MacWorld 1997 August/Macworld (1997-08).dmg/Shareware World/Info/For Developers/InstallerMaker™ 4.0 Installer/Customizing InstallerMaker/Installer Add-ons/ShutDownAll IBeg Example/Caveats About the IBeg

Text File | 1997-05-12 | 3KB | 27 lines

Caveats About the ShutDownAll IBeg Sample
© Copyright 1997 Aladdin Systems, Inc.
(3/18/96; version 1; RMT)
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To help you see the power of adding custom code to your installers, this folder contains the file "ShutDownAll IBeg.rsrc", which contains the resources that will allow an installer to force all running applications and processes to quit before installation proceeds.  Apple Computer's installer does this for most of its  system software installers, and in some specific cases, it is in fact necessary to do this.

We've added this code as an example, and because many of our customers have  requested this capability.  But we're ambiguous about shutting down the Finder and some background processes, and you should be, too.

First, one of the processes that the ShutDownAll IBeg kills is the Finder itself. For many of the users who have asked for the capability to shut down other processes, this is important.  However, it comes at a price: many functions of your product installer require the Finder to be up and working for best results.  These include:

1) some of our code that registers files with the Finder;
2) opening files or launching applications at the end of installation.

We think that for these reasons, it's generally not a good idea to shut down the  Finder during an install.

Second, the only safe way to shut everything down is to give your users the time and opportunity to save their work; this means that your users can decide to keep your installer in the background while they continue working in the other application.  This means we can't safely grab hold of the user's Mac; if our request to shut down times out, the user has to manually reactivate your installer by choosing the it off the Applications menu.  Many users do not know how to do  this, and they may end up calling you about it. While we're not thrilled about this either, we have confirmed that Apple system software installers behave the same way. This suggests to us that Apple doesn't have any better ideas on this one, either :-(

Third, we have not tested the IBeg on all of the configurations you may need to support.  Chances are, you may not find this a problem, but if you do decide to include the ShutDownAll IBeg in your installer, you'll want to spend a bit of extra time testing your installers to make sure all of InstallerMaker's features that you need work correctly when the Finder no longer runs.  If you do see anything odd, we would appreciate if you contact Aladdin Systems developer support and report your problem.

Regards,
Developer Support
Aladdin Systems, Inc.
E-mail: [e-mail]
WWW: http://www.aladdinsys.com/dev
Phone: [phone]