Minor windows intaller bug and a question
Hi all, Installing 2.7.0rc2 windows zope installer, i noticed that it uses hard-coded value for instance directory. The proposed value is "C:\Zope-Instance". However, some users (me :) don't have C: drive. For some reasons windows choose G: letter for boot drive and (unlike not-boot drives) this letter can't be changed. Most installers autodetect this situation but Zope installer not. And now the question: I want to make customized Zope installer. I.e. i want to include some products, data in ZODB, etc. so i can give single exe file to my customer, he will install it and get ready-to-work site figurally in one click. Something like Plone installer did. So, are there some guidelines how it can be done (howtos, docs, scripts, etc)? Unfortunately, my expirience in making installers is limited to InstallShield usage in mid 90th :(
On Wed, 2004-02-04 at 08:55, Sergey Volobuev wrote:
Hi all,
Installing 2.7.0rc2 windows zope installer, i noticed that it uses hard-coded value for instance directory. The proposed value is "C:\Zope-Instance". However, some users (me :) don't have C: drive. For some reasons windows choose G: letter for boot drive and (unlike not-boot drives) this letter can't be changed. Most installers autodetect this situation but Zope installer not.
You can change the instance dir manually, no? You mean it's a bug that it doesn't detect your system drive and instead always uses C as the default, right? If so, yes, I agree, but likely it won't get fixed too soon as it's so minor.
And now the question: I want to make customized Zope installer. I.e. i want to include some products, data in ZODB, etc. so i can give single exe file to my customer, he will install it and get ready-to-work site figurally in one click. Something like Plone installer did. So, are there some guidelines how it can be done (howtos, docs, scripts, etc)? Unfortunately, my expirience in making installers is limited to InstallShield usage in mid 90th :(
This is very possible. The way the ZC installer is built uses http://cvs.zope.org/Packages/WinBuilders , and you could of course change this around to make it suit you. No howtos, but the code is there. - C
From: "Chris McDonough" <chrism@plope.com>
Installing 2.7.0rc2 windows zope installer, i noticed that it uses hard-coded value for instance directory. The proposed value is "C:\Zope-Instance". However, some users (me :) don't have C: drive. For some reasons windows choose G: letter for boot drive and (unlike not-boot drives) this letter can't be changed. Most installers autodetect this situation but Zope installer not.
You can change the instance dir manually, no? You mean it's a bug that it doesn't detect your system drive and instead always uses C as the default, right? If so, yes, I agree, but likely it won't get fixed too soon as it's so minor.
I find the default value strange. The old installer put it into the program files directory, which seem to me to be the reasonable place. Opinions on this?
On Thu, 2004-02-05 at 11:10, Lennart Regebro wrote:
I find the default value strange. The old installer put it into the program files directory, which seem to me to be the reasonable place. Opinions on this?
The old installer didn't create an instance home, it just created a software home. The software home is still put into program files by the new installer. - C
From: "Chris McDonough" <chrism@plope.com>
The old installer didn't create an instance home, it just created a software home. The software home is still put into program files by the new installer.
Ah. Well, I'm not sure I think C:\ is such a good place for the default anyway. I'll test things out and think about it, and maybe it get's magically changed before 2.8. ;-)
On Thu, 2004-02-05 at 11:39, Lennart Regebro wrote:
From: "Chris McDonough" <chrism@plope.com>
The old installer didn't create an instance home, it just created a software home. The software home is still put into program files by the new installer.
Ah. Well, I'm not sure I think C:\ is such a good place for the default anyway. I'll test things out and think about it, and maybe it get's magically changed before 2.8. ;-)
Do you mean that you don't think C:\Zope-Instance is a good default for an instance home? If so, I suppose I'd agree. But I chose it because I couldn't (and still can't) think of anything better. As Tim said, we could figure out the "application data" path, but as far as I can tell no one really uses that or expects to actually find anything there, and it's typically so verbose with so many path elements with spaces in them that it would be painful to specify from the console, which for better or worse, still needs to be used from time to time. - C
Chris McDonough wrote:
On Thu, 2004-02-05 at 11:39, Lennart Regebro wrote:
From: "Chris McDonough" <chrism@plope.com>
The old installer didn't create an instance home, it just created a software home. The software home is still put into program files by the new installer.
Ah. Well, I'm not sure I think C:\ is such a good place for the default anyway. I'll test things out and think about it, and maybe it get's magically changed before 2.8. ;-)
Do you mean that you don't think C:\Zope-Instance is a good default for an instance home? If so, I suppose I'd agree. But I chose it because I couldn't (and still can't) think of anything better. As Tim said, we could figure out the "application data" path, but as far as I can tell no one really uses that or expects to actually find anything there, and it's typically so verbose with so many path elements with spaces in them that it would be painful to specify from the console, which for better or worse, still needs to be used from time to time.
Heh, we could just avoid the whole problem by using a WindowsRegistryStorage for the database :) Tres. -- =============================================================== Tres Seaver tseaver@zope.com Zope Corporation "Zope Dealers" http://www.zope.com
[Chris McDonough, on the C:\Zope-Instance default]
You can change the instance dir manually, no? You mean it's a bug that it doesn't detect your system drive and instead always uses C as the default, right? If so, yes, I agree, but likely it won't get fixed too soon as it's so minor.
The "right" drive letter is the value of InnoSetup's {sd} (system drive) constant, but I don't know how to feed that into the Pascal code that sets this up. [Lennart Regebro]
I find the default value strange. The old installer put it into the program files directory, which seem to me to be the reasonable place. Opinions on this?
PITA. If you want to adhere to Windows standards, programs belong under Program Files, but a Zope instance is more data so "really belongs" in some confusing place like $WINDOWS_DIRECTORY\Application Data\Zope Corporation\Zope-Instance\ (under an English version of Windows), or even under a user-specific variant of that. That makes it maximally difficult for you to find your data, and the embedded spaces in the path make it maximally difficult for you to use command-line tools too (e.g., maybe you want to do an fsdump on your Data.fs). I'd much rather have this stuff where it's easy to find, and easy to use from a DOS box. The installer *lets* you put it anywhere; the default should favor ease of understanding and use.
On Thu, 2004-02-05 at 11:37, Tim Peters wrote:
The "right" drive letter is the value of InnoSetup's {sd} (system drive) constant, but I don't know how to feed that into the Pascal code that sets this up.
I'm sure it's possible, I can probably figure it out. I'll put it on my todo list. - C
[Tim Peters]
The "right" drive letter is the value of InnoSetup's {sd} (system drive) constant, but I don't know how to feed that into the Pascal code that sets this up.
[Chris McDonough]
I'm sure it's possible, I can probably figure it out. I'll put it on my todo list.
Staring at the docs, I think this Pascal expression: ExpandConstant('xyz{sd}xyz') would yield the string xyzC:xyz on my box today. I don't have access to any box where the system drive isn't C:, though -- PITA to test.
participants (5)
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Chris McDonough -
Lennart Regebro -
Sergey Volobuev -
Tim Peters -
Tres Seaver