.................................√ Single Installer.
..........................The Built Installer.
..........................Compression.
..........................Memory.
..........................Some little suggestion.
SEA and others
Before any other notice you should know the useful features which QIM offers to you. QIM may create some useful files for a simple but efficient world distribution: it may encode/decode BinHex and MacBinary files, can create compressed archives and can uncompress compressed ones, at last, but not least, it may create SEA applications. To create SEA applications select "Make self-extracting application" from "Goodies" menu and select the item you want to compress. If you choose an already compressed archive QIM transforms it in a SEA application, otherwise shows you a "Put File" dialog then, if you press "Save", creates the application containing the compressed item. SEAs are very useful for simple distribution, since the final user may extract files without have QIM , however they are a bit larger than the normal compressed archive because of runtime code. You may give to your friends the freeware application YellowExtractor (http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/7162/extractor.html), then distribute them, quietly, QIMDs, compressed archive, BinHex and MacBinary file: YellowExtractor can extract files from these kind of documents (and more…).
Features of above can be reached in the "Goodies" menu, see also the following section.
Drag manager and others
QIM is Drag Manager aware, but can't drag items across its windows (sorry), it accepts only Drag from Finder to windows. Drag Manager support; Drag&Drop onto the desktop icons and "Open" menu item ("File" menu) work in the same way:
target file QIM actions
QIMD.............................................opens it
Compressed archive.......................uncompresses it
TEXT file.......................................try to unbinhex
if fails treats it as
"Other item"
MacBinary.....................................decode it, if fails treats it
as "Other item":
Other item.....................................shows a window containig some buttons:
"Compress" button creates a compressed archive, "BinHex" button creates a binehxed file "MacBinary" button creates a MacBinary file. The last button "Add to archive" is very cool! if at least one QIMD is open (if you're using Drag Manager the receiving window goes in front) then QIM shows the "File Setup" dialog (see the section "File Management"), if there are no QIMD open then QIM starts the procedures described in the sections "QIMDocument" and "File Management".
•Important: the Open features described in this section are also a short way to reach features available through various menus. I.e. for adding one item into a new QIMD use "Open…" is faster than "New QIMDocument…"+"Add Item to QIMDocument…" just like Drag&Drop may be a fast way to compress a file; but specific menus are less selective than Open features, so if you want, to add a QIMD to another QIMD or else compress an already compressed file or else make some other useless, but attractive, action you must use specific menus.•
•Important: in accordance with the action required QIM,may show a special "Get Item" dialog, you must use the button at bottom (under the list) to select a folder or else an alias, other buttons work normally. This happens if you haven't Navigation Manage installed.•
•Note: QIM add a suffix at the end of name of its documents (".qimd",".qca",".hqx"), but this suffix isn't relevant: you can remove it, if you like.•
Note for Old Users
Starting from 1.2.0 version QIM and TBI use a new compression method, also they may encode/decode folders. As a result this version has a new QIMD type incompatible with versions 1.0.0 and 1.1.0.
Quick Start
Want you to create an Installer in few seconds? Try this:
1) Launch QIM.
2) Select "New QIMDocument..." from "File" menu, press "Save" in the "Put File" dialog and press "OK" in the "Document Setup" dialog.
3) Press the "Add" button in the Main window, select a file to install from "Get File" dialog and press "OK" in the "File Setup" dialog.
4) Select "Make Installer…" from "File" menu, check the "Single Installer" checkbox in the "Installer Setup" dialog and press "OK", then press return in the two following dialogs.
5) From "Get File…" dialog select the QIMDocument you've created at the point 2 and...your first Installer is ready!
QIM is a very fast Installer builder, if you want to know more about it, read the following chapters.
QIMDocument
The QIM's heart is the QIMD.
Any QIMD is a common destination for the files contained in the QIMD. This means that you should create a different QIMD for any different destination you want to install your files to.
