Alpha5 Install Maker - APPin v-2.0 - A Installation Maker Designed for Alpha5 v10, v11, & v12

[jhackney]

Fred, first sorry for referring to you as Keith. Second, I found this message from the JRSoftware GitHub site:

**NOTE** Currently the main Inno Setup web site is down. The 5.6.1 binaries can be downloaded from GitHub under releases. --- Inno Setup is a free installer for Windows programs. First introduced in 1997, Inno Setup today rivals and even surpasses many commercial installers in feature set and stability.

You can still download the files from the link below:

https://github.com/jrsoftware

[jhackney]

Fred, I looked into the issue with the Inno site and found the following message on GitHub:

**NOTE** Currently the main Inno Setup web site is down. The 5.6.1 binaries can be downloaded from GitHub under releases. --- Inno Setup is a free installer for Windows programs. First introduced in 1997, Inno Setup today rivals and even surpasses many commercial installers in feature set and stability.

You can download the 2 files by going to the "jrsoftware" page on GitHub.

[hocomlabs]

Thanks for your assistance.

With surprisingly little effort I was able to march through the AppIn installer protocols and managed to produce the setup file. A few questions if you'll allow me?

[1] I ended up with a map "installation files", which held a few files besides the resulting application setup file. Among those the Inno_script set up file (expected), the License.key file (also expected), the startup.txt file (also expected) BUT also 6 files including "Log" in their filenames. Are these files also to be distributed with the setup file? What is their function?

****RESOLVED****

[2] I ran the setup file of course, but although the whole setup process proceeded like a breeze, unfortunately the resulting application did not function. It produced an error for every webcomponent that was not there. This was the error message:
"Fatal error running a5_ajax_grid(): Property not found tmpl.precalc.SimpleTemplateForNewRow subelement not found. on line 764 in 1000173:pl"

In the base application (the development files), all of the webcomponents are present, run perfectly without error. The app runs on both full Alpha v12 versions as the v12 runtime (tested that).

The newly installed application in runtime mode however produced the above errors. Something seems to be "missing" or wrong. Have you seen this before? What am I doing wrong?
I checked all the images and icons used. All seem present. I compared the contents of both maps (base and newly installed), which do not seem to have important differences.

I know these processes can be rather tedious before you have something that actually works. Missing files are often the culprit. But here, I can't seem to find what exactly is missing.... Starting up the newly installed app with both the full developer version of AA or the newly installed Runtime don't make any difference. Both applications can't make it work, the tabbed UI appears, but the grid components itself fail wit said error.

Addition later this day:

First, I checked whether I used the same version/build in Full Developer version and used Runtime. It checked out I was. I know, that has been known to be a regular problem, accidentally using different versions. But, as it checked out, I wasn't. Both versions and builds are equal.

Next, I used WinMerge to check out what was different in the original dev directory of the application compared to the newly installed application. Reasoning that SOMETHING had to be different since equal apps used with equal builds MUST generate equal results (which it doesn't). So I thought something should be different.
I don't really know what it actually means, but I WinMerge found that APPLICATION.ADB and APPLICATION.ALB were binary different!
The original APPLICATION.ADB is 16kb, where the newly installed one is 18kb. 2kb difference.
The original APPLICATION.ALB file is just as large as the newly installed one: 4kb both.

Furthermore, I noticed APPLICATION.MUF file in the newly installed app, which mostly means trouble in paradise. Those are supposed to be removed on application termination, but it's still there.

That's all I have to offer right now. As of yet, I have no clue on what's the culprit. I guess tomorrow I'll be checking the code behind the grid component to see if it provides clues matching the error message somehow. But I doubt it, those generally are thousands of lines of code (the components I mean).

**** END RESOLVED ****

After hunting a possible error, I finally found what was bothering the installation: the autoexec file was messing up things, because it had a hard file reference towards the opening tabbed UI. This messed up stuff in the resulting newly installed application. Changed that to a more flexible reference, and it all worked smoothly after installation. As said before, getting these things to work can get rather tedious sometimes.

