Re: packaging for windows

[Daniel Kasak <dkasak nusconsulting com au>]

Jaap Karssenberg wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Did anyone look into packaging perl/gtk applications for windows ?
>
> I have some users that would really like a package that "Just Works" 
> (when perl was installed already).
> I installed my application manually on one system but it involved 
> manually unzipping a lot of dll's which is quite obscure.

I've had to do a couple of rollouts, and have some more on the way.

I use Alex Shaduri's gtk packages available at:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/alexv6/
There is also a neat theme switcher, and some even neater themes. The 
default gtk theme from the official win32 binaries looks like arse, but 
Alex has certainly solved this issue for Windows gtk users :)
I've done a fair bit of testing ... as I said, I've already done a 
couple of rollouts, and had zero complaints :) It works flawlessly with 
Perl Gtk2. Alex updates his packages pretty regularly too.

You'll have to grab libglade and libxml2 win32 binaries from around the 
place, as these aren't included in Alex's gtk packages. I just dumped 
them in the gtk program files directory ( the default location for 
Alex's installer ).

After that, you'll 'just' have to install ActiveState Perl and all your 
modules. As others have suggested, you can make ppms of all your perl 
modules and install from those. In most cases there are already ppms 
available anyway, so just put them on a CD in case there's no internet 
connection where you're installing ( has happened ).

Perhaps someone else has a better idea again?

Here's a method I've been meaning to try, but haven't gotten around to 
it yet ( warning ... untested and dodgy ):

- install ActiveState Perl on a development box
- install all Perl modules
- zip up entire ActiveState installation folder ( eg c:\Perl or 
whereever you put it )

... and then on the target PCs:

- install ActiveState Perl
- unzip ActiveState folder, from above, on top of current installation

Just to repeat - I haven't tried this yet. It depends on whether 
ActiveState's Perl distrubution only uses the actual Perl installation 
path ( eg C:\Perl ), or whether it also dumps things elsewhere ( eg the 
registry ) when you install modules. I suspect it would *not* use the 
registry, so this should be safe. Someone who knows better might want to 
comment on whether this is a bad idea or not ... but anyway I'm sure 
testing will reveal whether it's likely to cause problems.

Dan

--
Daniel Kasak
IT Developer
NUS Consulting Group
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