IzPack 5.1.0 released

[René Krell]

Dear community,


after providing 7 release candidates, we proudly present the final major release 5.1.0
Please note this is not just a bug fix release and make also break things if you don't check and adapt your existing environment. Not all wishes could be fulfilled neither all remaining known bugs fixed, but no real blocker of IzPack's declared core functionality has been found at the moment. We are still compatible to JDK 6. 

Highlights:

• Introduced configurable logging optionally either to the installer descriptor or as command line option, you can specify log files (including rolling archives), log levels to console and the log file or use your own log handler from within IzPack descriptors to send the log output anywhere. Furthermore, IzPack has been made fully compliant to Java Util logging and does no longer break the default configuration facilities of the JVM, it enhances them instead. The -logfile installer command line option can now be used to redirect all log entries to a dedicated file.
• The <file unpack="true" ... > option does now additionally recognize and extract many more compression formats (bzip2, gzip, pack200, snappy, Z, XZ, LZMA, deflate) and compressed or uncompressed archive file formats (zip, jar, ar, cpio, arj, 7z, dump, tar) and allows to select their content by a nested <archivefileset> regardless of the file suffix (but by analyzing the file contents)
• The compression of pack files has been reinvented and supports now several more compression algorithms (gz, bzip2, xz, lzma, deflate)
• The <pack200> tag has been moved from the global <info> level to the level of single pack files to let you chose the application of this highly efficient Java bytecode compression method for single files which are directly assigned this way, no longer globally and implicitly depending on the file suffix .jar. Furthermore, Pack200 can now be customized.
• The mixed automated mode introduced in IzPack 5.0.10 has been enhanced by the possibility of adding custom value mappers to your defaults files, for instance for encoding or decoding password hashs
• An IzPack installer does now know the command line options -debug, -trace and -stacktrace as a convenient counterpart of the according system properties settings (-DDEBUG=true etc.)
• Improvements in ConfigurationHandler auto-numbering handling
• Allow the execution of subsequent installer listeners if a warning is thrown during the execution of an InstallerListener instead of aborting the installation.
• Using the ProcessPanel, there can now be specified whether the installation may continue after a failing job.
• Removed long-term deprecated and unused code and reduced footprint of the installer code.
• Re-vamped and optimized the packaging and unpacking format and code which is now more transparent and allows to better plug in several compression approaches.
• IzPack Maven plugin migrated from 2.2.1 to the Maven 3.2.5 API.
• API improvements, especially for packaging metadata and variable substitution.
• Compiled against the latest releases of picocontainer 2.15 and Apache Ant 1.9.9
• The IcePDF library uses now a version which is available in Maven Central - no need to add the additional icesoft repository any longer for building.
• Validating of any IzPack XML descriptor is now always active, the according Maven plugin, Ant task and command line options have been removed.
• Many bugfixes.

This release adds the following long list of changes in particular:

New Feature

• [IZPACK-1435] - Provide variable value overrides from external file for all installation modes
• [IZPACK-1472] - Introduce customizable installer logging
• [IZPACK-1493] - <file> tag: Auto-recognize archive file format and allow archive filesets to be defined
• [IZPACK-1499] - Reintroduce pack compression and support more compression algorithms for it (gz, bzip2, xz, lzma, deflate)
• [IZPACK-1500] - Move pack200 compression option from <info> to pack file level and make it configurable

Improvement

• [IZPACK-1032] - Support of tar.gz for unpack
• [IZPACK-1443] - Check box field - allow variable references in the set attribute value
• [IZPACK-1478] - Offer streams API for variable substitution on the fly
• [IZPACK-1479] - Replace IOHelper utility methods by commons.io implementations where possible
• [IZPACK-1480] - Do not allow duplicate translation resources during compiling
• [IZPACK-1482] - ConfigurationInstallerListener - handle auto-numbered key-value-pairs also for numbers embedded into the key name
• [IZPACK-1485] - Allow specifying whether installation may continue after failing processpanel job
• [IZPACK-1489] - Allow execution of subsequent installer listeners if a warning is thrown during the execution of an InstallerListener
• [IZPACK-1503] - Remove the 'validating' compiler option - make XML validation obligatory
• [IZPACK-1507] - Handling deprecation of Encoding entry in ShortcutsPanel
• [IZPACK-1517] - Remove standalone compiler jar from officially deployed artifacts
• [IZPACK-1521] - Make it possible to add a refpack relative to the base directory

