How do I create a localized windows installer package for my WPF application, it has support for 6 languages and I want to have EULA document being localized when user installs the application
I see you tagged Wix and InstallShield, so maybe you are open to try other tools too. Advanced Installer (disclaimer, I work on its development) has in the Professional edition support for multilingual packages.
You just select the languages desired from Translations page, then go to Dialogs page and add a new predefined dialog, select "LicenseAgreementDlg". Advanced Installer will see that you have multiple languages in the package so it will ask you select the EULA file for each language. In roughly 10 minutes you will get your first installer up and running.
I am not quite up to speed on WIX and localization (language support). This online tutorial is a good starting point for you: http://wix.tramontana.co.hu/tutorial/user-interface/do-you-speak-english . Just read through the different User Interface sections.
I don't know which bundling you intend, but in my experience a multi-language setup is less desirable than compiling one MSI file per language. This is easier and faster to compile and work with (very important for large packages), more flexible if you need to bug fix something in a single language, allows you to add new languages easily without full UAT for all languages, and you can deliver the English version as soon as the code is done without waiting several days or weeks for localized files (if any are required).
If you plan to use Windows Installer XML, you can check my answer here. Note that the method is undocumented and not supported by Microsoft, however MS uses it itself and it is working very well.
Just provide a different file for every language transform to the WixVariable WixUILicenseRtf.
Related
I have a requirement to create an installer that will allow users to install multiple named instances of our services and application (i.e. Sql Server style).
I have seen that a product called AdvancedInstaller does this and from what I have read this would be achieved through a Bootstrapper capturing the information and streaming it to the MSI. I am assuming here that a Custom UI Burn implementation should be able to do the same, however I cannot find any samples of doing this exactly or on how to do the 'stream' to the MSI.
If I wanted to go this route would I still need to specify instances in my MSI's?
Currently there are separate MSI's for the Windows Services, Application and then a Bundle Bootstrapper EXE that allows the selection of the services to install.
Thanks
MSI has the concept of multiple instance installations using product code changing transforms. These transforms can (but don't have to be) embedded in the MSI. Here's some background reading.
http://blog.iswix.com/search?q=multiple+instance
Read the IS12 then the IS2009. Expect many broken links as Microsoft destroyed their sites. Here are 2020 links.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/msi/installing-multiple-instances-of-products-and-patches
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/msi/authoring-multiple-instances-with-instance-transforms
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/msi/installing-multiple-instances-with-instance-transforms
When using embedded transforms you are limited to whatever ProductNames you choose when you built them. You could also dynamically generate transforms and apply them.
WiX's standard bootstrapper application doesn't really have much in the way of supporting all the scenarios I talked about in my blog articles. Other tools such as InstallShield and AdvancedInstaller have more.
As much as I like WiX, and MSI for that matter, this is really advanced stuff that takes a long time to understand, develop and test solutions for. You might want to look at using a tool such as InstallShield or Advanced Installer or simply creating a normal straight up MSI that installs a template of an application and then create your own custom instance management tool that allows the user to spin up multiple instances of your application.
I'm an WiX/MSI/InstallShield/DevOps consultant. To be honest, this would not be an inexpensive project if I was to quote it out for a customer.
I work on windows and I need a very simple version track software to be able to check in/out a folder project, no matter what's inside. I downloaded few programs, but most of them are very complicated, team work, cloud, thousands of options, etc.
I need some simple version track of my files, locally. Can you recommend me something useful?
i'd recommend using simpy rar with datetime. Or as an option - just parameter to update archive instead of creating new one
There are a number of reasons why version control software have the number of options that they do, without understanding the basics of how the particular version control system that you are trying to use functions these options can seem overwhelming. To be able to use version control you will have to put in a little bit of effort to understand how it works. That being said I find that Bazaar from Canonical makes a pretty good introduction to version control for beginners. It has a pretty nice download page for various platforms and comes with a GUI client and comes with beginner friendly documentation.
However, having used other version control systems I personally don't like to use Bazaar. The choice of version control system should not make a difference if you are only looking to use it yourself and don't need any of the more advanced features. If you are willing to invest some more time however, I would recommend trying Mercurial it has some documentation for beginners and a fairly nice beginner friendly GUI for Windows in the form of EasyMercurial.
I need to process a number of messages in my Thunderbird.app (Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Intel Core 2 Duo), delete a few based on some criteria, export some others, move a small part of them to a special folder and create a filing hierarchy to go with it all - programmatically.
With Outlook I used to enjoy VBScript + the COM object model: it would do all of the above simply and intuitively.
What can I use to achieve the same with Thunderbird?
If multiple options are available, here are my current preferences in terms of languages (although I can adapt to most things): Python, C++, AppleScript, PHP, Perl, Bash, ...
