So My Exe is Manifested by the Installer .. What about the "look n feel" in testing?

[StuAndrews]

Hi Folks,

Apologies for the big long title.

If your SetupBuilder installer is embedding the app manifest (Which is way cool), then what do you do about the "look n feel" of the app while testing?

IE .. When I compile I get the old blocky look.

It's no big deal, I can do demos etc from an installed version .. But just wondering if I'm missing something really simple (probably!).

Thanks!

[linder]

Stu,

Just create a "dummy" script that does nothing more than manifesting your .exe and you are done ;-) Compile the "script" before you test your app.

New Project... | Blank Script...

Does this help?

Friedrich

[StuAndrews]

Yes! Thank you Friedrich.

Mostly, I'll be testing from Clarion (compiling with the big button that runs the exe).

I wonder if clarion can be told to run something after compilation and before running?

[StuAndrews]

Hi Friedrich,

So this seems to create a whole folder + installer?

Is there some way to MANIFEST the exe in my dev folder and be able to run it .. OR if Setupbuilder creates a new exe, for it to just be the MANIFESTED exe - not an install exe?

[linder]

Stu,

The code I posted will manifest your .exe. It will also create a "dummy" setup.exe (that does nothing) as part of the generation process. But you can add a "#delete file(s)..." compiler directive and it will immediately remove the created setup.exe.

I can post a demo project if you want.

Friedrich

[StuAndrews]

Hi Friedrich,

Hmmm, I didn't have the "permanent" checkbox in, but even with that, I get the following error:

error GEN1055: File not found or locked [@7]: C:\_work\Mine\ballikin\ballikin.exe

* Attached screenshot.

File is definitely there. Not sure what "locked" means, but I'm going to have a search of the forums now.

[StuAndrews]

Blurg.

Now it's working fine.

It's "possible" that the game was open in the background when I tried to run the script :) .. Possibly, but I'll never admit to that!

[linder]

Thanks for the update :)

BTW, Windows needs exclusive write access to the file to embed the manifest. So it's very well possible that it was "in-use" (locked) or a protection software product (anti-virus / ant-spyware) was busy monitoring it.

Friedrich

[StuAndrews]

Thanks Friedrich.

If you're interested (I'm using SetupBuilder for the installer, of course!), I'm making a Game (in Clarion .. yowza) called Ballikin.

http://ballikin.com/download

It's 35 builds into the Alpha phase. So a fair way to go, but getting there!