IzPack 5.0.7 released

[René Krell]

Dear community,


on behalf of the IzPack team and contributors I'm pleased to announce the IzPack bug fix release 5.0.7.

This version took us quite a lot of time, but it moved quite a big step forward in the 5.0 stable release series.

Highlights:

• The compiler uses all built-in XSDs for parsing - no more ignored tags and attributes due to misspelled identifiers - this might break your build if you descriptors are not defined according to the official XSD (which is positive, though, if the XSD is correct), but in case there has been something forgotten in the XSD you might be angry. Nevertheless, we're prepared to add and release quickly. Clean XSDs are highest priority at the moment, please be constructive, patient and help us to clean them up!
• New PDFLicencePanel
• New VersionComparisonMajor condition
• Significant improvements of the console installation mode (all panels, overall layout, more translated text items)
• Significant improvements in logging and console output of the compiler and installer
• Fixes, improvements and consolidation of all three (1 more in 5.0.7) types of license panels. There can be optionally activated word-wrapping and paging of longer texts for all license panels in console installation mode depending on the format of your license text. XSDs are up to date and compiler really uses them for validating of all possible XML descriptors
• More compiler cross-checks of existing references between descriptors
• Customizing: Panel validators can be given configuration options
• Plenties of bug fixes

This release adds the following fixes and improvements in particular:

New Feature

• [IZPACK-1312] - Adding PDF Licence Panel
• [IZPACK-1320] - Add version comparison condition not assuming missing minor parts of one of the operands to be 0

Improvement

• [IZPACK-1300] - Validate all XML descriptors against XML Schema Definitions during compiling
• [IZPACK-1313] - izpack5.0.6: Install izpack demo with console mode don't have language choose step. Please add LanguageConsoleDialog.
• [IZPACK-1315] - Panel conditions in userInputSpec.xml not checked during compiling, installer fails later
• [IZPACK-1317] - Improve logging formatting for Maven / Ant
• [IZPACK-1318] - [HTML]LicencePanel, [HTML]InfoPanel - make paging and wordwrap for the console installation mode configurable
• [IZPACK-1322] - Provide API for configurable validators to implementing better custom panel validators
• [IZPACK-1328] - Various compiler and installer logging improvements
• [IZPACK-1329] - Consolidate license panels functionality and translations
• [IZPACK-1332] - Ambiguous meaning of <native> attribute stage
• [IZPACK-1336] - Add <consoleprefs> tag similar to the <guiprefs>
• [IZPACK-1340] - Test should run on Windows OS without administrative rights
• [IZPACK-1346] - Compiled installer contains needless resources - save size by removing them
• [IZPACK-1353] - Consolidate behavior of TargetPanel in GUI and console installation mode
• [IZPACK-1354] - Do installer requirement checks after the language dialog has been confirmed

Bug

• [IZPACK-1025] - Uninstaller window i18n
• [IZPACK-1170] - IzPack Ant task does not work if you use try to embed the install config inline
• [IZPACK-1185] - Substance L&F not compatible with Java 8, Liquid L&F not compiling
• [IZPACK-1301] - NPE Exception when using compound conditions with pack selection
• [IZPACK-1302] - Bad message from console installer when pressing CTRL-C in TargetPanel
• [IZPACK-1305] - No Shortcut panel on Windows 7: invalid path to load ShellLink.dll and ShellLink_x64.dll
• [IZPACK-1307] - New LicenceConsolePanel pagination does not work reliably for long lines
• [IZPACK-1309] - Panel validators let console installer fail in case of validation failures instead of redisplaying the user input console panel beginning from first field
• [IZPACK-1311] - PacksConsolePanel - fix Redisplay, add panel title, don't show hidden packs
• [IZPACK-1314] - UserInputPanel - choice fields (radio/combobox) badly handles pre-set values, difference between console and GUI installation mode
• [IZPACK-1316] - UserInputPanel "check" field - initial value not consistent in several combinations of true/false/set attributes in spec
• [IZPACK-1319] - TargetConsolePanel: Not asking whether the directory should be created in console installation mode
• [IZPACK-1321] - Executables seem to stack/repeat witch each pack
• [IZPACK-1324] - HTMLLicenceConsolePanel not updated to support multiple instances of HTMLLicencePanel
• [IZPACK-1325] - NullPointerException in PacksPanelBase
• [IZPACK-1326] - GUI installation mode - InstallerFrame initializes debugger and thus triggers additional evaluating of all conditions
• [IZPACK-1327] - Print headline for all built-in console-mode panels
• [IZPACK-1330] - Test failure under Windows
• [IZPACK-1331] - Integrationtest failures under Windows
• [IZPACK-1333] - FinishPanel must respect customized uninstaller path
• [IZPACK-1334] - <uninstaller> tag not compiled according to documentation
• [IZPACK-1335] - NPE in "contains" condition
• [IZPACK-1337] - Add missing nested tag <string> to "empty" condition in XSD
• [IZPACK-1338] - Fix exception handling in installer during refreshing dynamic variables
• [IZPACK-1339] - Variables not resolved in static text fields and field labels of UserInputConsolePanel
• [IZPACK-1341] - Fileset selectors not parsed in <pack> definitions - add them to the XSD
• [IZPACK-1342] - Console installer regressions
• [IZPACK-1344] - PacksConsoleInstallationTest fails on system with different language than english
• [IZPACK-1347] - Custom actions are not executed during automated installation
• [IZPACK-1348] - Privilege elevation does not work for Windows 10
• [IZPACK-1349] - Empty ConfigurationActionsSpec (and other xml structures) should be allowed again
• [IZPACK-1350] - Installer fails under Windows if Uninstaller icon is configured
• [IZPACK-1352] - UserInputPanel: "file" and "multifile" fields ignore the fileextdesc attribute
• [IZPACK-1355] - Write test with limited user returns error even when it is able to write INSTALL_PATH
• [IZPACK-1361] - element <executable>: documentation and XSD does not match

Sub-task

• [IZPACK-1362] - <executable>: XSD is missing attributes "type" and "class"
• [IZPACK-1364] - <executable>: XSD is missing attribute "failure"

For detailed information see also the Github changelog of version 5.0.7 compared to 5.0.6. 

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 or pointing out things in discussions in the mailing lists or social networks. There should be mentioned contributions from Andreas Kuhtz, Brad Fisher, Diego Vivo, Lukas Eberli, Peter Hübner, Qiang He, Tom Helpstone, Zdeněk Vaník (in alphabetical order). 

Big thanks also to our "documentation revision daemon" in the background, Ron Wheeler, which is always prepared to fix typos, ambiguous explanations and makes the documentation more comprehensible to the users. 

BTW, in relation to the scale of changes happened in this release I'm sure there will be another minor release soon with hot fixes (especially regarding the XSDs). Therefore, let's use our human mind for deciding the release date instead of defining a constant release cycle. 

As always you're invited to contribute to the code and documentation, or simply tell us your experience with this new release.

Keep in touch.