than to educate thousands on the proper use of dearchiving tools.

Sad but demonstrably true.

Jason is the first person and I am the second. He is correct.

Offline igi

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #9 on: January 23, 2005, 07:32:52 AM »
It's easier to say "I have a nuclear bomb, give me £1000000" than do actually *get* a nuclear bomb and demand £1000000. It doesnt mean it's right, or even something we should all be doing.

Take some responsibility, package as something other than a damn self-extracting .exe, and politely inform the end-user than if they dont already know how to install it, then figuring it out will themselves will do them good.
Or should we just tie everyone down onto a bed, and put a food-tube in their mouth, as then they dont have to learn anything, ever, nor make any decisions about anything?

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Offline NiGHTMARE

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #10 on: January 23, 2005, 08:07:07 AM »
I for one hate self-extracting .exe's with a passion, especially when they can't even be opened in WinZip/WinRar.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2005, 08:08:43 AM by NiGHTMARE »
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Offline Kismet

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #11 on: January 23, 2005, 08:10:05 AM »
It's easier to say "I have a nuclear bomb, give me £1000000" than do actually *get* a nuclear bomb and demand £1000000. It doesnt mean it's right, or even something we should all be doing.

Take some responsibility, package as something other than a damn self-extracting .exe, and politely inform the end-user than if they dont already know how to install it, then figuring it out will themselves will do them good.
Or should we just tie everyone down onto a bed, and put a food-tube in their mouth, as then they dont have to learn anything, ever, nor make any decisions about anything?

[/unintentional rant]

Well I hope our customer support here never devolves to "Well if you're too stupid to figure out a .rar file then you're too stupid to play our mod, so screw you."

I believe that the purpose of this site is to offer up quality mods to people in such a manner that they give a maximum amount of enjoyment with a minimum amount of frustration.  It is not for us to tie everybody to their chair and force them to learn how to use a de-archiver.
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Offline jester

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #12 on: January 23, 2005, 10:02:48 AM »
Well IIRC you can tell the Installer to put the stuff somewhere else as a user. Everybody is welcome to tie me to a bed and force me to eat some chocolate fudge. :D ;)
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Offline Ghreyfain

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #13 on: January 23, 2005, 10:14:27 AM »
I for one hate self-extracting .exe's with a passion, especially when they can't even be opened in WinZip/WinRar.

You can.  Right-click the self-extracting .rar and choose "open with" and select winrar.  Opens as a regular .rar file.

One uninformed user down, 999 to go. :)
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Offline jcompton

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #14 on: January 23, 2005, 10:25:23 AM »
So far the only people who have voiced complaints about the .exe installers are:

* - Other modders who want to shave 3 seconds off their "opening the files to see what's going on" process.
* - Mac users who represent a sliver of the playing population

Meanwhile, I estimate they have saved me several hundred "WHY IS SAYING WHERE IS DIALOG.TLAK FILE??????" support incidents over the past 33 months.

Whatcha got on tap in that feed tube, igi?
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Offline NiGHTMARE

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #15 on: January 23, 2005, 10:30:52 AM »
You can.  Right-click the self-extracting .rar and choose "open with" and select winrar.  Opens as a regular .rar file.

One uninformed user down, 999 to go. :)
Erm, I'm already completely informed already, thank you very much :)   I'm talking about self-extracting files which can't opened by doing that, such as Oversight and Unfinished Business, hence "especially when they can't even be opened in WinZip/WinRar" rather than "especially because..." ;).

Fortunately one can browse most PPG mods readme files without downloading the entire mod now, but originally you'd sometimes have to download the mod and then extract all its content... which is a lot of bother just to read one file :P.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2005, 10:39:16 AM by NiGHTMARE »
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Offline jester

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #16 on: January 23, 2005, 10:43:32 AM »
Well having a decent readme online should be considered good manners anyway.
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Offline Ghreyfain

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #17 on: January 23, 2005, 11:43:35 AM »
Fortunately one can browse most PPG mods readme files without downloading the entire mod now, but originally you'd sometimes have to download the mod and then extract all its content... which is a lot of bother just to read one file :P.

Heheh, okay, I wasn't aware of that, and yeah, it is kind of sloppy not having a readme available directly from the site.  Which mods do this?  UB, Oversight (better let Kish know yourself, since the move and all).  Anything else?
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Offline Ghreyfain

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #18 on: January 23, 2005, 11:44:07 AM »
Okay, and a quick check reveals that the UB readme *is* online.

http://www.pocketplane.net/ub
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Offline icelus

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #19 on: January 23, 2005, 11:45:53 AM »
Okay, and a quick check reveals that the UB readme *is* online.

http://www.pocketplane.net/ub

... and has been since PPG Day One.
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Offline SimDing0™

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #20 on: January 23, 2005, 11:49:08 AM »
Oversight has been purged of anything PPG, and now adheres to OFFICIAL G3 INSTALLATION STANDARDS, so it's a normal SFX-RAR.
Also, yesterday I came to appreciate just how much easier the NSIS installers are for most users that the SFX-RAR ones. Unfortunately, it's generally spoiled somewhat by the auto-update procedure not being able to rerun the EXE, but there's nothing to be done about that.

Offline Ghreyfain

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #21 on: January 23, 2005, 11:52:57 AM »
Okay, and a quick check reveals that the UB readme *is* online.

http://www.pocketplane.net/ub

... and has been since PPG Day One.

Yeah, I didn't really think you were the type to neglect something like that. :)

And as for NSIS, .exe, .zip/.rar, for the most part the mods I make are in .rar or .zip at random, because I'm lazy and updating's a pain when you have X amount of additional steps to do to repackage the mod.  I should think about remedying that.
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Offline weimer

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #22 on: January 23, 2005, 04:42:11 PM »
Quote
Unfortunately, it's generally spoiled somewhat by the auto-update procedure not being able to rerun the EXE, but there's nothing to be done about that.

Nothing? Here's a batch file (let's call it "weidu-wrap.bat"). Have your NSIS run it instead of Setup-Foo.exe. It will automatically re-run Setup-Foo.exe if WeiDU had to auto-update itself.

Code: [Select]
@ECHO OFF
COPY setup-foo.exe backup-setup-foo.exe
setup-foo.exe
FC /LB1 setup-foo.exe backup-setup-foo.exe > nul
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO RETRY
GOTO DONE
:RETRY
PAUSE > nul
CLS
setup-foo.exe
:DONE
ERASE backup-setup-foo.exe

If your mod isn't Setup-Foo.exe you'll have to change it, of course.

Offline SimDing0™

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #23 on: January 23, 2005, 04:46:56 PM »
Oooh, awesome. I didn't know that was possible. That's definitely something worth doing for future NSIS mods, thanks.

Offline jcompton

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Re: Tutorial on Installation Packaging?
« Reply #24 on: January 23, 2005, 04:47:01 PM »
I can't put it better than what was just said to me, "I think it's something worth doing for future mods, if it works."

Thanks, Wes, I'll check that out.
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