As promised, you can now get the IzPack GlassFish installer!

More details here: http://izpack.org/showcase-glassfish-v2

I am pleased to announce the release of IzPack 3.11.0-beta2 that can be downloaded from http://izpack.org/

This (beta!) release brings the usual set of small bug fixes and improvements, including:

• some langpacks updates (english, french, german and spanish)
• some GUI polishing (for instance ProcessPanel shows and indeterminate progress bar)
• the conditions framework now provides a set of pre-defined OS-specific conditions so that in many cases you don’t have to write a conditions.xml resource anymore, and a few bugs have been fixed
• the IzPack installer checks if you are installing the latest version of IzPack
• a lightweight test has been added to check if the installer is launched from a JDK or a JRE (some software won’t work without a JDK)
• the web installers have received some improvements
• the Swing look and feel libraries have been updated
• XInclude-like constructs are supported so that you can modulize / factorize some XML fragments in multiple installers
• a new subproject called ‘izpack-utils’ has been created - at the moment it provides ‘izpack2exe’ and ‘izpack2app’ to wrap IzPack installers inside Windows executables and Mac OS X application bundles
• …many more in the raw changelog below

Many thanks to the individuals and companies that have contributed code to the project.

Feedback is more than welcome!

Raw changelog:

- Added ignore as possible value for failure argument in executables (Dennis Reil)
- Added Conditional expressions (Dennis Reil)
- Fixed selection of default language in LanguageSelectionDialog (Dennis Reil)
- Fixed RegularExpressionValidator (Dennis Reil)
- Added corrupt volume detection (Dennis Reil)
- Added file and dir fields in UserInputPanel (Dennis Reil)
- Modifications to keep original file dates and times in _dist directory and in the installer jar
(Ari Voutilainen via Julien Ponge)
- UserInputPanel: force users to select an existing directory or file
(Michael Hagedorn via Julien Ponge)
- Default path for JDKPathPanel will be got from Windows registry if possible (Klaus Bartz)
- New Farsi langpack (Parastou Kohvaei via Klaus Bartz)
- Dynamic control re-rendering (show/hide) on radio and checkbox selection events (Vladimir Ralev)
- Locale support of Shortcut specification file (Klaus Bartz using a hint of Loic)
- Enabled distributed pack-definitions (Hans Aikema based on patch by Syed Khadeer)
- Update of the Liquid and JGoodies look and feel libraries (Julien Ponge).
- Support for the toned-down Substance look and feel themes (Julien Ponge).
- Added main frame GUI properties 'headingForegroundColor' and 'headingImageBorderSize'
(Daniel Azarov, Exadel Inc via Vladimir Ralev)
- Unix shortcuts fixes (Vladimir Ralev)
- TreePacksPanel, a hierarchical packs selection panel (Vladimir Ralev)
- HTMLInfoPanel to launch links in external browser on any Windows and Linux (Vladimir Ralev)
- PacksModel fix (Markus Schlegel via Julien Ponge).
- Workaround for layout problems in UserInputPanel when clicking previous button (Dennis Reil)
- Nimbus look and feel support (Julien Ponge)
- Try to load a 64-bit dll if the 32-bit load fails and 64-bit ShellLink (Vladimir Ralev)
- File / fileset Os constraints: addition of a JRE version test (e.g., )
(Gilles Wiart via Julien Ponge)
- Hungarian langpack update (Kerekes Balazs via Julien Ponge)
- InstallGroupPanel: sortable InstallGroups (Markus Schlegel via Julien Ponge)
- chmod only applies and executes when file type is set to bin (Andreas Guenther via Julien Ponge)
- LayoutManager bug at handling EditorPanes fixed (width to small) (Klaus Bartz)
- Fixed NPE when ypcat not installed on linux. (Dick Hollenbeck via Marc Eppelmann)
- Updated web installer (Vladimir Ralev)
- Unix shortcuts allow programGroup icon. Fixed appearing multiple times bug in Fedora 7.
(Vladimir Ralev)
- TreePacksPanel with more user-friendly click logic. Added automated installer helper.
(Vladimir Ralev)
- Updated installation listener interface (Vladimir Ralev)
- Re-entrant ShortcutPanel (WALLEM Pascal, AWL-T&P via Vladimir Ralev)
- FileExecutor: allow Java classpath specification in targetfile attribute using
either : or ; delimiter, and support classpath loading of all jar files within a given folder,
e.g. targetfile=”$INSTALL_PATH/lib/allMyJars (Andreas Guenther via Julien Ponge)
- Support of a new ‘uninstall’ (yes/no) attribute on pack elements to allow certains pack to be
kept on uninstallation (Gildas Le Louarn via Julien Ponge)
- Uninstaller: in GUI mode, users don’t see the ‘force uninstallation’ checkbox unless the
‘-x’ command-line flag is used (Gildas Le Louarn via Julien Ponge)
- Fixed wrong display size of really big packs (Dennis Reil)
- Tango icons (Julien Ponge)
- Refreshed installer border images (Julien Ponge)
- Fixed conditions in PacksPanel/PacksModel (Dennis Reil)
- Added conditions for jobs in ProcessPanel (Dennis Reil)
- Fixed wrong required size of packs (Dennis Reil)
- Added condition-attribute to pack element in installer.xml (Dennis Reil)
- Spanish langpack update (Sergio Banos Calvo via Julien Ponge)
- Various fixes (Loic via Julien Ponge)
- Added conditions-definition to installer xml (Dennis Reil)
- Added dynamic variables (Dennis Reil)
- IzPack installer: check that users are actually launching the latest version by checking from
the http://izpack.org/ website (Julien Ponge)
- Added debugging for variables and conditions (Dennis Reil)
- Added built-in conditions (Dennis Reil)
- ProcessPanel: make the progress bar advance after the current process has run, not before
(Julien Ponge)
- JDKPathPanel: Mac OS X fix (Julien Ponge)
- PathInputPanel: add some space between the text and the input field (Julien Ponge)
- Installer files: support of a ‘requiresjdk’ element to specify wether a JDK is required for the
software to install (instead of just a JRE). This is a light test performed like ‘javaversion’
before the installer frame appears. (Julien Ponge)
- Support of XInclude-like constructs (Matthew Fudge, Volantis Systems Ltd.
via Julien Ponge)
- Spanish langpack update (Sergio Banos Calvo via Julien Ponge)

