QuickInstaller allows you to create straightforward an installer for distributing any kind of file. You can build your own installer application, with any feature you want, in a very simple way. QuickInstaller has Balloon Help™ available.
QuickInstaller is shareware, it costs less than a small utility and anyone should afford it.
The QuickInstaller Maker (QIM) unregistered version is fully working, but shows always its about box, at startup.
When you register QIM the "irritating" about box don't more appears and any "unregistered" notice will be replaced by the registration infos, on The Built Installer (TBI) as well.
QIM requires at least System 7 and a 68030 processor to run. TBI requires at least System 7 but runs on any processor type.
Quick Start
Want you to create an Installer in few seconds? Try this:
1) Launch QIM.
2) Select "New Installer Document..." from "File" menu, press "Save" in the "Put File" dialog and press "OK" in the "Document Setup" dialog.
3) Press the "Add" button in the Main window, select a file to install from "Get File" dialog and press "OK" in the "File Setup" dialog.
4) Select "Make Installer…" from "File" menu, check the "Single Installer" checkbox in the "Installer Setup" dialog and press "OK", then press "Make" in the following dialog.
5) From "Get File…" dialog select the Installer Document you've created at the point 2 and...your first Installer is ready!
QuickInstaller is a very fast Installer builder, if you want to know more about it, read the following chapters.
Installer Document
The QIM's heart is the Installer Document (ID).
Any ID is a common destination for the files contained in the ID. This means that you should create a different ID for any different destination you want to install your files to.
•Example: if you want to install some files into the Extensions Folder and some files into the Apple Menu Folder, you should create two ID, one containing the files for the Extensions Folder and one containing the files for the Apple Menu Folder, then include both IDs to the same installer.•
You may create a new ID through the "File" menu, by selecting the item "New Installer Document".
•Important: make sure you insert a more or less "final" name for the ID in the "Save File Dialog", since QIM then makes this name unchangeable.•
The default name shown by QIM in the "Save File Dialog" is "New Document.nst". You may change it, obviously. The suffix ".nst" isn't relevant: you can remove it, if you like.
When you press the "Save" button in the "Save File Dialog" the "Document Setup" window appears.
From this window you may select the ID's common destination. The available destinations are:
"HD (root level)", this option installs the files contained in the current ID at the root level of the HD selected by your final user. The following options, instead, always install the files contained in the current ID on the startup disk:
The "Document Setup" window contains another option:
by checking the checkbox "Group all files into the same folder", all the current ID's files will be grouped in a new folder into the common destination folder (you must type the new folder's name).
•Example: if you select the "Extensions Folder" as a common destination and then check the checkbox "Group all files into the same folder" (naming the new folder "My Folder") the installer will place the files contained in that ID into a folder named "My Folder" placed in the Extensions Folder•
•Important: you can't create more than one folder in the same ID. But, since it's possible to include many IDs with the same common destination in the same installer, if you want to create more than one folder in the same destination folder, you must create several IDs, then include these IDs in the same installer. •Example: you want to include, in the preferences folder, a new folder called "My Folder" and another new folder called "Your Folder", you must create an ID containing the files for "My Folder" (remembering to set correctly the related "Document Setup" window) and an ID containing the files for "Your Folder" (remembering again to set correctly the related "Document Setup" window). When you'll build the installer simply add both IDs to that installer.••
The document window
The "document window" appears when you open an existing ID through the "File" menu by selecting the item "Open Installer Document" or when you double-click on an ID icon or after you've created a new ID through "File" menu by selecting the menu item "New Installer Document".
This is the "working" window. A "document window" is always associated to an ID.
When the "document window" is open you may:
1) View the files contained into the associated ID. For each file you may view name, target Macintosh (see the section "File Management"), type, size, compression state (see section "Compression").
2) View the ID flags* (general destination, new folder name, size).
3) Change the ID flags, by pressing the "Change Document flags" button or by selecting the "Change Document flags" menu item in the "File" menu, or by the shortcut cmd-C. When you want to change the document flag, the "Document Setup" window appears.
4) Change the flags of the files you want by pressing the "Change File flags" button or by selecting the "Change File flags" menu item in the "Document" menu, or by the shortcut cmd-H. When you want to change the file flag, the "File Setup" window appears (see section "File Management"). You can't change the compression state.
5) Remove a file by pressing the "Remove" button or by selecting the "Remove" menuitem, in the "Document" menu, or with the shortcut cmd-R.
6) Extract a file by pressing the "Extract" button or by selecting the "Extract" menui tem, in the "Document" menu, or by the shortcut cmd-E.
7) Add a file by pressing the "Add" button or by selecting the "Add File to Document…" menu item, in the "Document" menu, or by the shortcut cmd-A.
