Announcing the availability of VA Smalltalk V8.6 Windows Installer Beta

[John O'Keefe]

We are changing the install process for VA Smalltalk V8.6 (or whatever the next release gets called) to provide a more natural (and faster) install on all platforms. At the moment, we have released a BETA version for Windows only.

 

The new installer simplifies product installation by:

• installing both client and manager as the typical installation
• complying with Windows installation conventions and security measures (UAC)
• facilitating local installation of documentation as a separate install package
• providing tooling to create and manage development environments after product installation

Users who share their VA Smalltalk installation with other developers can still separate manager and client installations.

 

Installing VA Smalltalk consists of

1. Pre-installation cleanup of existing VA Smalltalk installation.
2. Download and launch of the product installer (VA Smalltalk 8.6.exe)
3. Choice of stand-alone or team development configurations

Once the product installation is complete, the new Environments tool is available to create development environments for your coding projects.

You can read more about the new installer and the Environments tool here . For information on VA Smalltalk installed by the installer, check out the readme.

Installing VA Smalltalk online documentation is as easy as

1. Download and launch the online document installer (VA Smalltalk Documentation 8.6.exe)

Please let us know what you think. If you have questions or comments, contact us at vast-s...@instantiations.com. We'd like to know how you like the installer, whether something didn't feel comfortable, didn't work as you think it should, or just that you really liked it -- let us know.

THIS CODE IS PROVIDED FOR TESTING PURPOSES ONLY -- IT IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENTS.

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[Louis LaBrunda]

Hi John,

I don't like to but I must keep more than one version of VA Smalltalk installed (at least for a while).  I hope the clean up of old version is optional.

Lou

[John O'Keefe]

Lou -

I've got versions back to 3.0a, so I'm pretty sensitive to what happens to old versions.

I assume your question relates to Uninstall, but I'm not quite sure what the specifics of your concern are. Can you tell me a bit more about it?

Thanks, John

[Louis LaBrunda]

Hey John,

From your post:

Installing VA Smalltalk consists of

1. Pre-installation cleanup of existing VA Smalltalk installation.

I just wanted to be sure this step wouldn't remove things I didn't want it to.

Lou

[Marten Feldtmann]

That looks promising. I only tested it under W7 (fresh installation) and it worked without any problems.

I looks like the Cincom approach of doing it ...

Now to get additional features:

-> how about the possibility to do an emsrv server installation ...


Marten

[jtu...@objektfabrik.de]

+ Integration of the library importer to update an existing library

+ Optional Backup / Cloning of the existing library before the update (not that I ever saw any problems with the library importer, but you never know)

I think environments are not only in VisualWorks, there also is a similar tool for Pharo. 

In any case they are a very good idea, because this

* somehwat resembles what other environments like eclipse offer

* makes creating desktop shortcuts etc. easier

Instantiations is working on lots of groundwork that will make VAST so much nicer and better over time. Some of these features are not so much eye-opener, but their current non-existence make VAST a lot more difficult to get into. So even if some users may think "heck, I'd rather see this or that feature integrated than a better installer!", these things are important and needed improving for quite a while now...

Joachim

[John O'Keefe]

Marten -

 

I think doing an (optional) emsrv server install as part of installing the Manager is a good idea. I will add it to the candidate list.

 

John

[John O'Keefe]

Joachim -

• The beta installer supports only a new install (i.e. V8.6), so you will always get a new clean manager. The update install (i.e. V8.6.1) will be in the released installer and will handle the invocation of the Importer to merge the new V8.6.1 code into an existing V8.6 manager.
• We warn users that they should backup their manager before doing an update install, but having an (optional) step that would actually do the backup is an interesting idea. I will add it to our candidate list.
• Environments does appear similar to VisualWorks Projects -- there are only so many ways to skin a cat -- but currently has more function (and with even more planned in the future).

John

[Dennis Debro]

Hi there,

I'm looking for a package/solution (similar to a msi) that we can distribute to clients so they can install our product easier. Can you share your routines for the VASmalltalk installation to possibly be used by others to deliver an installation package for VASmalltalk products?

[Marten Feldtmann]

I think, that this is a "normal" Windows problem. I have used "Inno Setup" to create an installation application for my VASmalltalk apps and after all it works without problems.

For this application I created the directory-structure of the software, filled them with files and read this directory structure via "Inno Setup" and with some try and errors I got it running