Creating custom project types with Visual Studio

Mike Hadlow gives a fairly good overview on how to build a custom project type for Visual Studio:
Code rant: Building a Visual Studio Custom Project Type

Please note, that at least in Visual Studio 2008 you'll have to create a project template to show your own project type under File -> New Project. You don't get any error if you don't do this, but your project type will not be shown.

How to debug variables and conditions in IzPack

From IzPack 3.11 on, there's a built-in debugger for variables and conditions. The debugger is activated when the installer is called with -DTRACE=true as JVM option.

Ex.1:

java -DTRACE=true -jar myInstaller.jar

The debugger shows up as a panel in the east of the InstallerFrame or if the guiModifier showDebugWindow is set to true, it will show up as seperate window.

Ex.2:

<modifier value="true" key="showDebugWindow">

Registering assemblies in GAC programmatically

Dmitry Pavlov found an very easy way to register assemblies in GAC programmatically without using the gacutil.

new System.EnterpriseServices.Internal.Publish().GacInstall(”myassembly.dll”);

IzPack now has built-in conditions

IzPack now has built-in conditions which means, that there are some predefined conditions which can be used in the installer. These conditions are:

• izpack.windowsinstall


• izpack.linuxinstall


• izpack.solarisinstall


• izpack.macinstall

There's also a PackSelectionCondition for every pack. The Ids for these condition will be built up from the pack id or if not specified, the pack name. If there's a pack called Testpack with id test.pack, there will be a condition called izpack.selected.test.pack