[Ben]

QUOTE (benisablink182fan @ Feb 14 2006, 16:47)

Yes, you can create self-extracting winrar files. There are two ways, depending on whether or not you have registered winrar: 1. When you select to Add files to the archive, make sure the Create SFX Archive box is ticked (option only available if you have registered winrar) or 2. Add your files, and then go Tools -> Convert Archive To SFX.  This is the way to go - there are so many options to choose from.  For example, go to the SFX tab - I just left it as Add a new SFX module, and left it as Default.SFX.  Click on Advanced SFX options.  I didn't do anything in the General or Advanced tabs because I didn't understand any of it, but I left mode as Ask Before Overwrite (temp stuff all unticked, silent mode as display all).  The text and icon tab is where you add the text for the window - GTA: Liberty City, and Installation instructions, and I added the app.ico from my LC folder as the icon (it's the default LC icon).  The License tab is for anything about LC being freeware, blah blah blah - all that legal stuff which we've never worried about before !  And the Module tab stays unaltered - Default.SFX. I'm not sure about the size of the installer, as compared to if it was done with 7-zip, but the manual/custom install is a built in option - right click and select Open With Winrar. And the bars all flow in-sync. And... it'd be a lot easier to create than an installer - it'll be way more reliable too, and it's neat (pretty basic, but it's fine by me).  I think that most people don't care if it looks flashy or not - they only want it to work. So that's how I made a sfx-rar.exe file - CTM, you might like to have a play around with it and see what else you can do. About the only things it doesn't cover are adding a shortcut of LC (you might be able to do that, but I don't know how), or installing GTA3 audio - that'll have to be done manually I think, but that's not too much trouble (the instructions for that can be added to the installer window, such as: If you have GTA3, you can install the cutscene audio and radio stations from your CD, or even a hard-drive location.  If you choose to install from your CD, open up your audio folder and select and copy everything, and paste it in your audioLC folder.  For installation from a hard-drive location, find your GTA3\audio folder and do the same thing blah blah blah...) I dunno.  At least it's a guaranteed working solution for all.  What does everyone else think?

Any feedback on this?

Like I said, it's a fairly simplistic form of an installer, but it works quickly, easily, and no doubt more effective than v5b.

However, I don't know what sort of compression we can get with this (you can change winrar's settings from normal to best compression) as compared to the v5b installer. And, another downside I thought of - installing the GTA3 sound effects into the sfx archive won't be possible - it'll have to be a direct copy of the sfx.raw file (which might increase the size).

The best solution I think might be to release an official installer (as CTM is planning) and a sfx-rar file as well. People can then choose to download whichever they want - try the installer first, and then if it doesn't work, use the sfx-rar. Hosting should no longer be a problem - we have four hosters for v5b now, and MegaVovaN says he has more than enough space/bandwidth - and there will be a v6 torrent download(s) as Craig said, and Alex might even offer FTP again.

What do you guys think?

[GTAThomas]

QUOTE (benisablink182fan @ Feb 14 2006, 02:56)

You can always choose not to use the torrent - there will be http and maybe even ftp links for v6. Sorry to hear about your PC - hope you can get it fixed and working properly again . Cya round ...

that is a completey true story too. im bored out of my mind now.
haha thats the second time my pc messed up. but the bad new is of course. dont read this if you hate bad new ben - i lost the bugs update

[Ben]

QUOTE (GTA_Thomas @ Feb 15 2006, 16:24)

i lost the bugs update

Hahaha ! I don't really care. When I get broadband next month I'll be able to go through and do it myself (the pages won't take 2mins to load like they do now) . Don't worry about it. The good news is that there have been hardly any bugs updates for ages, so that'll make it a bit easier

[CTM]

Wow, this thread exploded since I last read it Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

Ben: I've just PMed my email address to you, cheers.

