Alpha Software Mobile Development Tools:   Alpha Anywhere    |   Alpha TransForm subscribe to our YouTube Channel  Follow Us on LinkedIn  Follow Us on Twitter  Follow Us on Facebook

Announcement

Collapse

The Alpha Software Forum Participation Guidelines

The Alpha Software Forum is a free forum created for Alpha Software Developer Community to ask for help, exchange ideas, and share solutions. Alpha Software strives to create an environment where all members of the community can feel safe to participate. In order to ensure the Alpha Software Forum is a place where all feel welcome, forum participants are expected to behave as follows:
  • Be professional in your conduct
  • Be kind to others
  • Be constructive when giving feedback
  • Be open to new ideas and suggestions
  • Stay on topic


Be sure all comments and threads you post are respectful. Posts that contain any of the following content will be considered a violation of your agreement as a member of the Alpha Software Forum Community and will be moderated:
  • Spam.
  • Vulgar language.
  • Quotes from private conversations without permission, including pricing and other sales related discussions.
  • Personal attacks, insults, or subtle put-downs.
  • Harassment, bullying, threatening, mocking, shaming, or deriding anyone.
  • Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory jokes and language.
  • Sexually explicit or violent material, links, or language.
  • Pirated, hacked, or copyright-infringing material.
  • Encouraging of others to engage in the above behaviors.


If a thread or post is found to contain any of the content outlined above, a moderator may choose to take one of the following actions:
  • Remove the Post or Thread - the content is removed from the forum.
  • Place the User in Moderation - all posts and new threads must be approved by a moderator before they are posted.
  • Temporarily Ban the User - user is banned from forum for a period of time.
  • Permanently Ban the User - user is permanently banned from the forum.


Moderators may also rename posts and threads if they are too generic or do not property reflect the content.

Moderators may move threads if they have been posted in the incorrect forum.

Threads/Posts questioning specific moderator decisions or actions (such as "why was a user banned?") are not allowed and will be removed.

The owners of Alpha Software Corporation (Forum Owner) reserve the right to remove, edit, move, or close any thread for any reason; or ban any forum member without notice, reason, or explanation.

Community members are encouraged to click the "Report Post" icon in the lower left of a given post if they feel the post is in violation of the rules. This will alert the Moderators to take a look.

Alpha Software Corporation may amend the guidelines from time to time and may also vary the procedures it sets out where appropriate in a particular case. Your agreement to comply with the guidelines will be deemed agreement to any changes to it.



Bonus TIPS for Successful Posting

Try a Search First
It is highly recommended that a Search be done on your topic before posting, as many questions have been answered in prior posts. As with any search engine, the shorter the search term, the more "hits" will be returned, but the more specific the search term is, the greater the relevance of those "hits". Searching for "table" might well return every message on the board while "tablesum" would greatly restrict the number of messages returned.

When you do post
First, make sure you are posting your question in the correct forum. For example, if you post an issue regarding Desktop applications on the Mobile & Browser Applications board , not only will your question not be seen by the appropriate audience, it may also be removed or relocated.

The more detail you provide about your problem or question, the more likely someone is to understand your request and be able to help. A sample database with a minimum of records (and its support files, zipped together) will make it much easier to diagnose issues with your application. Screen shots of error messages are especially helpful.

When explaining how to reproduce your problem, please be as detailed as possible. Describe every step, click-by-click and keypress-by-keypress. Otherwise when others try to duplicate your problem, they may do something slightly different and end up with different results.

A note about attachments
You may only attach one file to each message. Attachment file size is limited to 2MB. If you need to include several files, you may do so by zipping them into a single archive.

If you forgot to attach your files to your post, please do NOT create a new thread. Instead, reply to your original message and attach the file there.

When attaching screen shots, it is best to attach an image file (.BMP, .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, etc.) or a zip file of several images, as opposed to a Word document containing the screen shots. Because Word documents are prone to viruses, many message board users will not open your Word file, therefore limiting their ability to help you.

Similarly, if you are uploading a zipped archive, you should simply create a .ZIP file and not a self-extracting .EXE as many users will not run your EXE file.
See more
See less

Creating an installation for distribution...

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Creating an installation for distribution...

    Hello All,

    I need to create an install package for distribution of an application using runtime. I have done two tests using the included installation program, one several months ago and the other a few days ago. I installed both on another PC running XP, not on my development PC.

    I want to delete those installs but the control panel add/remove software page does not show either version in its list.

    There are a number of references to Alpha5 in the registry (which I know almost nothing about).

    How do I remove these installs?
    What do I need to do so a future user can uninstall as in any other Windows installation?
    Are there any registry entries I should have or should not have used when creating the install?

    I have checked the archives but haven't found anything helpful.

    Les

    #2
    Re: Creating an installation for distribution...

    Hi Les,

    You have made the discovery the hard way about not being able to un-install a runtime.

    Now is the time to be looking at a third party installer, like Astrum for example.
    Regards
    Keith Hubert
    Alpha Guild Member
    London.
    KHDB Management Systems
    Skype = keith.hubert


    For your day-to-day Needs, you Need an Alpha Database!

