[kepler-dev] [Bug 1334] - need installer for kepler

[bugzilla-daemon@ecoinformatics.org]

http://bugzilla.ecoinformatics.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1334





------- Additional Comments From cxh at eecs.berkeley.edu  2004-02-09 10:41 -------
By way of introduction, I'm the release engineer for the Ptolemy project.

We are currently using ZeroG's InstallAnywhere.  It works reasonably well.
I did use InstallShield for the Ptolemy II 1.0 release in 2001.
I had a number of problems at that time with InstallShield, see
http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/ptolemyII/ptII1.0/installshield.htm#bugs
maybe InstallSheilds has fixed these problems, maybe not.

In any case I recommend InstallAnywhere.  It is not cheap, we ended
up upgrading to the Enterprise edition ($3000? for initial purchase,
$1500? for annual support for the second and subsequent years?)
If there is a free installer available, I would consider moving away from
InstallAnywhere.


It turns out that a fairly powerful release mechanism is to build a
Web Start installer first, which will help sort out jar file contents issues,
and then use InstallAnywhere.  I found the build/test cycle to be faster with
Web Start.  $PTII/mk/jnlp.mk has rules for building a Web Start release.
See also $PTII/doc/webStartHelp.htm, which can be found on the web as
http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/ptolemyII/ptII3.0/ptII/doc/webStartHelp.htm

There is also the applet code generator, which can be used to create applets
of Ptolemy models.  I was playing around with having the applet code generator
create Web Start installers, but have not quite finished.  

One can also reduce the size of the download by using tree shaking, where
we run the model, note which jar files are actually used, and ship only those
jar files.  Of course, we need to be sure to include the error handling
mechanism etc., so treeshaking works best for non-GUI intensive products
like applets that have a plot as an output etc.

Anyway, I can provide some help in this area.
-Christopher