There is another option. I could write a GTA:LC installer script for NSIS. The advantages to this include:

• The installer overhead is much smaller - with my Perl/Win32::GUI-based installer the overhead is about 5MB; with NSIS, it's 34KB.
• The groundwork is already there. It'll be really easy for me to maintain, unlike the current installer (which has a few thousand lines of code).
• It looks a lot like other installers, so it'll be a familiar interface for newcomers. In case you couldn't tell, the Perl installer was designed to look like Firefox's installer, but it didn't really work out too well.
• It'd be much easier to incorporate languages other than English (I know that we have a lot of users that don't speak English, so this would cater to them really well). We could ask for help with translating phrases used in the installer.
• It'll work reliably on any version of Windows. I think this is the most important point, since the Perl installer currently has a couple of version-specific hiccups.
• The possibility of web installation - so it could be possible to host the archive on an array of sites, and give the user the option of downloading the archive from any of them. This has a number of benefits of its own:
  • It would reduce the installer's size to under 1MB, making it much more efficient to host.
  • I have a really crap upload speed, so it wouldn't take as long to propagate an updated version of the installer to the mirrors.
  • Since it would be <1MB in size, more people might be able to host the installer.

Actually, I'm already sold on the idea of using NSIS. The only problem is that I'd need to learn the scripting language from scratch, but to be honest it doesn't look overly complicated. The support community and Wiki are really well-maintained, and there's a ton of documentation available to flick through if I ever have problems.

What does everyone else think?

[Konstantinos]

I think this is a great idea. I've seen someone having problems with the perl runtime and this would solve it nicely.
Also, I could do a Czech translation of the installer messages. GTAF doesn't have a lot of Czech members (well precisely, I know about one other - guitarrocker, and he's living in the US ), but LC is well known here. I remember that the prominent gaming magazine 'Level' did quite a large feature on LC while it was v4 or something. I'll contact them as soon as v6 is out if they'd be interested in writing an update and putting v6 on their cover disc.

[nsane]

@CTM - heard of Inno Setup? very easy to script, includes LZMA support (aka. the 7-zip algorithm) and any advanced funtionality not included in the default routines can be scripted with pascal (deplhi type language) via a [ CODE ] section. next best thing to NSIS, but alost easier to script and setup;)

ISTool is a handy tool for setting the basic stuff, so you really dont need to learn anything accept the pascal scripting (and that's only if you need it)

here's a pascal example, which adds a gtaforums hyperlink the installers footer...

CODE

[Code] procedure URL1(Sender: TObject); var ErrorCode: Integer; begin ShellExec('open', 'http://www.gtaforums.com', '', '', SW_SHOWNORMAL, ewNoWait, ErrorCode); end; procedure InitializeWizard(); var URLLabel1: TNewStaticText; begin URLLabel1 := TNewStaticText.Create(WizardForm); URLLabel1.Caption := 'GTAForums.com'; URLLabel1.Cursor := crHand; URLLabel1.OnClick := @URL1; URLLabel1.Parent := WizardForm; URLLabel1.Font.Style := URLLabel1.Font.Style + [fsUnderline]; URLLabel1.Font.Color := clBlue; URLLabel1.Top := ScaleY(320); URLLabel1.Left := ScaleX(40); end;

...you may need to change the ScaleX & ScaleY values to adjust its position...if you use it that is (didn't really test it, tho i know it works...c/p'ed it from an installer i wrote)

it doesn't use 7zip, it internally uses the LZMA algos for packing, so there shouldn't be any probs like there would be using an external 7z archive

here's an installer i compiled in inno using the LZMA algos, so you can see what's it's like...

http://www.nsaneproductions.com/index.php?request=325314

...download the 'nsane install' which shows off a few things i coded that the offical devs didn't use


and i doubt webroot would be using it for the spy sweeper installer if it had compatibility issues

QUOTE (benisablink182fan @ Feb 16 2006, 17:39)

@nsane - Thanks for the info. Personally, I'd like to just use NSIS and see how it goes, and then have Inno Setup as a backup alternative. I've never actually heard of Inno Setup, and I've never had NSIS fail on me - just peace of mind, that's all . Good work though .

oh, don't get me wrong, NSIS is a great installer....if you have the time to learn the language. i just find it overly complicated, like having to code literally every little thing your installer will do. but with inno you can simply use the [file] and [registry] sections with the File:, Location:, Key: directives etc. and you're done. but like i said, you can use ISTool to setup the simple stuff like that

and i'm sure you've used it hundreds of times and just dont realize it. alot of companies and programmers use it for their applications, just go through a few installs you have, right click > properties > version tab, and i'm sure a few of them with have "Made with Inno" in the company/comment field.

