Distributing my Apps (Newbie....)

Scott Wallace Scott.Wallace at disney.com
Mon Jan 10 06:31:45 UTC 2000


At 3:13 PM -0200 1/9/00, andregarzia at openlink.com.br wrote:
>I created a little game using smalltalk and i want to distribute it
>to the end user, but i do not want the user to damage the
>app by "clicking around" and "draging and droping" in the
>browser.
>
>Is there some way to compile the code or assemble a image that
>does not contain the development enviroment in it?
>
>Tanx In Advance
>Andre Garzia - Almost Conductors - BRAZIL


Andre,

If your application is in morphic and if it does not involve any 
text-bearing SystemWindows, you may find that you can directly use a 
bulletproofing facility already present in the system.  (If you're 
not in morphic, or if you're in morphic but do need text-bearing 
system windows to be present in your application, you may need to 
make some further simple modifications to get the complete effect.)

Note that the process described here does not strip out the 
development environment -- it simply makes it inaccessible.

Here's what to do:

a.  Put the expression "Preferences disableProgrammerFacilities" into your
         "do..." menu.
b.  Set everything about the image exactly as you want it to appear when
       your target user fires it up.  Make certain there are no windows left on
       the display.  (To make it possible for the user to exit from 
the resulting
       image to be, put some sort of "exit"  control somewhere on the screen.)
c.  Snapshot your system (just for safety).
d.  Choose that "Preferences disableProgrammerFacilities" from the "do..." menu
e.  When asked to confirm that you really want to do this, say yes.

All the bulletproofing steps will then be undertaken at once, and the 
system will be snapshotted in that bulletproofed state.  This will be 
a "save as" operation, so you'll be asked to provide a new name for 
the image.

(If subsequently you want to make any changes, fire up the earlier, 
prebulletproofing snapshot you saved in step c, and resume the 
sequence starting with step b.)

The resulting image will be bulletproof -- no hooks into the 
development environment, no ability to snapshot, no way to see code, 
no way to get a menu, no way to evaluate an expression, no cmd-period 
(alt-period) interruptability, no "missing sources" warnings, no 
cmd-key shortcuts, etc.  All the user can do in the resulting image 
is use the ui afforded by what's on the screen at the moment of 
bulletproofing.

If this approach is useful to you, and if you need more details or 
clarifications on anything, drop me a line.

Hope this helps.

   -- Scott





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