We have a project where the source is contained in several (VS.NET C++) solution files (a couple for company base libs, 3 more for project specific dlls and exes). The usual sort of scenario. (everything stored in sourceSafe)
Currently we build it all using a perl script and DOS batch files, but these scripts are long, difficult to keep track of, debug and change.
So I'm trying Installshield 2008 to see if it can completely replace all of that.
I originally thought Installshield would be clever enough to let me grab all the solutions from VSS, build all the various solutions, collate all the files, create the installer, etc, etc.
Whilst I see it can collate files and build the installer easily, I can't see any way of getting it to get files from VSS or build them (unless its a Visual Studio IS project, which only works on one solutions).
I see I can do this if our product only had one solution, use an IS Visual Studio project, but how to get that to compile other solutions?
I know I could write some VB or perl to grab all the source, compile it and then start the IS release build, but that doesn't achieve much over what we're doing now.
Can I set things up so each solution (apart from the final one) has a IS project in it which effectively does nothing (so I can call the .ism file to get&compile this solution from another IS project), and then the final solutions IS project calls the other IS projects and then collates the files from everywhere and builds the release?
How do I set up an IS project so it calls other sub-IS projects (I suppose I'd tell it to launch another .ism file?)?
Is there anyway I can tell ISCmdBld.exe to retrieve and launch a .ism file from SourceSafe in the same way you can with VisualStudio (from the command line, so it grabs all solution files before building everything)?
If I can do all of these things I can just run a single ISCmdBld.exe command and have it retrieve all files (for that solution) from VSS, run the project, which runs other *.ism projects, etc, etc, builds the program components and builds the installer.
As far as i know, InstallShield is an Installation authoring tool. If you need a build tool, I'd suggest ANT. Using a build tool to simplify build maintenance, and using dynamic file links in IS, you can largely automate the build engineer's job.
That might not be what you were hoping to hear, but it's better than no response at all, right?