here's a few apps i have that use it...

webroot uses it for spy sweeper, GrabIt, Outpost Firewall, and UltraISO

...just to name a few. so it's a very stable installation system and isn't some generic POS, i doubt those well known companies would be using it if it was

This post has been edited by benisablink182fan on Sunday, Apr 16 2006, 10:05

[Ben]

Ah ok, my bad. As I said, I don't know much about them - I guess it shows !

Well then, in that case, I'm sure CTM will appreciate you posting all of that info for him - we'll have to wait and see which way he decides to go...

[CTM]

Wow, thanks for all of that info, nsane! I had heard of Inno Setup, but I hadn't thought of using it until you vouched for it. I'll definitely check it out and see if we can use it.

[Ben]

Here's something I found whilst going through the bugs topic, and it needs to be fixed.

It involves the installer doubling the extension on GTA3 audio files, especially mp3 ones (eg - police.mp3 becomes police.mp3.mp3)

[Konstantinos]

I got an idea for the installer: If the user decides not to install GTA3 audio, it could copy alternate american.gxt and fronten2.txd files so that the game displays VC radios station's names and icons. Otherwise it's quite confusing, having to remember that V-Rock is Lips 106 etc.
I've fixed the files for my private need; if you're interested, you can grab them here (to spare you 5 minutes of work).

EDIT by Ben - Updated the link to the one in my post .

This post has been edited by benisablink182fan on Sunday, Apr 16 2006, 10:25

[Ben]

I've updated the first post of this topic after going through and compiling a full list of features. If I've missed any, post here and let me know.

[Ben]

QUOTE (CTM @ Feb 9 2006, 08:15)

FEATURES OF THE NEW INSTALLER: The current proposals for the v6 installer include: An Inno-Setup engine A manual/custom install option - you can select the folders that are copied during installation, and install single files (useful for those who forget to back-up before modding) Web installation as well as full installer download options A new HTML Readme - copy the source into a text file, and save it as Readme.html (so it can be included with the installer download package) An Internet Shortcut to the LC forum An option to install GTA3 audio from a hard-drive location as well as from the GTA3 CD - if GTA3 audio is not installed, then have the installer copy the 2 files from here into their correct locations instead of the default files already there (is this even possible?) Hammer83's Audio Blanking Program - needs to be written in to the installer to run at some stage (it blanks out all unused VC audio files, thus saving space) NOTE - When installing the GTA3 audio, the installer shouldn't double the file extension of some of the files (see here -eg- police.mp3 becomes police.mp3.mp3, etc. - this should not happen). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --original post-- Work on Test 6 is well underway, and Craig wants a new installer for it. The installer that I created for the Test 5 branch was an abomination, and I apologise for that. It was like a thin piece of string that bundled the individual installation steps together - it worked, but if one part of the bundle failed, the string snapped. That's not the way an installer should work; it's the first thing that a prospective end user will see, so it needs to be dependable. I want to rewrite the entire thing from scratch for Test 6; hopefully I'll complete it in time. The interface will largely be the same, but it'll be vastly different behind the scenes. The UI, however, should partly be the work of the community. I want to know what you want to see in the new installer - what should be changed, what should be left the same, and what could be added to make the installation a more enjoyable experience. Here is some stuff that I thought about while posting this thread: Get it working fully on Win98 and WinME. The old installer had some problems with decompressing the archive. This won't happen in Test 6. Pull out all of the stops to compress the installation archive as much as possible. In the last release (Test 5b), the archive was 102MB. That's a massive hassle to download if you're stuck on 56K, and I know at least one of the led-bys of this very forum is still on dialup. My aim is to get the archive compressed to around 80MB. Right now I'm using a highly-compressed 7-Zip archive; please post any known techniques that are better. Add the option to install GTA3 audio from the hard drive. I really want to hear from you other guys too; after all, I'm making this for you, so your input is far more important. What else would you like to see in the new installer?

