As I notified to a few people earlier, an automated installer for beta version is being prepared. To create this installer, Inno Setup is used which I think by far is best choice for Delphi developers who want to create highly customized installers.
My goal is to make the installation experience as smooth as possible. Well, I could deploy some zip or rar archives with all required files inside it, but I found it more charming to automate the process! Again, I can't say that installation is 100% automated. At final stage you must open the packages, compile and install them manually. Next versions of installer will automate Package installation process. It can target all supported Delphi versions by uniGUI; Delphi2006, Delphi2007, Delphi2009 & Delphi2010. Default target for installer will be a sub folder under <commondocs>. The reason for this is obvious. Post XP operating systems don't allow writing to "Program Files" folder, so installing Delphi projects in a non-writable folder means trouble. Installer does the following modifications to Delphi related Windows registry settings:
- Library Paths required for uniGUI.
- Defines a new environment variable called fmsoft.
- Disables Notify on Language Exceptions debugger option.
All above modifications except (3) are undone when product is uninstalled. Installer will install uniGUI Package projects plus some required third-parties (including ExtPascal and Ext JS). You must be sure all instances of Delphi are closed before you run the installer. Installer does not check for running instances of Delphi. This installer will deploy no uniGUI source code, only DCUs. Source code distribution policy will be decided later.
