command line questions

[NewsArchive]

Friedrich,

A few of us on the Clarion Skype chat were discussing automating
installs. Not just Clarion 3rd party stuff, but major titles that have
nothing in common with Clarion as well. Like Camtasia Studio and Tech
Smith's Help and manual (if these are not SB7 customers.. <bg>).

In the above mentioned titles, both require you to go to a web page and
download an install. Its not an update per se, its the complete
install, but I guess it reads registry information for serial and
license numbers, etc. This makes me nervous as I worry about it
overwriting my information (never does, but I worry just the same).

Gary James created (never finished) a tool that allows Clarion
developers to check for updates and get them if there are any available.
Charles Edmonds took this over and never did anything with it, so I'll
assume its dead. But the idea is excellent.

There are things like NuGet and Chocolately and GitHub has some of these
abilities.

What I'd like to see is a mechanism where any software I've installed, I
can launch one program, see all my installed apps and which ones have
updates. Get the updates, install them. Including all Clarion 3rd
party products.

Ideally, it would mean that the vendor uses an installer that could take
command line parameters (I'm sure there are other means, but for
simplicity, lets stick to that).

With various 3rd party installers, many use SB7, some created their own
(like CHT). Many require a license or unlock code, some require a
maintenance plan number, others require a serial number or combinations
of all of the above.

Whew! All that to set up my question! <g> Is there a way to feed an
installer command line data that is required in various dialogs?
Something like a maintenance plan number can be a bit unwieldy as it
very long. So perhaps a text file, similar to an INI that could be
redirected on the command line?

The idea is to update all my software in one go. Does SB7 (or 8)
support such features? If so, then my vendors that use SB7 could have
their titles update themselves, one after the other.

Those not using SB7, I'll work on them <g>
--

Russ Eggen
RADFusion International, LLC

[NewsArchive]

Hi Russ,

> Whew! All that to set up my question! <g> Is there a way to feed
> an installer command line data that is required in various dialogs?
> Something like a maintenance plan number can be a bit unwieldy as
> it very long. So perhaps a text file, similar to an INI that could
> be redirected on the command line?

In short, yes, you can do this with SB <g>

You can pass the required information via the command line or retrieve the
settings from a "configuration file" (e.g. an INI file or even an encrypted
TPS if you embed your own Clarion DLL to read the "database"). For example,
some companies distribute a "license file" that includes the serial number
and subscription key so the customer does not have to enter the license
information. They only point to the location where the .lic file is located
and the installer automatically retrieves the required license information.
Based on that information, the setup.exe installs the software edition (e.g.
Standard Edition, Professional Edition, Premium Edition, etc.). If the
software is already installed, it switches into "update mode" and only
updates the required files.

Friedrich

[NewsArchive]

Excellent, thank you for confirming. I gather certain commands in the
script to check for command line arguments and config file?

--

Russ Eggen
RADFusion International, LLC

[NewsArchive]

> Excellent, thank you for confirming. I gather certain commands in
> the script to check for command line arguments and config file?

Yes, you can pass runtime variable values directly via the command line
and/or read the settings from a configuration file (e.g. INI file). And you
can add your own command line switches (if you want). Based on all this
information, you can even "skip" the dialogs.

The upcoming SetupBuilder 8 gives you again more power and control because
it lets you programmatically enable/disable "Features" from within the
script.

Friedrich

[NewsArchive]

BTW, I'll develop and post a demo after the release of SB8 (Gold).

Friedrich

[NewsArchive]

Thanks!

--

Russ Eggen
RADFusion International, LLC