The big surprise is here!

I am pleased to announce the imminent release of a cross-platform installer for the GlassFish project. Of course it is based on IzPack

It looks that some people recently complained about the existing GlassFish installer (see this and this). I must admit that the current process can be improved, especially getting rid of the Java VM flag that you need to add, selecting where you want to install GlassFish and finally running the Ant setup script. The process is not that bad, but it can be streamlined a little bit.

The idea of preparing an IzPack-based installer started from my personal use of GlassFish. I took the firm decision to investigate what could be done when I met with Alexis last month. We discussed the idea and he convinced me to try to do it, and eventually contribute it back to the GlassFish community. I don’t see this installer competing with the current one. I rather see it as an alternative that people may enjoy better… or absolutely not and that’s just fine with me

The installer will be able to install to Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from the same JAR file. It will install GlassFish on your system and automatically run the Ant setup script. Finally, an uninstaller will be provided.

The installer is now ready to be published… I am just waiting for GlassFish v2 UR1 to be released. I will then release my own IzPack-based installer within the 24h-48h following the official GlassFish v2 UR1 release. I will also provide the source code of the scripts and IzPack-specific files needed to generate the installer under a liberal MIT-style license.

Meanwhile you can have a look at the following screenshots from the installer running on Mac OS X:

The whole IzPack community will also benefit from this showcase as a quite a bunch of my recent SVN commits are directly related to the creation of this installer. Indeed, a few bugs have been fixed, some parts of the GUI have been slightly improved and some features have been added (like the light JDK/JRE check).

Stay tuned for the release!

I’m pleased to announce that we will soon push a 3.11.0 beta 2 version to the public! We’ve done some interesting work in the last few SVN commits with Dennis Reil.

Especially, the conditions framework has received some interesting enhancements and bug fixes. There are now some default conditions defined on the operating system identification so that you don’t necessarily have to write a conditions.xml file yourself if all you do is check for a particular OS.

I have performed a few tweaks / fixes to JDKPathPanel, InputPathPanel and ProcessPanel.

In terms of new features, you can now add a requiresjdk tag in your XML installation files to specify wether the software that is being installed requires a JDK or simply a JRE. The idea is to perform a simple check (actually: “can I call javac?”). If you need more complex verifications, then JDKPathPanel is probably what you need.

I have yet to define a precise date for this new beta version… my plan is to announce it at the same time as a big surprise:

Tip: (the logo of a famous software has been blured on the above screenshot)

More news next time… and meanwhile you can still speculate regarding the big surprise

This is probably not a fresh news if you are into Java: Groovy 1.5 has been released.

I would like to congratulate Guillaume and the whole team behind this project!

Groovy is a great addition to the Java ecosystem (like JRuby, Jython, Beanshell and JACL). I really appreciate the current rise of alternative languages running on the JVM.

I suggest reading this InfoQ article by Guillaume on the new things in Groovy 1.5. I discovered a few things like named parameters without parenthesis (great for internal DSLs!).