[Gambas-user] How to package and distribute our software written in Gambas

[Benoit Minisini]

On lundi 23 juin 2008, jbskaggs wrote:
> After six months I have a package that is nearly finished.
>
> I understand how to make an installation package via Gambas.
>
> What I need though is a one-click means of installing my data directories
> into the correct area on the user's drive.
>
> IE
>
> user.home/wwmkr.
>
> Using linux's archive manager does not give me that option automatically.
> Maybe there is a nice liux packager out there for the data files etc?
>
> Second I need to know how to get the software in front of the people's eyes
> who need it.  How does one distribute a software efficiently and
> effectively?  Recruit alpha and beta testers etc.
>
>
> JB SKaggs

Hi,

Files and directories that must go to the user directory are never packaged 
directly, because you do not know what are the user directories at packaging 
time.

So they must be copied to the user directory by the program at first 
execution, as all programs do.

At the moment, Gambas IDE can only put the executable in the final package, so 
you have to put your initialization file inside the project and copy them by 
hand. 

This can be a problem if you have a lot of initialization files. In that case, 
I suggest you create an archive of these file, so that you have only one file 
in your project, and that you unpack it in the user directory. You must 
suppose that the 'tar' and 'gzip' are present on the system, but this is 
usually true.

In the future, the Gambas IDE packager my have support for packaging external 
files and/or adding manual dependencies.

Regards,

-- 
Benoit Minisini