I did notice however, that your installer did NOT run the DHTMLEdit.msi installer, responsible for (Heaven Forbid) Windows Vista <> Excel communications. Just so you know, that installer IS provided by Alpha but, if I noticed correctly, it isn't run by Appin.

The installer is now running just fine, and the resulting setup application does it's job. Thank you James for your effort and continued support on this forum. Much appreciated!

Best,
Fred

[jhackney]

Fred, glad to see you got it working. I am curious about the DHTMLEdit.msi installer issue. The issue may be that the Alpha 5 runtime installation program does not install the DHTMLEdit program. There is nothing in Appin that would restrict the standard installation process of the runtime executable.

You can correct this problem yourself which is why I love using Inno as my installation application. Were my plugin lacks, you can always make adjustments directly in Inno Script Studio. Many use Inno to install dependent applications from other third party providers (i.e. net framework ver xxx). If you would like to learn how, review the inno script generated by Appin and note how I added the Alpha 5 runtime setup file. Below are detailed instructions from within Inno Script Studio:

First, if you want this application to show as an optional item to install, add it to the "Components" section using the "New Item" button at the top. Double click on the Runtime line for an example. In the end, the script generated should look something like this:

[Components]
Name: "MyApp"; Description: "Install MyApp"; Types: All

Add the application to the "Files" section using the "New Item" button at the top. You need to define the source of the application setup file, the destination, the flags to use, and the component (optional) to group in. Double click on the "{#MyRuntimeSetup}" line for an example of where to set the destination and the flags to use. In the end, the script generated should look something like this:

[Files]
Source: "MyAppSetupFile"; DestDir: "{tmp}"; Flags: skipifsourcedoesntexist nocompression; Components: MyApp

Add the application to the "Install Run" section using the "New Item" button at the top. You need to define the filename, working directory, and flags. Double click on the first line for an example of how the runtime file is installed. The order in this section matters. You do not need to hide the installation wizard of your app if you do not want to. Make changes as necessary. In the end, the script generated should look something like this:

[Run]
Filename: "{tmp}\MyAppSetupFile.exe"; WorkingDir: "{tmp}"; Flags: hidewizard skipifdoesntexist; StatusMsg: "Installing MyApp Files"; Components: MyApp

If you want the DHTMLEdit msi to install automatically whenever the runtime is installed just perform the last 2 steps and skip setting it up as a component. Below is an example of how the last 2 steps should look:

[Files]
Source: "DHTMLEditMsiFile"; DestDir: "{tmp}"; Flags: skipifsourcedoesntexist nocompression; Components: Runtime

[Run]
Filename: "{tmp}\DHTMLEditMsiFile.msi"; WorkingDir: "{tmp}"; Flags: hidewizard skipifdoesntexist; StatusMsg: "Installing DHTML Edit Files"; Components: Runtime

Because I used the "Runtime" component name above, the DHTML Edit msi will only run if the runtime is being installed. Hope this helps and let me know if you have any other questions.

[eeetee]

Hello all. First, Thank You for taking your time to write this! I have followed through the steps and now have a bunch of files in the Installation Files sub-directory. How do I install these on the end use computer as I don't see any executable files?
Thank you again!

Ed Taylor

[jhackney]

Ed, assuming you pressed the "Compile Setup File" under the Save & Compile tab, you should have noticed the following:

1. Alpha 5 closes
2. Inno program opens and after a brief pause, compiles the setup program.
3. When Inno is complete, it asks whether or not you would like to run the setup program created as a test.

If the Inno program ran correctly, there should be 1 executable file in the Installation Files directory that is used to install your program. You provide a name for this installation program under the Defaults tab of the Appin plugin. There are other files in the Installation Files directory that relate to the Appin plugin but are not required for you to install your program. If you can not find the executable file in this directory, open the "Inno_Script.iss" file in this directory to open the Inno program. Select the "Project" menu item and then "Compile" to re-run the compilation process. You should now see the executable in your directory.

Let me know if this corrects your issue.

