GlassWorks
Read about what has been updated in version 1.2 here.
GlassWorks is a powerful install builder tool that provides a user friendly system for deploying applications on multiple platforms. Integration is supported on Windows, Macintosh OSX and Linux systems.
Desktop integration on Linux and other Unix type platforms requires the desktop environment to support the Freedesktop.org standards, more specifically the desktop entry, shared mime info and autostart specifications.
GlassWorks can :
- Create links to quickly launch your application. On Macintosh OSX app bundles are created, on other platforms links are created in the menu or desktop.
- Associate your application with files by extension or mimetype.
- Run your application on startup (Windows and Linux only).
- Install files to user selected or predefined locations.
- Produce compact pack200 compressed installers.
- Display software licenses in either plain text or html format.
- Customise messages and logos displayed to users.
- Customise the look and feel of the installer.
- Restrict actions to specific operating systems.
- Installer and uninstaller/setup applications can be run using a command line interface.
- Delete application created data files on uninstall.
Links and file type associations allow you specify an icon to be displayed, this icon must be provided in the appropriate format for the platform, ico files for Windows, icns files for Macintosh OSX and png for Linux/Unix systems.
Tools for creating icns files are very scarce on platforms other than Macintosh OSX so GlassWorks includes a tool for creating these files, IcnWriter.
View screenshots.
I have gratefully used the following components in making GlassWorks:
The BrowserLauncher2 component.
JavaHelp component from Sun Microsystems for displaying application help.
IconSupport library used by IcnWriter for creating icns files.
Tango Desktop Project for the tango icon set.
Dean S. Jones Icon Collection for the gallant icon set.
Vista UAC handling based on code from Andrei Belogortseff