Creating a Distribution Package
Distribution packages provide a more direct, JavaScript-based mechanism for developing an install experience. One of the benefits a JavaScript-based install experience provides is the ability to update install choices dynamically, in response to a user’s choice selection. In addition, system and volume requirements are also specified using JavaScript code. Other benefits of using distribution packages are that:
Users can specify custom installation destinations for relocatable choices individually, rather than as a group.
Using JavaScript code virtually eliminates the need for the Installer application to display a dialog informing users that it needs to run an external program as part of the installation process.
You specify the installation requirements for a product in one place instead of across its component packages. This centralization makes it easier to set up and change a product’s requirements.
Note: When a user installs a distribution package, the InstallationCheck and VolumeCheck files in the contained packages are not executed. This is the opposite of what happens when a user installs a metapackage.
To create a distribution package, you perform the following tasks:
Create the distribution package project directory.
Create the distribution package file.
These tasks are described in the following sections.
In this section:
Create the Distribution Package Project Directory
Create the Distribution Package File
Create the Distribution Package Project Directory
The distribution package project directory contains directories that hold the product’s component packages and product information files (background image, Read Me file, and so on). Listing 6-2 shows a distribution package project directory.
Listing 6-2 Distribution package project directory
LevonDist-1.0.0./ |
packages/ |
Levon.pkg |
LevonDoc.pkg |
SharedServices.pkg |
product_info/ |
Welcome.rtf |
ReadMe.rtf |
License.rtf |
Conclusion.rtf |
Create the Distribution Package File
PackageMaker allows you to specify the product information, installation properties, and install choices that define a product’s installation process. Package properties and install operations are specified by each package contained in a distribution package.
As you do with metapackages, you use Installer Interface Editor to specify product information. The Requirements Editor window allows you to specify JavaScript-based installation requirements.
You create install choices using a hierarchical interface. Each install choice can have one or more packages associated with it. To create choice groups, you add choices to an existing choice.
Just as when the Installer application processes a metapackage-based custom install, when the user selects a choice in a custom install, the packages the choice represents are installed. The packages of unselected choices are not installed. However, distribution packages provide additional granularity by allowing you to specify disabled unselected choices (which the user cannot select). You can also define invisible choices (whose existence is not revealed to the user). Three attributes specify the selection and visibility state of an install choice:
Selected: Determines whether the choice is selected.
Enabled: Determines whether the choice’s selected state is modifiable by the user.
Visible: Determines whether the choice appears in the Installer Custom Install pane.
You can specify initial values for each of the selection and appearance attributes. But you can also use JavaScript code to compute the initial values before Installer displays the Custom Install pane (see “The User Install Experience” for more information). For example, if a component requires the presence of software that is unavailable in the installation host, you can make the install choice for that component invisible. You can also specify dynamic values for the choice attributes. This capability allows you to, for example, select or deselect options in response to the user’s actions. You can take advantage of this flexibility in products with interrelated components in which option groups provide no appropriate selection mechanism. For example, a product with a plug-in component that requires a font component could be automatically deselected when the user deselects the option that installs the font package.
These are the tasks you perform to create a distribution package:
Create a distribution project.
Add product information files to the project.
Specify system and volume requirements.
Configure install choices.
In PackageMaker, create a distribution project and perform the tasks described in the following sections.
Add Product Information Files
Use Installer Interface Editor to add project information files to the package. These files may include a background image and a Read Me file.
Specify System and Volume Requirements
You can specify system and volume requirements using the requirements editor. You first need to add a global function to the project. When editing the function, use the requirements editor to specify an installation requirement. For example, Figure 6-1 shows the definition of a system requirement.
The requirements editor provides access to several system and volume properties. For example, Figure 6-2 shows the specification for a volume requirement.
Before this volume requirement can work, however, you need to modify the JavaScript code generated by the requirements editor. Modify the code as indicated in Listing 6-3.
