Writing Installation Descriptions

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Last updated: Apr 22, 2021 by Nicholas PradoVersion comment

Structure

An IzPack installation description is a XML file, consisting of the root element <installation> and a number of embedded elements that can be included.

Example:

Sample IzPack installation description
<izpack:installation version="5.0"
                     xmlns:izpack="http://izpack.org/schema/installation"
                     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
                     xsi:schemaLocation="http://izpack.org/schema/installation http://izpack.org/schema/5.0/izpack-installation-5.0.xsd">

  <info>
    <appname>Test</appname>
    <appversion>0.0</appversion>
    <appsubpath>myapp</appsubpath>
    <javaversion>1.6</javaversion>
  </info>

  <locale>
    <langpack iso3="eng"/>
  </locale>

  <guiprefs width="800" height="600" resizable="no">
    <splash>images/peas_load.gif</splash>
    <laf name="substance">
      <os family="windows" />
      <os family="unix" />
      <param name="variant" value="mist-silver" />
    </laf>
    <laf name="substance">
      <os family="mac" />
      <param name="variant" value="mist-aqua" />
    </laf>
    <modifier key="useHeadingPanel" value="yes" />
  </guiprefs>

  <panels>
    <panel classname="TargetPanel"/>
    <panel classname="PacksPanel"/>
    <panel classname="InstallPanel"/>
    <panel classname="FinishPanel"/>
  </panels>

  <packs>
    <pack name="Test Core" required="yes">
      <description>The core files needed for the application</description>
      <fileset dir="plain" targetdir="${INSTALL_PATH}" override="true"/>
      <parsable targetfile="${INSTALL_PATH}/test.properties"/>
    </pack>
  </packs>

</izpack:installation>

Root element

An IzPack installation description must be always embedded into the root element <installation>.

Parameters:

Attribute

Description

Required

version

The attribute defines the version of the XML file layout and is used by the compiler to identify if it is capable of compiling the XML file correctly. This should be set to the lowest version of izPack that will support the features used in the install.xml file. For a new project, this would be the major and minor parts of the current version. For izPack version 5.0.0-rc1, use version="5.0"

yes

Embedded elements

There are a number of elements that can be included to describe the installation:

Concepts and Types

There are a couple of common types that can be used in the installation description and in resource files.

These are described in Concepts and Types.