Digital Workshop

I am having a problem figuring out how to get folders installed during the publishing process. Let me explain the situation:

I am creating a stand alone publication. Within the publication I have pages that contain a browser object. The browser object displays flash content (via the created HTML file). I have a bunch of these flash content to display this way. During development I have a folder (Presentations) that contains a folder for each of the flash modules.

Heres the issue. I want to be able to publish in a way that includes the presentations directory and all of its subdirectory. So when the user installs the publication the directory is installed (say into the publication directory) so everything is there.

I believe this is probably an easy task but I am missing something in the publication process. Any ideas why I can't figure out how to do this?

Thanks
Dave

Hi Dave

I wonder if you need a windows installer program to package and install the .exe file and supporting folder(s), sub folders and files. If you do this, you can get the object to open the correct .html file (supporting a specific .swf file) by using a pathname like

<SYSTEM_PUBLICATION_DIR>\folder\subfolder\filename.html

since the windows installer will have placed these together, for example, in the program directory.

I use an installer program that, due to its many customizable features, is a little pricey, but have noticed an excellent basic, solid program for around $99 made by JanSoft, called DeployMaster: http://www.deploymaster.com/. It may be worth a look.

The alternative is to select the publication option requiring booting up the program from the CD (in the pub properties security tab). Haven't tried it but suspect the SYSTEM_PUBLICATION_DIR may work with this, or it may need a CD system variable instead.

Other Forum colleagues and the DW team may wish to comment in case I'm off the mark altogether.

Kind Regards,

For simple setups you can use the Distribution Wizard built into Opus. For more advanced solutions there are several free installers I found by searching:

INNO Setup
NSIS
Install Creator

Dave,
If you are creating a standalone publication which will run on a CD, could I ask why you would want to install the package on the users computer rather than just run from CD. If running from CD is OK then I can can help with your folder problems.
Regards
John

Thanks for all of the helpful suggestions. It sounds like an installer will be the answer. I have not had any experience with these so I will need to experiment a little and go from there. At least it does not sound like that would be too difficult.

John - to answer your question - in many cases we are distributing via CD only because we cannot yet do so through the web. Therefore, we want to have them install the course and not need to worry about keeping the CD near by. This way we could send out 1 CD to a district and they could install it on several different laptops.

On the flip side, there are also some cases where there is a large amount of content and running it from the CD would reduce the disk space needed on the student's PC. I could definitely see where this might be a good option so if you do have suggestions about how to best do this that would also be appreciated.

Thanks
Dave

Hello Dave,
I will just address this installer need in this reply.
Lets say you have a folder on your PC called 'the_package' and inside this folder is your publication with is associated folders containing all your flash items etc. When you click on the publication exe all works fine and so do the browsers...... Get WINZIP and ZIP the folder 'the_package' ensuring that you set the zip process to include 'sub folders'. You now have a zip file. Next get WINZIP to create a self extracting exe file of your zipped package. So now you have an exe file. Next create a new publication with a single page. On these page can go your notes for guidance and also a button to launch the self extracting exe file. When they press the button tell Opus to close the publication once the self extractor opens. When the self extractor starts it will give the person the option of deciding where on their computer to extract the files to.
Final bits to do, the single page publication - create an auto run file for the publication. Finally burn the self extractor exe, the autorun and single page publication the CD. The student receives the CD, in to the drive, up comes the single page, button pressed, self extractor kicks in and that should be that. In the location nominated will be a mirror image of the original folder 'the_package'.
A point to note, I just tried a demo version using this technique - it had 2 sub folders in the system publication directory with loads of html and pictures - all worked fine - total folder size in this demo was 46Mb but it could easily have been 680Mb only it would have taken a little longer to do.
Have a try - you can get WINZIP on free trial
Regards
John