any advice on an installer/package maker?

[Greg Welch]

I have been successful in getting my two free Mail plugins (MailFollowUp and MailRecent) working under Mavericks (latest seed). There were quite a few changes needed, but most simplified the code actually. The plugins are not that complicated anyway.

I would LOVE to ditch my crusty old (dysfunctional really) custom Applescript installer. And yet every time I look into the packagemaker tools, etc. w/ Xcode (including examples on stackoverflow, and posted in this group) I get discouraged by the apparent complexity, lack of examples/documentation, etc. It's not that I'm incapable of figuring it out, but I can't spend the time becoming an installer expert. And yet it's the weakest part of my plugin give-aways.

My install needs are pretty simple, I think: 

1. check the OS version (if easy—the plugins do it when loading too)
2. quit Mail if running
   
3. set EnableBundles to true in com.apple.mail.plist (in the proper location)
   
4. copy my mailbundle to ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/ (copy over, or remove old ones first)
5. start Mail

It would be nice to have the installer signed so users don't have to work around that. I need to get permissions right, etc. I'd like to do this for 10.8.5 and 10.9 for now.

Can anyone suggest a simple tool or mechanism for making an installer package?

I've looked at some GUI packages (e.g., deprecated Apple PackageMaker app, Packages, Iceberg) but after encountering frustrations w/ each I gave up, so far anyway.

Thanks in advance for thoughts.

[Scott Morrison]

I use my own installer that I built that seems to do the job rather well -- I went through a period a few years back were various installer I had just failed or failed randomly so I put in the time to build my own --- but the problem is that they are pretty suited for my self and I have tweaked them in to my workflow.   As far as documentation... Ha! -- 

Instead 

look at  Mail Plugin Manager code on github https://github.com/lksoft/MailPluginManager -- by Scott Little

It handles Installations, updates and other managements ---One of these days I am going to look at packaging it with mysoftware -- and in fact I think it would be a boon for end users if this was pervasively used.

Scott

Scott Morrison

sm...@indev.ca

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[Scott Little]

Hello Greg,

I, of course, agree with Scott M. (Thanks for the plug).

There is an Installer Package that you can build and use to have a fully contained installer and include the Mail Plugin Manager as well (though that is an option for you).

The documentation on github doesn't explain the installer application yet (sorry I haven't been updating very much), but if you decide to use it you can send me emails to ask some questions. It really shouldn't take more than about an hour to set up the installer for plugins.

Scott

On 27 Aug 2013, at 23:43 , Scott Morrison <sm...@indev.ca> wrote:

I use my own installer that I built that seems to do the job rather well -- I went through a period a few years back were various installer I had just failed or failed randomly so I put in the time to build my own --- but the problem is that they are pretty suited for my self and I have tweaked them in to my workflow.   As far as documentation... Ha! -- 

Instead 

look at  Mail Plugin Manager code on github https://github.com/lksoft/MailPluginManager -- by Scott Little

It handles Installations, updates and other managements ---One of these days I am going to look at packaging it with mysoftware -- and in fact I think it would be a boon for end users if this was pervasively used.

Scott Morrison

sm...@indev.ca

On 2013-08-27, at 3:33 PM, Greg Welch <welc...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have been successful in getting my two free Mail plugins (MailFollowUp and MailRecent) working under Mavericks (latest seed). There were quite a few changes needed, but most simplified the code actually. The plugins are not that complicated anyway.

I would LOVE to ditch my crusty old (dysfunctional really) custom Applescript installer. And yet every time I look into the packagemaker tools, etc. w/ Xcode (including examples on stackoverflow, and posted in this group) I get discouraged by the apparent complexity, lack of examples/documentation, etc. It's not that I'm incapable of figuring it out, but I can't spend the time becoming an installer expert. And yet it's the weakest part of my plugin give-aways.

My install needs are pretty simple, I think: 

1. check the OS version (if easy—the plugins do it when loading too)
2. quit Mail if running
   
3. set EnableBundles to true in com.apple.mail.plist (in the proper location)
   
4. copy my mailbundle to ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/ (copy over, or remove old ones first)
5. start Mail

It would be nice to have the installer signed so users don't have to work around that. I need to get permissions right, etc. I'd like to do this for 10.8.5 and 10.9 for now.

Can anyone suggest a simple tool or mechanism for making an installer package?

I've looked at some GUI packages (e.g., deprecated Apple PackageMaker app, Packages, Iceberg) but after encountering frustrations w/ each I gave up, so far anyway.

Thanks in advance for thoughts.

—
"Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted."
Pasi Sahlberg Director of the Finnish Ministry of Education's Center for International Mobility
—  

Scott Little

scott.j...@gmail.com

--

[Greg Welch]

Thanks Scott/Scott. I will dig into Mail Plugin Manager ASAP. It seems interesting, and I'd be very happy to do anything to make my plugins more "standard" and maintainable by someone else some day, etc.

Take care,

--greg

[Greg Welch]

Closing the loop...  I figured out the issues in Apple's PackageMaker, I believe, so made installers w/ that, at least for now.

But Mail Plugin Manager looks very nice—I'd like to use it. I will have to spend more time looking at it though. 

Thanks again.

--greg

On Tuesday, August 27, 2013 5:33:55 PM UTC-4, Greg Welch wrote:

[Christopher Atlan]

Hi,

Not sure what or how you to it with  PackageMaker but because you mentioned home folder installation: Don't do that with packages, it's just always a dirty hack which most of the times results in major headache.  

Christopher

Sent from my iPhone

[Greg Welch]

I appreciate any advice but don't understand your comment. It seems to work fine (I've had about 20 people tell me so in the last hour) and it is pretty clean, IMO.

Thanks,

--greg

[Christopher Atlan]

http://simx.me/technonova/tips/packagemaker_and_installer.html Section 1

Christopher

["[ChungwaSoft] Fabian Jäger"]

The main problem I am encountering when allowing system-wide and home folder installation in the installer was that the user needs to actively click one of the two to make the "continue" button be activated. For some users this was somehow confusing because the home folder installation seemed selected, but the "continue" button was still grayed out. Only after actively clicking on home folder installation, the button became enabled...

Best regards,

Fabian

[Greg Welch]

I've seen that when playing w/ PackageMaker too. My needs are (by choice) simpler than I'm sure most. I am choosing to do the installer only for >= 10.8, and only for the current user. So these instructions by etresoft seem to work for me, without any of the issues (that I can tell) indicated in the site referenced by catlan, nor issues related to choosing between system-wide and home. I'm forcing/only allowing home.