Packaging instructions

We try to have a packaging strategy that will enable us to produce the packaged stuff for all supported platforms in one run. This has been a cause of headaches for me, but the strategy below works more or less for me, although it is Windows only at the moment. This is the current instruction set, as long as we have not implemented this in VisualWorks itself. It is for Windows environments. The files I use are all in the subversion tree for the projects.

The folder for packaging the application should be named [ProductName]/Packaging. In folder place a shortcut to command prompt, and cmd files (script files):

1. compress.cmd
2. build.cmd
3. build[PlatformName].cmd for every platform we want to deploy to

The first scripts compresses the runtime.im in the image directory of VisualWorks (as produced by Runtime Packager or otherwise produced), and copies it to the [ProductName] directory as runtime.im The second builds a [ProductName].exe using ResHacker. For that a splash.bmp, an Icon.ico and a [ProductName].txt required. The first is a 400x300 pixels bitmap containing the splash screen. The second is the icon file for the application and the exe. The third is a text file just containing [ProductName]. Optional files are Readme.rtf and License.rtf. The build sequence is as follows:

1. Start up a start image in VisualWorks image directory, usually named [ProductName].im. File in all files using the fileIn.st file for the application.
2. Run Runtime Packager to produce a runtime.im
3. Execute the command files with the build scripts.
4. Start VisualStudio. Standard registry entries:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER
	[Manufacturer]
		[ProductName]
			[ProductVersion] ##.##.##
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
	[Manufacturer]
		[ProductName]
			[ProductVersion] ##.##.##
				Company [CompanyName]
				Email [EMAIL]
				InstallDate [Date]
				LogonUser [LogonUser]
				ProductID [ProductID]
				[ProductName] [TARGETDIR]
				User [USERNAME]
	Cincom Systems, Inc.
		VisualWorks
			7.4
				[ProductName] [TARGETDIR]

The last is because I need to know the directory in which the user has installed the application, and by using this registry key I can use the platform independent SystemUtils on Windows. For all other platforms there are [PlatformName] directories in which the files are placed mostly by the build scripts. These directories are as a rule not used by an installer but packaged (zipped) and copied to the uploads directory for upload to the server.