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Creating an installation for distribution...

      Keith,

      I was hoping you weren't going to say that.

      Thanks.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Creating an installation for distribution...

        Very happy, not really, to read your post about uninstalling A5 - I've only installed my app for tests... haven't tried an un-install yet... but I will. I do use Wise for other stuff, but was just going to use the A5 installer for this app.

        Anyway... have a look here. I haven't tried this yet on A5. On other stuff it's amazing. Recommended by PCWorld or PCMag - can't remember - no problems. I'll give it a try over the weekend on A5. I use this for getting rid of all the garbage the Windows uninstaller leaves behind.

        http://www.revouninstaller.com/

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Creating an installation for distribution...

          So I got Astrum and have put together a distribution package. However, I am having all kind of issues and would like some guidance.

          It seems that after updating a form in my development database, when a 'copy to' is performed, the copied form retains its properties.

          When a release is created, that form has all kinds of issues figuring out where things are in the release version which is installed on a different PC.

          Is there something I can do when 'copying to' that will stop the need to relink every detail of the form in the production database? Is there something I am missing? It seems to me that constructing a release version is a really unwieldy process the way I'm doing it.

          I also want to start with empty files for a new user but emptying the development files does not reset the record counters which is what I expected it to do and the user's first entry is the next record number after whatever I happened to have used. Is there a way to do this?

          Les

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Creating an installation for distribution...

            Pack the tables? I am really new at this. I just got V9 and I am swamped with the"Runtime v9"---like I have to develop the runtime myself???? I am lost!!

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Creating an installation for distribution...

              I'm very new to A5. I haven't even started programming with it yet (I have to wrap up my old stuff first).

              I've been using www.deploymaster.com ($99) for years for product distribution. Easy for the developer, easy for the user. I love it. Check it.

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Creating an installation for distribution...

                I am going to start looking into third party installers (Although for the run engine and run time should have it!).

                My newbie question is how do I designate which files and what registry changes? I know the A5 version will take care of that without asking me. How does a third party installer know?
                Thanks,

                Roderick Silva
                [email protected]

                About Me: rodericksilva.com
                Twitter: rodericksilva

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: Creating an installation for distribution...

                  I am having the same problems. I'm finding the documentation very sparse on the subject and I am lost. I was under the impression that creating an install would be easy, now I find that it's recommended to not even use the Alpha 5 installer.

                  I just have my desktop app working the way I want, I just need to make an install package so that does not allow the user to change anything. I would prefer that no Alpha 5 functions appear simply because I do not want to spend time answering questions about Alpha 5.

                  When I create an install package now, I am confronted with an Alpha 5 install that requests a license number. When I input my license number, I receive a message stating that I've reached the limits for the number. I'm using version 9 with unlimited licensing.

                  Does anyone know of any documentation with a clear tutorial on how to make this happen?

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Creating an installation for distribution...

                    Hi Mark,

                    I just need to make an install package so that does not allow the user to change anything.
                    The Runtime does not allow any editing.
                    I would prefer that no Alpha 5 functions appear
                    You will need the Alpha Five Runtime/Run Engine Branding Utility for that.

                    Do a search for License.Key in this forum.

                    I have created Runtime applications, but a good Alpha developer can open it up. It all depends how much you batton down the hatches.
                    Regards
                    Keith Hubert
                    Alpha Guild Member
                    London.
                    KHDB Management Systems
                    Skype = keith.hubert


                    For your day-to-day Needs, you Need an Alpha Database!

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: Creating an installation for distribution...

                      Thanks for the info and I'm finding some information the license key now.

                      If I can batton down the hatches just good enough that no Alpha 5 information appears on install or in the background of the app, that will be fine. I am not worried it being hacked. I've done this app without much conversation about the details of how it was done and I want to keep it that way is all. My only specification was that they didn't want to be laughed at for using middleware. It's an odd project.

                      I will look for more info on the branding utility today also.

                      Thanks!

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: Creating an installation for distribution...

                        Mark,

                        This may help a little and is how I do this. I have very few problems this way. If you deviate and it works better, please let me know.

                        1 My deployed app is kept in a seperate folder
                        2 I do not use copy to - I copy the affected files to the install folder
                        3 I do use astrum
                        4 By way of astrum, The registry entries are copied to the new machine
                        5 Any bat/exe/com files needed to be run on install are done by way of astrum
                        6 Astrum can make an uninstaller for you
                        7 You can set astrum to copy over all files or none or selectively
                        8 Every time records are removed, a pack needs to be done of the db
                        9 Any bat/exe/com files needing to be run after install are done in the bootstrap using(usually) shell()
                        10 Registrations are handled mostly by bootstrap or first startup.

                        I have tried the alpha installer and was happier with Astrum. Other Installers maybe better though.

                        I probably left out some stuff.

                        Hope it helps some.

                        Added: I have almost no Alpha messages showing up anymore(none actually). It took time to trap them and eliminate though. I have not used the branding utility.

                        .
                        Dave Mason
                        [email protected]
                        Skype is dave.mason46

                        Comment

                        Working...
                        X