•Example: if you want to install some files into the Extensions Folder and some files into the Apple Menu Folder, you should create two QIMD, one containing the files for the Extensions Folder and one containing the files for the Apple Menu Folder, then include both QIMDs to the same installer.•
You may create a new QIMD through the "File" menu, by selecting the item "New QIMDocument". The default name shown by QIM in the "Save File Dialog" is "Untitled.qimd". You may change it, obviously. When you press the "Save" button in the "Save File Dialog" the "Document Setup" window appears. From this window you may select the QIMD's common destination. The available destinations are:
"HD (root level)", this option installs the files contained in the current QIMD at the root level of the HD selected by your final user. The following options, instead, always install the files contained in the current QIMD on the startup disk:
The "Document Setup" window contains another option:
by checking the checkbox "Group all files into the same folder", all the current QIMD's files will be grouped in a new folder into the common destination folder (you must type the new folder's name).
•Example: if you select the "Extensions Folder" as a common destination and then check the checkbox "Group all files into the same folder" (naming the new folder "My Folder") the installer will place the files contained in that QIMD into a folder named "My Folder" placed in the Extensions Folder. •
•Note:You may also use pathname as folder name, starting the pathname with a colon but remembering the risk of an incongruous path.•
The document window
The "document window" appears when you create a new QIMD or when you open an existing one. This is the "working" window. A "document window" is always associated to a QIMD.
When a "document window" is open you may:
1) View the files contained into the associated QIMD. For each file you may view name, target Macintosh (see the section "File Management"), type, original and encoded (compressed) size, compression state and percentage (see section "Compression").
2) View the QIMD flags* (general destination, new folder name, size).
3) Change the QIMD flags, by pressing the "Change Document flags" button or by selecting the "Change QIMDocument flags" menu item in the "File" menu, or by the shortcut cmd-D. When you want to change the document flag, the "Document Setup" window appears.
4) Change the flags of the files you want by pressing the "Change File flags" button or by selecting the "Change File flags" menu item in the "Document" menu, or by the shortcut cmd-H. When you want to change the file flag, the "File Setup" window appears (see section "File Management"). You can't change the compression state.
5) Remove a file by pressing the "Remove" button or by selecting the "Remove" menuitem, in the "Document" menu, or with the shortcut cmd-R.
6) Extract a file by pressing the "Extract" button or by selecting the "Extract" menui tem, in the "Document" menu, or by the shortcut cmd-E.
7) Add a file by pressing the "Add" button or by selecting the "Add item to QIMDocument…" menu item, in the "Document" menu, or by the shortcut cmd-A.
•Important: the buttons and the menu items "Change File flags", "Remove", "Extract" are enabled only if a file is selected in the "document window". The menu item "Change QIMDocument flags" is enabled only if a "document window" is open.•
•Note: you can't find, in QIM, a "Save" menu item because it saves any change by itself. •
* For those who aren't too much used to programming terms… a "FLAG" is generally an information that defines a property (and not the contents) of a file or group of files. In our case, the "FLAG" of a QIMD contains the destination of the QIMD's files. There is actually a parallelism between the actual meaning of FLAG (those which move with the wind) and the 'software' meaning: when a program (such as QIM, or the Finder for example) looks for a set of files with the same property, it will be much easier to find them if the property is written in a separate, universal (common-for-all) part of the file. ;-)
File Management
When a "document window" is open you may, finally, add files or folders to the related QIMD.
For adding items, as already illustrated in the earlier sections, you may press the "Add" button or select the "Add item to QIMDocument…" menu item, in the "Document" menu, or use the shortcut cmd-A.
After you've selected an item in the "Get File" dialog, the "File Setup" dialog appears.
From the "File Setup" dialog you may choose the target Macintosh, i.e. the computer type on wich your file will be installed. Targets are: 68K Macs, PowerMacs, all Macs. From the "File Setup" dialog you may also decide whether QIM should compresses the file (see section "Compression") or not.
When an item is selected in the "document window" you may remove it from the related QIMD, extract it or change its flags (see previous section).
•Important: make sure to use unique item names in the same QIMD: when QIM manages a file, it looks for it by name in the QIMD. •
Make the Installer
To build an installer you should choose the menu item "Make Installer…", from the "File" menu (shortcut cmd-M).
The "Installer Setup" dialog appears.
In this window you must insert the name of TBI . The "Installer Setup" dialog allows you also to decide whether TBI should quit any running process when launched and restart the Mac when done, or not. You may choose one Read Me text file that TBI will show in its spalsh screen to use, in example as Licence Agreement and one Help text file (if the files are SimpleText styled texts the splash screen will even show the styles, as well as the embedded PICTs).
