freeDelivery

Developers!
Build automatic installation programs for your applications.
(Optimized for use with freeWrap applications)

Description

Features

freeDelivery is a program that can assemble a set of files for easy distribution and installation on another computer. It provides a graphical user interface that allows the end user to install all or part of the distribution files in subdirectories of his choosing.

The installation programs produced by freeDelivery include the following features.

1. graphical user interface
2. display of a developer specified graphic logo
3. display of developer specified license and information files
4. user selectable installation directories
5. developer defined installation directories
6. progress installation bar
7. file overwrite protection
8. ability to run a program after files have been installed
9. special handling of programs generated by freeWrap

Based on the freeWrap program

freeDelivery is a TCL/TK program wrapped using the freeWrap program. This allows freeDelivery to distribute other freeWrapped applications in an efficient manner. When distributed using freeDelivery, a wrapped application's freeWrap core is removed during packaging and reattached at installation time. This makes the distribution of several freeWrapped application in the same installation very efficient. The same is true for any copy of the freeWrap program which is packaged for distribution.

Although freeDelivery is especially efficient at distributing freeWrapped applications, all types of files and applications can be packaged with freeDelivery.

freeDelivery takes advantage of its TCL/TK core (courtesy of freeWrap) by allowing the developer to specify a TCL script to run after the file installation (i.e. copying) has completed. This TCL script is run within freeDelivery itself and requires no prior TCL installation on the installer's computer.

Packages

freeDelivery distributions consist of groups of files called packages. Any number of packages can be defined. This allows the installation of specific application components without performing a complete installation.

No license fees for installation programs created by freeDelivery.

There are no license fees associated with freeDelivery. See the freeDelivery license.

Availability

freeDelivery executables are freely available for both Linux and Windows95/98/NT. Instructions and source code for building freeDelivery on both Windows and UNIX platforms are included in the distributions. See the Downloads table below for specifics.

History - current revision = 2.0b1 (beta release 1)

Changes for version 2.0b1

1) freeDelivery has been wrapped with and adapted to freeWrap version 5.0
2) freeDelivery now properly differentiates between all versions of freeWrapped files.
3) Spaces can now be used in file path names.
4) The ability to "run a TCL script after installation" is now functional.
5) The list of installed packages and their installation directory is now available to after-installation scripts.
6) The value of environment variables can now be substituted into installation paths at installation time.
7) Thanks to the current version of freeWrap, commands are now available to create Windows shortcuts, add items to the Startup Menu and make file extension associations in the registry.

Changes for version 1.1

1) Adapted program to handle the "Large fonts" display properties setting under Windows

Version 1.0 - first public release

How to use freeDelivery

Visit the freeDelivery How-To page.

How freeDelivery was made

freeDelivery was created by wrapping the freeDelivery TCL/TK script using the freeWrap program. The freeWrap command was:

freewrap freeDelivery.tcl fdlogo3.gif install1.gif

Install the freeDelivery build files for a look at the freeDelivery source code.

Downloads

The following downloads are available from http://sourceforge.net/projects/freewrap/

Each package inludes the full source code for freeDelivery.

 Send comments to freewrapmgr@users.sourceforge.net