[kepler-dev] Re: [SDM-SPA] javadoc, junit, installer for Windows

[Bertram Ludaescher]

Our "canonical user" in SPA (Matt C.) is a Mac user, but I don't know
whether it is Mac OS X or Mac OS...

I also note that many other scientists I bump into (neuroscience,
geosciences, ecology, even computer science! ;-) use Macs these days.
So I think the desiderate is to support all 3 worlds: Win, Linux, and
Mac.

I don't know how easy/hard it is to do cross-platform installers from
the build.xml ...


Bertram

>>>>> "XX" == Xiaowen Xin <xin2 at llnl.gov> writes:
XX> 
XX> Hi Matt,
XX> I think you're correct that NSIS doesn't support installing on Mac OS.
XX> 
XX> Do the target scientists use Mac OS X, or are many of them still on the
XX> earlier versions of Mac OS?
XX> 
XX> I don't have any experience on Mac OS; do you know what kind of package
XX> management system it uses?
XX> 
XX> Since Mac OS X is a BSD with some modifications, do you think the
XX> scientists can be expected to know how to run a shell script?  It should
XX> be easy to distribute a shell script (like Sun does with Java) for the
XX> Unix users.
XX> 
XX> As for distributing on Linux, I think it would be fine to distribute
XX> binary and source RPMs and Debs.  They are the standard on Linux.  Also,
XX> it would be easy to write an ant task to create an RPM.
XX> 
XX> 
XX> Xiaowen
XX> 
XX> On Tue, 2004-03-30 at 14:41, Matt Jones wrote:
>> Hey Bertram,
>> 
>> So, NSIS looks like a nice system, but from my perusal it appears that 
>> it doesn't support MacOS.  We were planning on Kepler releases on MacOS 
>> as a lot of our target scientists use MacOS, especially the MacOS 
>> laptops these days.  Which is another reason I like InstallAnywhereNow, 
>> because it generates installers for Windows, MacOS, and linux.
>> 
>> BTW, I like the idea of generating the installer directly from the 
>> build.xml file. I wonder if we could do that with a cross-platform 
>> installer?
>> 
>> Matt
>> 
>> > Hi Xiaowen:
>> > 
>> > So it seems that NSIS is quite interesting then! 
>> > I'm cross-posting to kepler-dev to see whether that might be an option 
>> > for Kepler as well.
>> > 
>> > Bertram
>> 
>> >>>>> "XX" == Xiaowen Xin <xin2 at llnl.gov> writes:
XX> 
XX> Hi Bertram,
XX> NSIS is the Nullsoft Scriptable Install System.
XX> 
XX> I mentioned it in an email dated March 15, cc'ed to sdm-dev, but I
XX> didn't make a big deal of it then :)
XX> 
XX> It's a GPL'ed install system analogous to InstallAnywhere or
XX> InstallShield.  It basically helps you create an installer.
XX> 
XX> As you might have guessed from the name, it originally came from
XX> Nullsoft, the maker of Winamp, and it's still used to build the Winamp
XX> installer.
XX> 
XX> makensis.exe is the executable that creates the installer.
XX> 
XX> I like it because it's free (open source and no license fees), and it
XX> seems to work pretty well overall.
XX> 
XX> 
XX> http://nsis.sourceforge.net/home/ <- their homepage
XX> http://nsis.sourceforge.net/features/screenshots/ <- screenshots
XX> 
XX> 
XX> Xiaowen
XX> 
XX> On Tue, 2004-03-30 at 10:46, Bertram Ludaescher wrote:
>> >> Xiaowen:
>> >>
>> >> What is NSIS? What does makensis.exe do?
>> >>
>> >> Bertram
>> >>
>> >> >>>>> "XX" == Xiaowen Xin <xin2 at llnl.gov> writes:
XX> 
XX> Hi,
XX> I've created a javadoc target in build.xml, which generates all the
XX> javadoc documentation and puts it in website/documentation/javadoc.
XX> 
XX> usage: ant docs
XX> 
XX> I think this should help us in browsing and writing code.  There were
XX> quite a few warnings issued by javadoc.  If your code is generating some
XX> warnings, could you please fix them?  This javadoc target will hopefully
XX> help us all more thoroughly document our code.
XX> 
XX> 
XX> I've also created a junit target for ant, which will run all the junit
XX> tests in test/junit.
XX> 
XX> usage: ant test
XX> 
XX> I've created one test for the StringConst class in
XX> test/junit/org/sdm/spa/StringConstTest.java.  It programmatically
XX> creates a workflow with a PNDirector, so it can test the fire() method.
XX> In the future, when we add new classes to CVS, let's add a junit test
XX> for it also.
XX> 
XX> 
XX> Finally, I've added a target to build an installer for Windows based on
XX> NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System).
XX> 
XX> usage: ant nsis
XX> 
XX> If you're on Cygwin, and you've got NSIS installed, and makensis.exe is
XX> in your path, then that target should create a spa.exe in your
XX> installer/ directory.  spa.exe is an executable installer for Windows.
XX> So if any of you get a chance, please test it out =)
XX> 
XX> 
XX> Xiaowen
XX> 
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