[squeak-dev] [ANN] MaSarPackage and MaSarPackageWithGui

Chris Muller asqueaker at gmail.com
Thu Jul 15 18:35:27 UTC 2010


The renewed discussion about configurating prompted me to update and
release MaSarPackage.  MaSarPackage is a simple utility for making
application configurations in the form of a SAR file.

SAR files employ a simple load-script which executes when the SAR is
installed.  This approach imposes no structure or limitations on
publishers, and there is no learning curve, since it's just a plain
Smalltalk script.  This makes the SAR file a wonderfully effective
installation and configuration tool.  Consider that SAR files can be
used for:

    * storing meta-information about any MC package within the MC
package itself, via a PackageInfo subclass, much like Metacello does.
    * keeping an exact configuration that is assured to work, forever,
on the version of Squeak that it has been tagged to work with.
    * including relevant resource files or image patches with a configuration.
    * including even a particular or custom VM, allowing software to
be published without having to worry about end-users VM installation
issues.
    * publishing to SqueakMap.
    * allowing users to examine the load-script and contents before
loading, in case there is a concern about security.
    * loading software even when no network connection is present.

For more information:

  http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6155

Cheers,
  Chris



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