If I need to move to a Windows box to use .NET and the like, I can (yet I'd imaging the most popular bindings come from the open-source world?!) If there was a command-line tool that did what I need, I'd use that! (thunderbird.sh show messages; thunderbird.sh create folder X as child of folder Y;)
You can develop Thunderbird extensions in a similar way to Firefox extensions in XUL and Javascript.
Try this tutorial.
This tutorial will introduce you to the components of a Thunderbird extension and will show you how to build your own.
You could also look at the tbscript plugin, although it does have external dependencies - it uses Python.
The tutorial linked to in the most popular answer as of today still works, but is outdated.
For current versions of Thunderbird, documentation is at https://developer.thunderbird.net. This has an add-on page that comes with a tutorial for developing a "Hello World" MailExtension.
The MailExtension API is new for Thunderbird 68 (although some parts were published for earlier versions) and allows one to write JavaScript to e.g. handle messages.
If you need a general purpose GUI scripting solution, try Autohotkey, it's very calable.
I probably have a strange request.
I have develop a msi to install two softwares. After the EULA a screen with two checkboxes must come and on selection of either or both of these checkboxes the corresponding softwares have to be installed.
I have used to install a single software earlier never for two.
I would be obliged for any leads.
Cohesion & Coupling: Bundling applications together in a single MSI file, may seem like a
good idea. It seems intuitively nice and simple. However, speaking
from real world experience I almost always end up splitting
applications to install via their own MSI files, and I don't like
multi-lingual setups either (true multi-lingual setups are difficult because translated content is typically not ready when marketing and sales push to release the native language version quickly - typically the English version).
The only time it is really safe to deploy applications together is when they are guaranteed to:
Always be used together by end users
Always get updated at the same time
Won't grow substantially in size over time (Localization, New Prerequisites, etc...)
And normally it is impossible to predict any of this. Typically you will get new requirements quickly.
Central Challenge: What will likely take on a release-cycle of its own? (split it right now). Things tend to happen suddenly! Here are some common challenges:
Bug fixes: if only one application has a bug, management will want to deliver only one new MSI and leave application 2 untouched and without the need to do a whole new QA-run for both applications after install. This is to reduce risk and to deliver a smaller update that is also quicker to test and verify. Patching is very complicated, and generally safer for MSI files that are as simple as possible without too many languages, custom actions or GUI constructs.
Localization: suddenly you get a requirement to make application 1 available in Italian, application 2 does not need to be translated. Language support tends to greatly increase the complexity of a setup, not to mention the size of it. Your "nice and simple" MSI has now suddenly gotten complicated to maintain, and sluggish to build. It is also a real pain if you need a single setup, and you translate it in many languages - you won't be able to compile the RTM version until all the language updates are in. I can tell you right now that marketing / sales people will have no concept of holding back the English version until all localized versions are ready.
QA / UAT: if the applications are large, delivering 2 separate MSI files will make it easier to split the testing effort between different QA teams and to deliver new updates via nightly builds etc...
Release schedule: suddenly the release schedule for the applications change - application 1 is now updated every month, whilst application 2 is updated only every six months. If different users use the applications, how do you deliver updates? Build it all in one MSI and give it a new version number only to have application 2 users install the same application over again?
Apply the overall developer principles of cohesion and coupling to deployment packages, and you will save yourself a lot of trouble. If the applications now OR in the future may take on their own life cycle - split their deployment right away. And who can see into the future?
Please note that you generally will wrap multiple MSI files in a bootstrapper so that users still have only one file to relate to, even if the products are installed via separate MSI files.
Wix update: With the advent of Wix to create complex setups it has become easier to build Wix include files that can be compiled into several MSI files. This effectively becomes a more flexible type of merge module. This may simplify the splitting or merging of MSI files in the future. See a discussion of this feature here. One more link.
Sheer setup size: There are some limitations with regards to how many components and files you can have in a single MSI. Some details:
What are the limits for a large MSI package?
Limitations of a Large MSI package
Authoring a Large Package
UPDATE: WiX allows preprocessor constructs and Burn bundles that can be used to split large setups.
Long description here: Wix Installer : Setting component condition property when doing a MSIEXEC admin install at command line (markup towards bottom)
And about different "variable types" in WiX: WiX (Windows Installer Xml), Create universal variables (there are many: precompiler, localization, burn, etc...)
It can be helpful to "decompose" a huge MSI into several related MSI for this reason and other reasons listed above - in order to make maintenance easier (build and compile speed, rebuild of just one of many MSI files, etc...). Finally you should stick to using a single file per component to make upgrading and patching work properly. Several MSI files can be installed in sequence using bootstrappers or launcher applications such as Burn from WiX, or features in commercial tools such as Installshield and Advanced Installer. Here is an answer which touches on this topic. And just trowing in another answer which is a little bit similar.
