The Packs Element

Packs in IzPack are bundles of files grouped under a certain package ID. Each file or set of files in a pack can be given certain attributes, which tell the compiler

• from where to get files into the compiled setup
  and the installer
• where to put the files
• which files to directly execute (or just receive the executable permission)
• which files to parse and replace variables in
• whether to overwrite existing target files with the same path
• whether to rename existing target files with the same path before they are overwritten

Each pack can be selected or deselected by default or by the user except is marked hidden or mandatory.

Packs Reference

There are the following possible root elements to define packs:

• pack
• refpack
• refpackset

which might embed a couple of possible nested elements describing the pack.

<pack>

Attributes

Nested Elements

<singlefile> - Adding/renaming a Single Pack File

See Adding or renaming a single file for more details.

<file> - Adding a Set Of Files

See Adding or unpacking a single file to a target directory for more details.

<fileset> - Adding a Set Of Files With Filtering

See Pack Fileset for more details.

<description> - Adding a Description

The contents of the <description> tag describe the pack contents. This description is displayed if the user highlights the pack during installation.

<depends> - Defining Dependencies

This can be used to make this pack selectable only to be installed only if some other is selected to be installed. The pack can depend on more than one by specifying more than one <depends> elements. Circular dependencies are not supported and the compiler reports an error if one occurs.

This tag takes the following attribute:

<onSelect> - Select/Deselect a pack when this pack is selected
<onDeselect> - Select/Deselect a pack when this pack is deselected

Gives you the ability to select or deselect other packs upon selection or deselection of this pack.
Allows for flexible pack management.
These tags take may take the following attributes:

<updatecheck> - Cleaning Up After Updates

This feature can update an already installed package, therefore removing superfluous files after an installation.

Each pack can now specify an <updatecheck> tag. Includes and excludes can be defined as filesets, but no file name mappers can be used. If no include or exclude pattern is given all files are deleted in $INSTALL_Path on the target system, which were not part of the setup.

Be careful with this facility to not delete 3rd-party files coming from other installations, for instance plugins to a base application.

Example::

<updatecheck>
  <include name="lib/**" />
  <exclude name="config/local/** />
</updatecheck>

$INSTALL_PATH is treated as the base path for include/exclude patterns with relative paths.

<parsable> - Mark Text Files For Parsing / Substituting Variables

See Marking files for variable replacement for more details.

<executable> - mark file as executable and optionally execute it

See Marking files for execution  for more details.

<refpack>

The <refpack> takes only one attribute file, which contains the relative path (from the installation compiler) to an externally defined packs-definition. This external packs definition is a regular IzPack installation XML. However the only elements that are used from that XML file are the <packs> and the <resources> elements.

This enables a model in which a single developer is responsible for maintaining the packs and resources (e.g. separate packsLang.xml_xyz files providing internationalization; see Internationalization of the PacksPanel) related to the development-package assigned to him. The main install XML references these xml-files to avoid synchronization efforts between the central installation XML and the developer-maintained installer XMLs.

Attributes

<refpackset>

The <refpackset> tag can be used in situations were there is no predefined set of <refpack> files, but a given directory should be scanned for <refpack> files to be included instead. This element takes the following parameters:

Example:

<refpackset dir="" includes="**/refpack.xml" />

Internationalization of the PacksPanel

In order to provide internationalization for the PacksPanel, so that your users can be presented with a different name and description for each language you support, you have to create a file named packsLang.xml_xyz where xyz is the ISO3 code of the language in lowercase. Please be aware that case is significant. This file has to be inserted in the resources section of `` install.xml`` with the id and src attributes set at the name of the file. The format of these files is identical with the distribution langpack files located at `` $IZPACK_HOME/bin/langpacks/installer``. For the name of the panel you just use the pack id as the txt id. For the description you use the pack id suffixed with .description.

Example:

<resources>
    <res id="packsLang.xml_eng" src="i18n/myPacksLang.xml_eng"/>
</resources>

The packsLang.xml_eng file:

<langpack>
    <str id="myApplication" txt="Main Application"/>
    <str id="myApplication.description" txt="A description of my main application"/>
</langpack>

Example

<pack name="Core files" required="yes" id="pack.core" condition="Install">
  <description>Core files</description>
  <fileset dir="@{staging.dir}" override="true">
    <exclude name="*.zip" />
    <exclude name="conf/*.properties" />
    <exclude name="conf/*.xml" />
  </fileset>
  <fileset dir="@{staging.dir}/config_files" targetdir="${INSTALL_PATH}/conf" override="true" overrideRenameTo="*.configbak">
    <include name="*.properties" />
    <include name="*.xml" />
    <exclude name="special.xml" />
  </fileset>
  <parsable encoding="UTF-8">
    <fileset targetdir="${INSTALL_PATH}/conf">
      <include name="wrapper.conf" />
    </fileset>
  </parsable>
  <parsable>
    <fileset>
      <include name="**/*.bat" />
      <include name="**/*.cmd" />
    </fileset>
  </parsable>
  <parsable type="shell">
    <fileset>
      <include name="**/*.sh" />
    </fileset>
  </parsable>
  <executable>
    <fileset>
      <include name="**/*.sh" />
    </fileset>
  </executable>
</pack>

The dir attribute should no longer been parsed in <fileset> nested to <executable>, <parsable> at all.