Ok, just a minor update to the first post - something that I found in the audio topic that was previously overlooked .

CTM - do you think you could add it?

PS - I underlined it in the quote so that it stands out, but it's not underlined in the first post .

[MegaVovaN]

Hi all, I got a question: how are you gonna do web install? Only if you use different installer, Inno Setup does not support such feature:

http://jrsoftware.org/isfaq.php#webinstall

[Konstantinos]

@MegaVovaN:
I don't think the option of web install was ever seriously considered. Then again, I may be wrong.

Anyway, any news from CTM? It's been 2 months since his last post.

[Craig Kostelecky]

I see him on his AIM account periodically, but I haven't had the chance to talk to him yet.

[Ben]

Ok, so I've had a play around with Craig's audio blanking tool, and added it to mine. I've also added Nullpointer's sfx importer as part of a package that I'd like to see included as an option in the installer. It's just a bat file which replaces all the unused audio in your LC\audio folder with blank wavs/mp3s (Craig's tool) and then replaces all of the wavs in the sfx archive with blanks and recompiles it.

The package can be downloaded here - to try it out, make a back-up of your LC\audio folder first!

Then, extract everything from the rar into the folder, and run the bat file. The process will take some time (up to, and maybe even more than half an hour 10 mins), but it should work. It deletes all of the files you copied except itself (the bat file - which you can delete once it's done).

Basically, for this to be incorporated into the installer, all it needs to do is add all of these files to your LC\audio folder, run the bat file, and then remove the bat file automatically once it's complete - that shouldn't be too hard to encode I'd imagine .

This overall will save you about 800MB .

I've added this to the first post as well .

EDIT - Massive oversight on my part (it doesn't remove all of the blank sfx wavs from the LC\audio folder). I know how to fix it, so I'll get to work on it. Link will be the same - give it a few hours .

EDIT 2 - Nevermind, fixed and re-uploaded .

EDIT 3 - Another minor oversight in the package - I included the GTA3 sfx.inf instead of the VC one, so it would only recompile the sfx up to 3031 instead of 9940 - fixed and re-uploaded .

Also, I tested it out and it works fairly efficiently - it only took me about 10mins to complete. And it saves around 800MB of HD space overall .

This post has been edited by benisablink182fan on Monday, Apr 24 2006, 08:24

[SupSuper]

If you need help with the new installer, I have experience with both NSIS and Inno.

And if you're so worried about filesize, you could try compressing all the audio to OGG and then put it back in its original format with the installer.

This post has been edited by SupSuper on Wednesday, Apr 26 2006, 20:16

[Ben]

I don't really think that's the way to go - ~100MB isn't too bad, even for dial-up. Especially not since the advent of download managers allowing pause and resume of downloads .

Besides, that'd add time to the installation process - people already whinge that it can take 30mins to install.

But yeah, CTM might need some help with the installer. I think we're going with Inno because it's slightly easier to code than NSIS, but CTM would have to confirm that. Send him a PM and I'll email him later to get a progress update .

EDIT - actually, I just realised a BIG error in the audio blanker tool. It blanks out the sfx in the audio folder, but that's automatically replaced by the LC sfx.

So, I'm thinking it might be more appropriate to simply delete the GTA3 sfx (from your audioLC folder) - tell the installer to do that, and then just create blank mp3s/wavs in the audio folder. Any thoughts?

This post has been edited by benisablink182fan on Thursday, Apr 27 2006, 06:41

[SupSuper]

It was just a suggestion. And personally I prefer NSIS since it's got a nicer UI, easier to customize, more popular, bigger community, lots of plugins, translations, forums, etc. IMHO

Also, I tried using your Audio Blanker after having used Craig's tool and ended up with hardly any sound effects and game crashed on cutscenes. Reinstalled it all, used your Audio Blanker again and the game stopped recognizing the Vice City CD. So I think I'll stick to having useless space being wasted.

[Ben]

lol, thanks for the feedback. It's probably just a better option to use Craig's blanker - I realised after (as I said in my edit), that mine blanks out all the LC sfx ! Not to worry - I'll just fix the first post up again .