Links:
Installing SQL Server 2014 Express as a prerequisite in boostrapper
Windows installer has a concept of "features" which can be selected for installation or omitted. If you have already created a working installer, then you have at least one <Feature> element in your WIX files.
Simply create multiple <Feature> elements and then use <UIRef Id="WixUI_Mondo" /> or <UIRef Id="WixUI_FeatureTree" /> to allow the user to choose which features he wants to install.
You cannot install multiple applications from a single MSI. Even if you figure out a way to do this you really should not.
Instead have separate MSIs for each app and use a bootstrapper to install both. E.g. you can use Inno Setup to generate a self-contained bootstrapper exe which installs both MSIs (and any pre-requisites as well).
BTW, Wix does not handle creating bootstrappers so you need to use it in conjunction with another tool.
You can do nested msi pre windows installer 4.
But you shouldnt anyway it was deprecated for a reason.
The replacement api is to call msiembeddedui and create a transaction chainer.
You can create multiple MSI's then bundle them into 1 containing MSI. The "parent" MSI allows you to choose which application to install then just runs that MSI.
If you really want 2 applications then there are non-MSI installer builders (like NSIS) that let you do that, but you have to do all the work yourself.
I'm tired of Dreamweaver overwriting wrong files on the server,
so I'm looking for an alternative.
I want color-coding and possibility to open/save and edit files direct from the server, so I don't need to save files on my desktop first.
I'm using Windows.
Every web developer should be hand-writing their mark-up - all forms of automated abstraction inhibit your understanding and awareness of the code and create maintenance problems for the future. I'm quite a zealot about this, you may be able to tell.
On that basis, I can heartily recommend Editplus: has code colouring, FTP and a huge amount of feature-sugar from line duplication to macros.
Notepad++ extended with some plugins is a really handy replacement. Though I can't call it IDE, it does virtually everything a developer need. In my case (a lot of repetitive code) Texter (a small app working in background) makes notepadd++ even more handy. So, my suggestion is: Notepad++ and Texter.
I switched to notepad++ when I had the same kind of problems with DreamWeaver. I tried some other programs too, but they were too complicated for my needs.
If all you need is color-coding and ftp-support, notepad++ is a good choice.
Visual Web Developer Express, which is the lightweight version of Visual Studio.
http://www.microsoft.com/express/
If you're using a Mac you should take a look at Coda
Well personally I use Programmer's Notepad but it doesn't support the facility to upload files to the server. You could get Notepad++ and this FTP plugin. I haven't tried Notepad++ but I'm sure that it isn't WYSIWYG.
Perhaps KompoZer? It has all the features you've asked for, and there's a Windows version (as well as Mac and Linux).
Dreamweaver... Not my cup of tea, because it lacks good support for modern web programming with Javascript or PHP.
For primary design, I use WeBuilder from Blumentals. Its also a good and not expensive PHP and Javascript IDE with debugging support and also has good CSS support with a built-in CSS editor.
I'm not a big fan of text editors like Notepad++ as an IDE replacement, because you often need a lot of additional plug-ins to have similar features like a IDE. But for some files or quick editing nothing can beat such editors (I like Notepad++ the most on Windows).
So for Windows I would prefer WeBuilder for all things (design & programming).
You use only Windows? For Linux there are other alternatives too ;)
When I searched an alternative for the Dreamweaver for PHP, I found some IDEs and one among them is Netbeans. Soon it became my favorite for my object oriented coding.
Here is the download page.
This has support for Zend and Symphony frameworks.
They also support File uploading.
When developping in PHP, I generally use Eclipse PDT.
If you are more oriented towards HTML/CSS/Javascript, you might be interested by Aptana, which is based on Eclipse too... Which means it can use lots of plugins, including some to work directly on a server, I suppose (see TM/RSE, for instance).
Note than Aptana can also be installed into an existing Eclipse installation, as a plugin.
Oh, also, I almost forgot : Eclipse is free, and there are both a free and a commercial version of Aptana.
(One bad thing about Eclipse being it requires a quite powerful computer -- at least 2 cores and 2 GB of RAM, if you want to use any other application at the same time...)
E Text Editor, a Textmate clone for Windows, claims to have FTP Support. But i haven't used this feature before.
I want color-coding and possibility to open/save and edit files direct from the server, so I don't need to save files on my desktop first.
The Zeus editor can highlight and fold HTML files, it integrates with HTML Tidy and can seamless edit files from the server via ftp/sftp.
It also has support for a host of other languages (i.e C/C++, C#, Java, Javascript, PHP, etc etc)