You may also choose a pict file that TBI will show in the main window (the size of pict must be 150x150 pts maximum).
The last "Installer Setup" option allows you to decide whether TBI should be single or multiple.
When you press "OK", in the "Installer Setup" dialog, after few seconds QIM asks you to choose an installer type, after you've selected the installer you want QIM lets you a chance to stop the installer building.
√ MULTIPLE INSTALLER
QIM shows you a "Get File Dialog"; from this dialog you select the first QIMD you want to include in TBI. If you select a QIMD and then press "Open", QIM shows another "Get File Dialog" from which you can select the second QIMD, and so on, until you press "Cancel".
•Important: if you press "Cancel" in the first "Get File Dialog" the entire operation is cancelled.•
At the end of this procedure you will find, on your HD, TBI and a folder named "Installer Files" containing the copies of the QIMD you've selected, in a format that TBI can recognize (and also having names unchangeable).
You may now distribute your installer.
•Important: QIM creates TBI at its same level, in other words inside its folder. If an old TBI with the same name of the new already exists, QIM shows an alert and stop the installer creation. The same for the "Installer Files". This behaviour occurs for your data security: since old installer may contain important stuff, instead than delete it QIM likes better stop itself. •Important: the "Installer Files" isn't very important as such. Only it's contents is important. You may distribute your installer the way you want: without this folder or even with the installer files on a different media (see section "The Built Installer"). Just be sure to make the QIMDs available on some media carried with TBI.••
√ SINGLE INSTALLER
The option "Single Installer" allows you to create an installer without installer document: the installer contains the files to install inside itself. Limitation: only one destination is allowed. In fact when you press "Open" in the "Installer Setup" window only one "Get File Dialog" appears: when you select an QIMD the files the document contains are copied into TBI.
The Built Installer
Some words about TBI: it allows to select the destination volume, but installs all system items into the current System folder. This means that the choosed volume is only for QIMDs with "HD" destination. Make sure to inform your user, if needed, in the Red Me or Help texts. If, during installation, TBI finds a name collision, it moves the old files in the trash, if a file with the same name already exists in the trash, then TBI deletes the old file. Again, make sure to inform your user, if needful. Anyway TBI doesn't remove folders when matches a name collision but only change theirs contents, saving files out its interest. This means that you may include several QIMDs having the same destination and/or the same subfolder name, if you want or if you need this for some reason (i.e. for distributing your product on several floppies).
When TBI installs files with "HD" destination put the files at the root level of the HD inside a new folder with the same name of TBI, but with the suffix "ƒ".
•Important: TBI (multiple installer version) searches for its documents in the "Installer Files" first (at the same location of TBI), if the "Installer Files" doesn't exist or doesn't contain a target document, then TBI searches outside the "Installer Files". If TBI doesn't find the document, then ejects first all insterted floppies and asks for the target document, through a "Get File Dialog". If the user presses "Cancel", the installation is aborted.
The size needed, shown in TBI's main window, is the estimated size of uncompressed, original, data contained.
The List at the top-left shows all installable files, consequently TBI may contain other, but not installable, files.
If a Read Me text doesn't exists, TBI doesn't show the splash screen.
If an Help text doesn't exists, TBI disable its "Help" button.•
Compression
Compressing/Decompressing both QIM and TBI create a temporary document, this means that you must have some little extra disk space compressing or decompressing items.
Memory
Adding a file to a QIMD, QIM use temporary memory, so they can manage very large files with a small memory partition size, but you must have a free system memory equal, at least , to size of item to add (if you're compressing the item the free system memory required is equal to compressed size!). No limitation for any other activity.
Remember to test TBI before to distribute it, and try to increase its memory partition size, if trouble occurred.
Some little suggestion
Compression, obviously, slackens the jobs, since TBI must use the disk, so if your goal is the speed, don't compress the files: TBI will use, principally, the RAM, speeding up the works. Vice versa, if the speed isn't very important for you, use the compression, the files size will be hugely reduced: up to 75%! (percentage of compression is conditioned by type of item to compress)