•Important: the buttons and the menu items "Change File flags", "Remove", "Extract" are enabled only if a file is selected in the "document window". The menu item "Change Document flags" is enabled only if a "document window" is open.•
•Note: you can't find, in QIM, a "Save" menu item because it saves any change by itself. •
* For those who aren't too much used to programming terms… a "FLAG" is generally an information that defines a property (and not the contents) of a file or group of files. In our case, the "FLAG" of an ID contains the destination of the ID's files. There is actually a parallelism between the actual meaning of FLAG (those which move with the wind) and the 'software' meaning: when a program (such as QIM, or the Finder for example) looks for a set of files with the same property, it will be much easier to find them if the property is written in a separate, universal (common-for-all) part of the file. ;-)
File Management
When a "document window" is open you may, finally, add files to the related ID.
To add a file, as already illustrated in the earlier sections, you may press the "Add" button or select the "Add File to Document…" menu item, in the "Document" menu, or use the shortcut cmd-A.
After you've selected a file in the "Get File" dialog, the "File Setup" dialog appears.
From the "File Setup" dialog you may choose the target Macintosh, i.e. the computer type on wich your file will be installed. Targets are: 68K Macs, PowerMacs, all Macs. From the "File Setup" dialog you can also change the file name and decide whether to compress the file (see section "Compression") or not.
When a file is selected in the "document window" you may remove it from the related ID, extract it or change its flags (see previous section).
•Important: make sure to use unique file names in the same ID: when QIM manages a file, it looks for it by name in the ID. •
Make the Installer
To build an installer you should choose the menu item "Make Installer…", from the "File" menu (shortcut cmd-M).
The "Installer Setup" dialog appears.
In this window you must insert the name of TBI . The "Installer Setup" dialog allows you also to decide whether TBI should quit any running process when launched and restart the Mac when done, or not. You may choose a text file that TBI will show in its spalsh screen (if the file is a SimpleText styled text the splash screen will even show the styles).
You may also choose a pict file that TBI will show in the main window (the size of pict must be 150x150 pts maximum).
The last "Installer Setup" option allows you to decide whether TBI should be single or multiple.
When you press "OK", in the "Installer Setup" dialog, QIM will build the installer.
√ MULTIPLE INSTALLER
QIM shows you a "Get File Dialog"; from this dialog you select the first ID you want to include in TBI. If you select an ID and then press "Open", QIM shows another "Get File Dialog" from which you can select the second ID, and so on, until you press "Cancel".
•Important: if you press "Cancel" in the first "Get File Dialog" the entire operation is cancelled.•
At the end of this procedure you will find, on your HD, TBI and a folder named "Installer Files" containing the copies of the ID you've selected, in a format that TBI can recognize. You may now distribute your installer.
•Important: QIM creates TBI at its same level, in other words inside its folder. If an old TBI with the same name of the new already exists, QIM deletes it automatically. The same for the "Installer Files" . •Important: the "Installer Files" isn't very important as such. Only it's contents is important. You may distribute your installer the way you want: without this folder or even with the installer files on a different media (see section "The Built Installer"). Just be sure to make the IDs available on some media carried with TBI.••
√ SINGLE INSTALLER
The option "Single Installer" allows you to create an installer without installer document: the installer contains the files to install inside itself. Limitation: only one destination is allowed. In fact when you press "Open" in the "Installer Setup" window only one "Get File Dialog" appears: when you select an Installer document the files the document contains are copied into TBI.
The Built Installer
Some words about TBI: it allows to select the destination volume, but installs all system items into the current System folder. This means that the choosed volume is only for documents with "HD" destination. Make sure to inform your user, if needed, in the splash screen text. If, during installation, TBI finds a name collision, it moves the old files in the trash, if a file with the same name already exists in the trash, then TBI deletes the old file. Again, make sure to inform your user, if needful, in the splash screen text.
When TBI installs files with "HD" destination put the files at the root level of the HD inside a new folder with the same name of TBI, but with the suffix "ƒ".
•Important: TBI (multiple installer version) searches for an ID in the "Installer Files" first (at the same location of TBI);
If the "Installer Files" doesn't exist or doesn't contain the target ID, then TBI searches outside the "Installer Files". If TBI doesn't find the target ID, then ejects all insterted floppies and asks for the ID, through a "Get File Dialog". If the user presses "Cancel", the installation is aborted.•
•Important: the size needed, shown in TBI's main window, is the size of data contained. Since its independent documents based structure TBI cant't know the final size of compressed data.•
Compression
Decompressing any single compressed file both QIM and TBI create a temporary document with the same size of the compressed file. Compressing any single file both QIM and TBI create a temporary document with the same size of the original file. This means that you must have some extra disk space compressing or decompressing files, remember it and inform your final users, if needful.
•Note: on decompression the temporary document is automatically deleted after few seconds, on compression it's deleted when the file is entirely compressed.•
Memory
Both QIM and TBI use temporary memory, so they can manage very large files with a small memory partition size. But the world is relative so, if QIM has some trouble to work with large files, try to quit the other running applications or try to increase its memory partition size. Remember to test TBI before to distribute it, and increase its memory partition size, if deeded. I've tested both QIM and TBI with single files large more than 6MB without problems, using the standard memory partition size.
Some little suggestion
Compression slackens the jobs, since TBI must use the disk, so if your goal is the speed, don't compress the files: TBI will use the RAM speeding up the works. Vice versa, if the speed isn't very important for you, use the compression, the files size will be reduced about by 45/50%!