Story

• [IZPACK-1495] - IzPack 5.1 code revamp
  Sub-tasks:
  • [IZPACK-1436] - Add default value mappers for reading from (or saving to) the file
  • [IZPACK-1496] - Migrate the IzPack Maven plugin to the Maven 3.0 API
  • [IZPACK-1497] - Serialize actual size of packed file data instead of the size of the original file to enable compression
  • [IZPACK-1498] - Remove dependency of packaging stream to Apache Ant
  • [IZPACK-1502] - Move PackInfo, ExecutableFile, ParsableFile and UpdateCheck to API
  • [IZPACK-1504] - Update ICEpdf dependency to 6.2.0 from Maven Central
  • [IZPACK-1510] - Remove dependency and packaging of jakarta-regexp to installer
  • [IZPACK-1511] - Update picocontainer to 2.15
  • [IZPACK-1512] - Update Apache Ant dependency to 1.9.9
  • [IZPACK-1518] - Remove deprecated classes and methods wherever possible

Other Tasks

• [IZPACK-770] - Document logging and tracing for developers and users
• [IZPACK-1494] - Remove deprecated ExtendedInstallPanel

Bug Fixes

• [IZPACK-1298] - <executable> with <fileset> do not update executable file mode.
• [IZPACK-1393] - Console installation does not write Installation Group contents to auto-install XML
• [IZPACK-1422] - Attribute "regroot" for dynamic variable is not documented.
• [IZPACK-1429] - Exceptions that are thrown in izpack GUI do not have any boundaries
• [IZPACK-1440] - Loose pack with zipfile and unpack="true" causes NPE
• [IZPACK-1447] - Console installer force password fields to have a value
• [IZPACK-1450] - NPE when using validators extending PanelValidator and missing <configuration> section
• [IZPACK-1451] - Java Version check fails for Update Versions > 99
• [IZPACK-1452] - Unsupported <field> layout attributes in the documentation
• [IZPACK-1453] - <pack> element doesn't allow the 'os' attribute by XSD, although it is implemented
• [IZPACK-1456] - UserInputPanel: Check box field doesn't reflect the underlying variable value when the panel is activated
• [IZPACK-1458] - Minor flaws in distributed installer
• [IZPACK-1459] - Another NPE when using validators extending PanelValidator and missing <configuration> section
• [IZPACK-1460] - Misleading message "Validation failed - continuing installation"
• [IZPACK-1461] - Variable handling in filesets for executable files is broken
• [IZPACK-1462] - Issues in UNIX shortcut handling - code review
• [IZPACK-1463] - Missing translations and empty contents for SummaryPanel in czech installer language
• [IZPACK-1464] - UserInputPanel - Search field issues
• [IZPACK-1466] - Non-canonical paths do not work in exists condition
• [IZPACK-1467] - Possible deadlock in GUI mode if Next button is locked from a panel implementation
• [IZPACK-1468] - Variable references in labels, descriptions, statictext fields and field tooltips are resolved just during initialization
• [IZPACK-1471] - Substance laf
• [IZPACK-1476] - XML Schema does not allow uninstaller attribute in run-privileged element
• [IZPACK-1481] - Avoid warning: "Resource customicons.xml not defined. No custom icons available"
• [IZPACK-1483] - Fix <properties> tag parsing and handling
• [IZPACK-1484] - Installer frame does not show localized title
• [IZPACK-1488] - AntActionInstallerListener action fails if it contains a variable reference containing a '&' character in its value at runtime
• [IZPACK-1490] - ConfigurationActionListener: <variables> tag not accepted during compilation
• [IZPACK-1491] - Add missing brazilian translations
• [IZPACK-1501] - Signatures not stripped from jar files when being added as <jar>
• [IZPACK-1508] - Default quoting of Exec value with '' prevents valid .desktop files to be created
• [IZPACK-1514] - JUnit test fails if build on Java with non-numeric version parts
• [IZPACK-1519] - Fix NPE if <uninstaller write="false" /> is configured
• [IZPACK-1522] - Look and Feel parameters are overwritten if used multiple times with different OS constraints
• [IZPACK-1523] - IZPACK-1523: <enableOverrideArtifact> true is not honored

For detailed information see also the Github changelog of version 5.1.0 compared to 5.0.10. 

The new release should be replicated to all mirrors of Sonatype Nexus or Maven Central soon, be patient. 

Many thanks to all developers and users contributing code, translations, improving the documentation of this project (special thanks to Ron Wheeler for the permanent documentation observation) or pointing out things in discussions in the mailing lists or social networks. This time, there should be mentioned contributions from Andreas Kuhtz, Guilherme Pacheco (brazilian translations), Jan-Willem Willebrands, Kalle Richter, Karsten Rölling, Peter Hübner, Tomas Forsman and Zdeněk Vaník (in alphabetical order) and all the reports from the mailing lists and our issue tracker. 

You're invited to contribute to the code and documentation, or simply write us some news regarding this free project.

Fingers crossed.