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A5 runtime installer issue

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    #1

    A5 runtime installer issue

    Here is an issue that has very likely been faced before by professional A5 developers in the packaging and installation of their A5 applications. Some advice would be gratefully received from anyone who has faced and solved the problems I now describe.
    My completed A5 application includes software components other than just A5 that need to be installed by a Windows-based installer. So I use Inno Setup Compiler (www.innosetup.com) for this purpose where I can create the registry keys, desktop shortcuts and load the files I need to prescribed folders. I also have my A5 application setup installer that includes my A5 application and runtime files.
    I need to solve two problems here:

    1. make sure my customers do not install my A5 application files to a folder where my own non-A5 software components cannot find them; and

    2. present a single installer to my customers so they see it as single product rather than a non-integrated and confusing mess. 8-)

    Possible solutions I have considered include:

    A. Use the A5 runtime compiler do everything for me as it can include the registry keys and files I need for my non-A5 components. But, no, this won't work because I need more flexibility than it provides to create additional registry keys, desktop shortcuts, select different icons and also install to a variety of folders that are determined at install time.

    B. Link the two setup installers together as one, running my one first and having it somehow tell the A5 installer that follows in which folder to place my A5 application files. This is probably a more viable solution, except I cannot work out what A5 program in the A5 setup package is run (after decompressing its contents) to do the actual install and also how do I tell it exactly what folder my A5 application is to go in (and preventing the user selecting somewhere else)?

    Has anyone managed to solve these two problems (1 and 2 above)? [It would be really great if the good folk at Alpha Software have resolved this issue in version 6].
    Tags: None
    #2
    RE: A5 runtime installer issue

    Check out message ID 13465. Cal has a suggestion there for you.

    kenn
    TYVM :) kenn

    Knowing what you can achieve will not become reality until you imagine and explore.

    Comment

      #3
      RE: A5 runtime installer issue

      Thanks for the suggestion, Ken. I will certainly take a look at Astrum InstallWizard. But I do not think that this product will solve my problem (as exponded above in B). I use Inno setup compiler and it has pascal-like language that I can drop into if I need to do anything really fancy. No, what I really want is the ability to tell the A5 setup installer to use a nominated folder (from a registry key value) to install my A5 application to with no possibility of a user selecting an alternative. I cannot currently work out how to do this.

      Comment

        #4
        RE: A5 runtime installer issue

        I use Astrum, which I think will allow you to do this.

        - Steve
        -Steve
        sigpic

        Comment

          #5
          RE: A5 runtime installer issue

          Brett

          I use two install programs as I am installing two products. The A5 runtime and my application. Most customers have the smarts to figure out how to run one and then the other. In some cases, the customer may purchase the runtime directly from Alpha and install it themselves.

          In the older days of A5V4, the runtime came broken down and could be combined into one install program with the developer application. The headache with this method was that an update to either component required a whole new complete install program, By allowing each distinct program to have its own installer, you can update each independently.

          Jerry

          Comment

            #6
            RE: A5 runtime installer issue

            Is that the standard ($49) or professional version ($79) that has this feature?

            Comment

              #7
              RE: A5 runtime installer issue

              By the way, Steve is correct, Astrum will allow setting a default install location obtained from a registry value. Allowing the user the determine the install location can be bypassed. Astrum is a very nice, inexpensive program that is easy to use.

              Jerry

              Comment

                #8
                RE: A5 runtime installer issue

                Thanks, Jerry, Steve and Ken. Really good stuff! There's enough in the way of good suggestions here to keep me going for a while. I can experiment a bit now.

                Comment

                  #9
                  RE: A5 runtime installer issue

                  Hello Guys,

                  Are you guys using Astrum to install the runtime as well?
                  I am currently Using Alpha to create the Runtime Setup for me, and then Astrum to install the App.

                  I tried to install both with Astrum, but i get a lot of errors if i do that.

                  Could you please help me with some ideas?
                  At this stage the installations are either done by myself or the user has to run both setup files. Not neat at all!

                  Thanks
                  Walter

                  Comment

                    #10
                    RE: A5 runtime installer issue

                    Hi Walter,
                    In response to your question and the solution I finally chose to the problem posed in my original question is as follows. I remained with Inno Setup compiler (an excellent product) and set up a single installer that did the installation of both my A5 application AND the Alpha Five runtime components required for my application. How did I do that?
                    Well firstly I generated the A5 installation setup install file for my application using A5 (of course you need A5 Runtime to do this). I noted the resulting setup file was in ZIP format, so I decompressed this and put it in its own folder. I then went through the resulting files and weeded out what I didn't need. This cut down the size of what I really needed by a significant amount.
                    Then lastly I created my application setup file using Inno Setup Compiler and had it install the A5 files I needed from the first step.
                    It worked nicely. I ended up with a single installation setup file for my application that included all the required A5 and Runtime components. And the resulting file was a good amount smaller than what it would otherwise have been too!

                    Comment

                      #11
                      RE: A5 runtime installer issue

                      Hello Brett,

                      When I decompress the v6-Runtime, the size is about 56mb!
                      All I can guess to remove there, is some of the .gif and .jpg files! Never tried to alter the runtime files...
                      I am not using any stylesheet bitmaps as well in this app.

                      Another approach:
                      Would it be possible to run the runtime setup file created by A5, from inside Astrum somehow?
                      Or maybe another way ?

                      Thanks
                      Walter

                      Comment

                        #12
                        RE: A5 runtime installer issue

                        I found there were several very large help files (.chm and .pdf formats) that weren't needed. Also a lot of other stuff too. But I had to decide on what on the basis of if I wasn't sure then I had better leave it there.
                        I am not sure if Astrum can run external processes as part of the install, Inno certainly can. In my case I rejected this option as a wanted just one installer to be run by the user. If I provided two then there was more chance of things being done wrong.
                        I have attached a copy of the documentation on how to create the installer for my application. It's a MS Word document, compressed in ZIP format. Bearing in mind it is for A5 version 5, not 6. Hope this helps.

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