[eeetee]

Ed, assuming you pressed the "Compile Setup File" under the Save & Compile tab, you should have noticed the following:

1. Alpha 5 closes
2. Inno program opens and after a brief pause, compiles the setup program.
3. When Inno is complete, it asks whether or not you would like to run the setup program created as a test.

If the Inno program ran correctly, there should be 1 executable file in the Installation Files directory that is used to install your program. You provide a name for this installation program under the Defaults tab of the Appin plugin. There are other files in the Installation Files directory that relate to the Appin plugin but are not required for you to install your program. If you can not find the executable file in this directory, open the "Inno_Script.iss" file in this directory to open the Inno program. Select the "Project" menu item and then "Compile" to re-run the compilation process. You should now see the executable in your directory.

Let me know if this corrects your issue.

Hello James. Thank you for your response! Indeed what I had done was use the buttons at the bottom of your app, the last being "Finish" which misses the save and compile altogether. Thank you again for the app and the help!
Ed

[Farzadalpa]

James,

Again I thank you for providing this vital tool for all of us.
I have a question that I hope you or some other kind member of the forum can answer.
On the last page of the tab, there is a button "Compile" when click this button the process seems to try to install my App on the development machine. At this point I cancel the process.
What is the correct procedure?Should I let the process to finish ?
Thank you,
Nick

[jhackney]

Nick, when you hit compile the Appin does the following:

1. Alpha 5 closes.
2. Inno program opens and after a brief pause, compiles the setup program. This may be the process that is making it appear to be installing on your machine. It is not. It is simply compiling all of the files into 1 executable.
3. When Inno is complete, it asks whether or not you would like to run the setup program created as a test. If you select yes on this step, it will install the application on your machine. I always say yes to preview how the installation program will work but I always cancel the installation before it actually installs my program.

If you are canceling on step 2, go ahead and let it run. Selecting "No" on step 3, does not affect anything. Please let me know if this answers your question.

[Farzadalpa]

Thanks James,
It seems like I do cancel the process at the right time. One other question if I may. In installing my app the Client part the bootstrap is database is installed but Runtime does not start and bootstrap is not loaded.
Any idea why this is?

Thanks again,
Nick

[jhackney]

Nick, I will test over the weekend but if I can not duplicate the issue I may need a copy of either the inno script that generates the executable or the actual executable. Look for a post by Monday.

[jhackney]

Nick, I tested but did not find any issues. I did take the opportunity to tweek the autoexec code used by the bootstrap database. Please download the app again. You should note that the version is 2.4. To your problem, do the following:

1. Under the 1st tab, open the Appin file you used before.
2. Make sure you have setup your specifications correctly under the 1st tab of the Appin plugin as follows:
   
   • Set Application Type to "Multi-User Network"
   • Set Include Runtime to "Yes"
   • Set the location of the Runtime Executable and your License Key
   • Check the box to Include Bootstrap Application.
   • Set the Bootstrap path. I suggest you press the button "Create Bootstrap" which will use my default bootstrap application and automatically fill in the correct location.
   • See the first attached PNG for an example of how this tab should look.
   
   
3. Under the Save and Compile Tab, Save your Appin file and Compile the Setup.
4. When you run your setup file on either the server or user computers, you should see the installation components displayed in the 2nd attached PNG.
5. Select the "Network" components to install on the server.
6. Select the "Client" components and the "Install Runtime" checkbox to install on the client workstations.
7. After installation on the client workstations, go to the location where installed and open the database (.adb) file. It should open and request the location of the master database. Select the database located on the server, press "OK" and the clients database should be replaced by a shadow copy of the server database.
8. If this does not work, open the Alpha 5 runtime first and then open the clients database. Repeat the steps above to create the shadow database.
9. Your clients computer should be ready to use.

Let me know if you are still having problems.

[Farzadalpa]

Thank you James, I will do as you suggested.
Nick

[datacaster]

Hello,
Does this work on the latest version?
When I try to access it, I get an Alpha Anywhere message"
! Script:contextmenu() line:602
Function: 'Appin_Genie' was not recognized

Help!
Thank you all!

Paul