Listing 6-3 JavaScript code for a volume requirement
/* js:pkmk:start */ |
function disk_space_volume_req() { |
return ten() ; |
} |
/* js:pkmk:end */ |
/* js:pkmk:start */ |
function ten() { |
var result = false; |
try { |
result = my.target.kilobytesAvailable > 10; // Remove |
result = my.target.availableKilobytes > 10*1024*1024*1024; // Add |
} catch (e) {} |
if(!result) { |
my.result.type = 'Fatal'; |
my.result.title = ''; |
my.result.message = 'This product requires 10GB of free space to operate.'; |
} |
return result; |
} |
/* js:pkmk:end */ |
After the functions are defined, choose them as the system requirement and volume requirement scripts in the distribution package project.
Installer checks system requirements as soon as it opens a distribution package. Figure 6-3 shows what users see when their systems don’t meet that requirement.
If any package in the distribution package does not specify that it’s a boot-volume-only install, Installer displays the Select Destination page. Just before displaying this page, however, Installer runs the volume requirement script against all the available volumes in the system. Volumes that do not meet the requirement are badged. When the user selects such a volume, Installer displays the failure message in the volume requirement specification, as shown in Figure 6-4. The user can continue only after selecting a volume that meets the requirements.
Configure Install Choices
When Installer first displays the Custom Install pane, it uses the attributes that specify the initial state of each option. As the user selects or deselects choices, Installer applies the attributes that specify dynamic state to each choice.
Attribute clauses are JavaScript Boolean expressions. You can use true, false, or a Boolean expression that may include function invocations. You specify such functions as a global script of the project, similar to the way you specify installation requirements. If you use the requirements editor to generate the JavaScript code for such functions, the type of the requirement must be None.
Important: Although the requirements editor is accessible when you edit attribute clauses, you must not use it. Attribute clauses are not complete JavaScript scripts, which is what the requirements editor generates. Functions for use as part of attribute clauses must be defined as global scripts in the distribution project.
In addition to the visibility attributes, each choice has the following properties:
Title
Users see this title in the Custom Install pane.
Identifier
You use this identifier to access a choice’s attributes.
Description
Users see this description when they highlight an option in the Custom Install pane.
Custom Location
The initial installation destination of the choice’s packages if you want users to be able to specify a custom installation destination. Leave empty if you don’t want users to choose a different installation destination for the choice’s packages.
Allow Alternate Volumes
Specifies whether users can choose a volume other than the boot volume for the install.
After adding an install choice to the distribution project, you associate one or more packages with it. The Installer application installs these packages if the choice is selected in the Custom Install pane when the user clicks Install. Otherwise, these packages are not installed. To associate a package with a choice, drag the package from a Finder window to the choice in the distribution project window, or select the choice in the project and use the Add Package command.
Figure 6-5 shows the definition of the “Levon application” install choice for the Levon product.
The user can choose to install the choice’s package in a location other than Applications on a volume other than the boot volume. This choice is also selected the first time the user sees the customization pane. However, its selection state is tied to the selection state of the “SharedServices framework” choice. If the user deselects the framework choice, the application choice becomes deselected.
You use the expression choices['<choice_identifier>'].<attribute> to access the attributes of other choices. Therefore, the first part of the clause for selected attribute of the “Levon application” choice evaluates to true if the user selects the “SharedServices framework” choice. That is, choices['sharedservices_fwk_choice'].selected evaluates to true. The second part of the clause, my.choice.selected, is needed because Installer—when the user selects or deselects a choice—evaluates the attributes of all install choices except the choice the user changed.
For each of a choice’s packages, you can specify its authentication requirement and postinstall action.
After you’ve configured the install choices, build the distribution package using the PackageMaker Build command.
Last updated: 2006-07-24
  |
||
|
|
|
|
| ||
Get information on Apple products.
Visit the Apple Store online or at retail locations. 1-800-MY-APPLE Copyright © 2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. | Terms of use | Privacy Notice |