Passing variables from outside

[tfromm1]

Hi,

how can I pass variables from my build-script to the command line build executable? I need to pass several changing pathes to files.

I'm up to migrate from ISMP 5.x to IA 2008.
At ISMP I was able to pass several aliases e.g.:

ismp project.xml -alias CDI=$myPath -alias Foo=bar ...

Inside the project designer I was able to access these Aliases by using $A(CDI) inside input fields.

thanks in advance,
tf

[tfromm1]

Or exists any possebility to use environmental vars inside the IA wizard?

e.g. $USER under unix?

[Valdur]

A possibility are the environment varibales just set them in your build script and access them in IA with e.g.
$lax.nl.env.ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE_NAME$
but you will maybe get in trouble to change the path of you binarie folders, because you can only choose the path with a "filechooser" or the "Source Paths". I cant find a way to set the path with a Variable if you change the "Source Path" variable nothing happens... (had the same problem ;)) but not a really good solution yet... if you get something please let me know.

mfg Valentin

[tfromm1]

Hmpf. Bad.
I think I should do the same thing I've done 1 year ago: Wait until IA has implemented all the features from Installshield, before i migrate 🙂

[sandeepagarwals]

Hi,
We are also in the process of evaluating IA 2008 for migrating from ISMP 5.x to IA 2008. can you please let me know what were the issues you encountered during this migration and do you really see IA 2008 better than ISMP 5.x?

Thanks
Sandeep

[tfromm1]

The only reason why I migrate to IA2008 is the 64Bit JDK support.

IA2008 have some nice features, such as Launch Anywhere, but in general I think IA2008 is not technically mature.

The following issues I encountered:
1) When you have a seperate server to create builds, you'll need with IA2008 a license for everyone, who logs in an start the build process. Or (this is my solution) create one build account.

2) Passing variables from ouitside (and use them for dynamic pathes and so on) is with IA2008 not possible, my solution is to replace path-parts inside the project file at build-time (inside ant script). With this workaround I can handle different source/output paths.

3) Using the project GUI remote via X-redirection is _very_ slow.
I think they have a problem with swing events inside their trees.
You can see this problem also, when starting the project tool under unix, go to e.g. the file-tree and then change the focus to a console under kde or similar. The cursor flares, because the IA project tool forces to get the focus, but kde tries to keep the focus at the position of my mouse arrow.
And when starting remote, these events slows the tree-browsing inside the IA project tool down.

4) When choosing with ISMP installer an directory, which contains already an installed version of your product, then ISMP pre-select the already installed features inside the wizard. IA2008 has not such a feature. (Very importent)

5) When starting ISMP installer and on this computer is already a product installed, then ISMP pre-choose the instalaltion folder. Unsupported by IA2008. (Very important)

6) ISMP supports automatic language selection (the rules can be defined e.g. use desktop-language and if not available, then use default and so on..). With IA2008 I was not able to disable the language selection.

7) Creating bundled JDKs is a little bit more complicate than with ISMP.
With ISMP you can simply create and zip and make it self extractable.
(you just only need the different unzipsfx for each platform)
With IA2008 you need only zip for windows. But for Unix its little bitt horrible. You ran into compatibility issues with tar and compress.
tar!=tar: When you use gnu-tar (e.g. under linux) and you try to create tarballs for different unix platforms, then use the option --format=v7 and ignore possible errors of too long names. Then the bundled jdk works also on solaris and so on.
To avoid compress: When creating bundled JDKs, you don't need "compress". Use gzip and name the result to .Z. "compress" is on some linux systems not available (because of patents).

😎 The panels are not automatically rendered for command line installation. There exists versions of wizard panels for command line usage. Add them too.

The other things in the product is mostly in the way of ISMP.

[sandeepagarwals]

Thanks for the detailed reply. I have some more which we think are necessary though i couldnt compeletly verify them.

1) BuildWorkDirLocation not supported in evaluation version
2) Enabling or disbaling back,next , cancel buttons in panels at design time
3) Enabling or disbaling back,next , cancel buttons in panels at runtime with custom actions ( I hear we need to write our own custom panels for this which is very tedious if i were to have all panels with some validation
4) No upgrade/patching mechanism in IA as compared to ISMP which did have a little bit in it
5) Console Installation panels and actions need to be duplicated as compared to ISMP where GUI install would work for console with just -console as an option
6) Variables declared in a plugin are not being exposed to other plugins or custom actions
7) Values set using an plugin into an variable on next of a panel, does not get retained once you click back button to come this panel again
😎 No modification to bean names as in case of ISMP at design time
9) Product, Component UID's cannot be changed in design time
10) Documentation and examples are not very detailed in guides and forums are only the means most of the times


But seeing all such issues do you think its wise if Macrovision supports users to move to IA instead of ISMP by stopping support for all ISMP products which isnt very good too. I have seen many user testimonials in install4j community move to that from IA seeing so many issues for past 3-4 years.

Are there any other best products which have all the features in IA and ISMP which can be researched? Also how much time did you take to port from ISMP to IA in your project and were there any production issues in this arena?

I am sorry that i flooded you with so many questions but it was important for me to get some idea and feel from others before we really move from evaluation to original version of ISMP.

Thanks
Sandeep

[bjfrary]

Custom actions and panels are a pain in IA. Custom code in ISMP was a breeze with the beans that just plugged in. Input and Output to custom code is difficult because you always have to set IA Variables. In ISMP you just added the value to the instance of the bean in the IDE. Multiple instances of the same class each had a bean id you referenced. In IA your output would have to be some generic IA Variable and then it has to be set to the real IA Variable in a separate action. This makes copying very difficult because with every custom action you have to have an action before that set the input and one after that sets IA Variables to the output.

YOu cannot open multiple projects in the IDE. You have to open the IDE multiple times. Then you cannot copy actions between the two projects. I do this all the time in ISMP and it makes development so much easier

[pv7721]

I never used ISMP, but from what you people say, it looks that ISMP already had features that IA users have been asking for for years (like copy paste across projects or even multiprojects); it almost doesn't make sense to have killed the superior product and kept the inferior one... but I guess otherwise there would not have been ANY justification for having acquired ZeroG (the original company that created IA).

[bjfrary]

IA is supposed to be much easier to use. However you always have to trade flexability for ease of use. In this case ease of use won and all of us who need the flexability were left in the cold.

Don't get me wrong... there are some nice "pretty" features. I think they handled the generation and reading of response files much better than ISMP. And showing the steps on the left side in a windows install is pretty nice. However the big reason for us to pay for IA and not write our own was the z/OS support which they just desupported.

I would trade all the pretty features for the flexability of ISMP!