Netbeans Application Installer Generator FAQ

Plugin and its usage

1. What is Netbeans Application Installer Generator?
2. Where can I download/update this plugin?
3. What are the system requirements?
4. How to create an installer for my NB suite application?
5. What actually happens during installer generation?
6. Where can I find the generated installer?
7. What is the other zip file which is generated along the installer zip file?

Installer related

1. What is the distribution mechanism that I can use to distribute the installer?
2. What are the system requirements for the target machines to run the generated installer?
3. How do I select which JDK to use for running the installer?
4. Does this installer configures jdkhome for my suite application during installation?
5. I want to customize the generated installer. How can I ?
6. Where to report issues, suggestions and feedback?

Plugin project

1. What is the state of this Plugin project?
2. What is the connection between this plugin and openInstaller.org?
3. Where's the home page for the Plugin project?
4. Where can I look for more information?
5. Where are the sources?

Plugin and its usage

1. What is Netbeans Application Installer Generator?
   Its a Netbeans plugin (or a module as its called alternatively) that creates installers for Netbeans Module suite applications. This plugin enhances the Netbeans module developer support (apisupport) by adding the installer generation capability right into the IDE. The generated installer supports multiple platforms and is multi-home enabled (multiple installations on a system), extendable and customizable. The installer during the installation will not clutter the user home folder with any data. All data is persisted in the installation directory. So this makes cleaning up easy.. just blow up the installation directory and the system is clean and ready for another installation.
2. Where can I download/update this plugin?
   From here (TBD)
3. What are the system requirements?
   The plugin runs on Netbeans 5.5.x and Netbeans 6.0 beta 1 running on J2SE 1.5.0 any update or J2SE 6.0 update 1. On Solaris however, Using Netbeans IDE running on J2SE 6.0, you can generate the installer, but the installer does not run using J2SE 6.0 due to the known issues.
4. What do I need to have to do before generating installer?
   You need to configure your suite project to be 'Standalone application'. The plugin will check this during installer generation process. You will be assisted in this process if the plugin finds that the module suite project is not configured.
5. How to create an installer for my NB suite application?
   Its simple:
   1. Download and install the plugin into your Netbeans IDE.
   2. There would be a new toolbar button with an icon of CD will be added. Select your module suite project in the Project View to enable this button.
   3. You could also choose this option from the 'Build' menu or from context menu of your suite project in the Project view.
   4. Upon selecting and if your suite project is already configured as stand-alone, a wizard will be shown asking few basic questions about your suite application. (If the suite project is not yet configured, you will be asked to do so at this point)
   5. You will be asked to provide the project name, version, short description (one liner) and vender information on the first screen. You can optionally set the JDK version and system RAM and disk requirements for your application.
   6. The next wizard screen will ask for the application license that you would like to show to the users to acceptance.
   7. Once you provide the license information and click 'Finish', the installer generation will begin.
   8. After the completion of the installer generation, you will be shown with the option to run the installer and once you choose, the plugin will run the generated installer. This option can be used for testing purpose.
   9. The generated installer will be in the form of a zip bundle and its placed under 'dist' folder under your suite project directory. The installer zip bundle is named as <your-suite-app-name>-installer-image.zip. You can rename this to anything you want. This zip bundle is now ready for distribution.
   10. There's one more zip bundle created in the same 'dist' folder and is named as <your-suite-app-name>-installer-project.zip and this contains the installer source files. This zip bundle can be used to further customize the generated installer.
6. What actually happens during installer generation?
   No rocket science here! The plugin first generates the usual zip bundle that Netbeans creates for all suite projects. It then uses an Installer project template and updates few files to customize the installer files for the current suite application and then bundles the installer runtime along with all files.
7. Where can I find the generated installer?
   Under your suite project's 'dist' folder. Its named as <your-suite-app-name>-installer-image.zip.
8. What is the other zip file which is generated along the installer zip file?
   That's the installer source files and metadata files that you can use to customize the generated installer further. This zip bundle is named as <your-suite-app-name>-installer-project.zip. This bundle is not for distribution unless, you want to distribute the installer sources along with your suite application.

Installer related

1. What is the distribution mechanism that I can use to distribute the installer?
   Its a zip bundle, so you can host it on a website or an FTP server. Users of the installer just have to download this zip file, unzip and run the launcher scripts for their platforms present on the top unzipped folder. There are two scripts, one for Windows and another for *NIX systems. This plugin will be enhanced to generate a JNLP descriptor and that would make running the installer using JNLP possible.
2. What are the system requirements for the target machines to run the generated installer?
   Windows (2000, XP), Ubuntu and Solaris (sparc and X86). The plugin is tested on these platforms. It is not tested on other platforms, but it may work on other platforms like, Vista, other Linux flavors. On Mac OS X, there's a known issue. But on Solaris, the installer currently needs J2SE 1.5.0 (all updates) for itself to work.
3. How do I select which JDK to use for running the installer?
   During installer generation on the first panel of the wizard OR you can customize JAVA_HOME variable in the installer launcher scripts for your target platforms. The launcher script read and use the JAVA_HOME from the environment if its available during execution.
4. Does this installer configures jdkhome for my suite application during installation?
   Yes it does. There's a small script which updates the user selected JDK during installation in the etc/.conf file. This configuration is done during the installation process.
5. I want to customize the generated installer. How can I ?
   This support is upcoming.
6. Where to report issues, suggestions and feedback?
   The best place to get help is dev@openInstaller.dev.java.net.

Plugin project

1. What is the state of this Plugin project?
   Pure pre-alpha (If this state exists at all!). The plugin is still under development and there would be bugs and missing features.
2. What is the connection between this plugin and openInstaller.org?
   This plugin uses openInstaller installer framework to generate installers. This project is conceived as a sub project under openInstaller. See www.openInstaller.org.
3. Where's the home page for the Plugin project?
   There's no home page yet, but you can look for more information on the wiki (http://wiki.glassfish.java.net/Wiki.jsp?page=OpenInstallerDeveloperToolsNBSuiteInstallerBuilder) and use the developer alias: dev@openInstaller.dev.java.net.
4. Where can I look for more information?
   dev@openInstaller.dev.java.net and wiki (http://wiki.glassfish.java.net/Wiki.jsp?page=OpenInstallerDeveloperToolsNBSuiteInstallerBuilder)
5. Where are the sources?
   More details upcoming.

This page (revision-2) was last changed on 27-Oct-07 05:46 AM, -0700 by Vadiraj.
This page was created on 17-Oct-07 04:21 AM, -0700 by Vadiraj.

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