Advice needed on installer
I am trying to create an example of an
installer/uninstaller but have already run
into some problems. They are probably
related to the fact that my example is a
trivial exmaple that does nothing useful,
but perhaps if I could quickly check a few
things, I might be able to get it working.
1) I get the impression that installers
are intended to communicate with
the end user via the methods of the
ExtensionInstallerService, rather than,
for example, openning JOptionPanes
or JDialogs. Can normal J2SE GUI
components be displayed druing the
execution of an installer?
2) Does the installer have to be in a
separate jar to the application?
(My app. and installer are separate
classes in the one jar).
3) Is it a requirement that an installer
jar has to be signed? (Mine isn't, yet).
# 1
> I am trying to create an example of an
> installer/uninstaller but have already run
> into some problems. They are probably
> related to the fact that my example is a
> trivial exmaple that does nothing useful,
> but perhaps if I could quickly check a few
> things, I might be able to get it working.
>
A ststed in previous forumn threads, there is a bug in 1.6.0 causing the uninstaller never to be called (6515728: JNLP client not following spec for extension uninstaller)
> 1) I get the impression that installers
> are intended to communicate with
> the end user via the methods of the
> ExtensionInstallerService, rather than,
> for example, openning JOptionPanes
> or JDialogs. Can normal J2SE GUI
> components be displayed druing the
> execution of an installer?
>
Not really, simple example would only use ExtensionInstallService to communicate with the original instance of Java Web Start if the install succeeded or not.
After invoking an Installer, the original application will only be invoked if the installer called ExtensionInstallerService.installSucceeded().
> 2) Does the installer have to be in a
> separate jar to the application?
> (My app. and installer are separate
> classes in the one jar).
>
You could use the same jar with a differant main class, but normally, it would be in a differant jar.
Note the extension Installer is called in a seperate instance of Java VM.
> 3) Is it a requirement that an installer
> jar has to be signed? (Mine isn't, yet).
Not explicitly, but usually anything the installer would do (such as adding a jar to the jre/lib/ext directory, or copying some configuration file to a specific location) would require all-permissions.
/Andy
# 2
>> I am trying to create an example of an
>> installer/uninstaller but have already run
>> into some problems. ...
...
> A stated in previous forum threads, there is a bug
> in 1.6.0 causing the uninstaller never to be called ...
(snip answers to questions)
My bad. I should have been more explicit that I
had not yet got to that point in testing. This
problem relates to the installer (rather than
the uninstaller).
In any case, I will need to review my example
before I can prepare a thread to get more
specific instructions/help.
Thanks for the answers.
