Deployment: native application bundles

[Daniel Zwolenski]

Thanks for the responses Igor. I've sent a longer email detailing my
auto-updating prototype (which you are already aware of) to the group so
hopefully we can start looking at these two topics in conjunction with each
other.

Regarding the MSI installer, using WiX does make it easier but I'm
wondering if there would be some merit in trying to write our own MSI
creator using the Windows Installer SDK. I haven't used it myself yet but I
believe it can be used to create MSI's. This would have the advantage of
not needing extra software installed, and also would allow us to customise
closely to what we need specifically for Java installations (e.g. provide
our own configuration options in whatever syntax or format we want - e.g.
an 'app-profile.xml'). The disadvantage of course is the extra work, but
this may be something I could look at in my POC side of it. Something to
think about anyway.

Regarding natives, if you are using an executable JAR I don't think this
will work (i.e. executable JARs don't support native included in them),
unless the developer does the old extract and include on path trick. Better
that the natives just get bundled into the installation directory and not
into the jar, I reckon. It's a bit of a messy area (especially for
auto-updates) so probably worth making sure we're covered in this area
fairly early on.

Regarding the launching of the process, the way I do it also seems to give
it the process the name of the app the proper name (and not 'java.exe'),
which is a pleasant surprise. Do you use the same sort of code as follows?

      string jrePath = JRE_INSTALL_DIR + jreVersion + JRE_EXE_PATH;
        string launchParams = CLASPPATH_SWITCH + classpath + " " + mainClass
;

        STARTUPINFO         siStartupInfo;
    PROCESS_INFORMATION piProcessInfo;
    memset(&siStartupInfo, 0, sizeof(siStartupInfo));
    memset(&piProcessInfo, 0, sizeof(piProcessInfo));
    siStartupInfo.cb = sizeof(siStartupInfo);

    if(CreateProcess(jrePath.data(),            // Application name
                                         (LPSTR)launchParams.data(),  //
Application arguments
                     0,
                     0,
                     FALSE,
                     CREATE_DEFAULT_ERROR_MODE,
                     0,
                     0,                              // Working directory
                     &siStartupInfo,
                     &piProcessInfo) == FALSE)
        {
                 // Could not start application -> call 'GetLastError()'
                MessageBox(NULL, TEXT("There was an error while launching
the application"), TEXT("Launch Failed"), MB_OK);
                return FALSE;
        }

I'd be keen to keep what I do in line with what you are doing where
possible.




On Sat, Jun 16, 2012 at 4:59 AM, Igor Nekrestyanov <
igor.nekrestyanov at oracle.com> wrote:

>  hi, thanks for all questions.
>
> Please keep them coming (bugs and suggestions are very welcome too!),
>
>
>  The Ensemble MSI install worked for me on Windows 7 no problems. I
> haven't tried building my own app as yet though.
>
>  It installed into 'C:\Users\zonski\AppData\Local\Ensemble2'. Installing
> into Program Files is probably more correct on windows. Is this 'appdata'
> the intended final location, or is this just for getting it all running for
> now?
>
> Original goal was to be able to install without requiring admin
> permissions.
> Both MSI and EXE installers are currently build to do this.
>
> It is possible to customize install location and make it system wide by
> tweaking WiX/Inno Setup template files.
> Clearly we want to expose better APIs for customization but it is not
> clear what are importnat config parameters and how to expose them
> in more or less cross platform way, hence we decided that for 2u2 we will
> provide an easy way to build basic package and do minimal customization
> as well as (very) advanced way for advanced users.
>
> Based on feedback we will figure out how to expand built-in configuration
> APIs for future releases.
>
> I am planning to post more about package customization options and other
> tricks&tips but i am amateur blogger and slow typer, so it will take me few
> days :)
>
> Perhaps we should reconsider and produce EXE to be user level installation
> and MSI to be system level by default.
> I believe it is also possible to pass parameters to msiexec to overwrite
> some of MSI settings (end this is not unusual in the enterprise
> deployments).
> However, i had not tried if it is possible to install this MSI system wide
> (and i am not sure if my MSI expertise is deep enough to craft MSI that can
> do both,
> suggestions are very welcome).
>
>
>  Is the source code available for this at all?
>
> Sorry, it is part of deploy/packager module that is not open sourced yet.
>
>  If not, I'm very interested in how the 'exe' launcher code looks. Is
> this code you've written or part of one of the tools you've made use of?
> I'm particularly interested to see how it starts the app - does it just
> kick off another process on the executable jar via something like 'java
> -jar ensemble.jar' or does it try to run the Java app within it's own 'exe'
> process somehow (I'm assuming the later?).
>
> yes, launcher will instantiate JVM in the launcher process.
> Check out list of processes when sample app is running. There is no
> java.exe but there is Ensemble.exe
>
>
>  I notice also that the jfx DLLs have been copied straight into the
> 'jre/bin' directory.
>
> Starting 7u6 JRE/JDK will include JavaFX as part of Java installation.
> So, nothing special here. It is just runtime image.
>
>   Is this how you see all native dependencies playing out, i.e. if my
> application uses other native libraries how do I package them into the
> build and where will they be installed to in the extracted directory?
>
> No, i do not think application resources will go into runtime.
> Application resources will stay in the "app" folder (native libs too).
>
> The approach here is to "bundle" app without requiring to rewrite it.
> During the development cycle your build output should have copy of
> application you can execute and debug (but it depends on environment, i.e.
> java+javafx runtime).
> Bundle is essentially
>      copy of this application + java runtime  + launcher
>
> Having said that i had not tried to craft example with native libraries
> myself. Will certainly try to do.
>
> One more question: when we say we have to build on the native platform to
> get the correct deployments, does that include 32bit vs 64bit? I'm guessing
> I could have a 32bit and 64bit JDK installation on the one machine and
> build a version of my app for each, but correct me if I'm wrong on this.
>
> yes, two installations should do.
>
> Currently ant task will try to use RUNNING version of java as source for
> cobundle.
> If it is not appropriate (e.g. java 6 that is not javafx cobundle) then it
> bundled app will not be created.
>
> In the future we may add option to specify which JDK to use as import for
> bundle creation but for now we are taking shortcuts to avoid exposing too
> much (kind of late in release).
>
>  I assume there's no way for a single JDK installation to produce both 32
> and 64bit versions?
>
> No, as currently JDK installations do not include both 32 and 64 bit bits.
> After all we are copying them into bundle.
>
> -igor
>
>  Very, very nice start to this all!
>
>  Cheers,
> Dan
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 5:16 PM, Igor Nekrestyanov <
> igor.nekrestyanov at oracle.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> One thing we are adding to JavaFX packaging tools in 2.2 is ability to
>> produce native application bundles:
>>
>> https://blogs.oracle.com/talkingjavadeployment/entry/native_packaging_for_javafx
>>
>> We are not seeing this as the only way to deploy JavaFX applications --
>> webstart, embedded applications
>> and doubleclickable jars are first class citizens (and it would be great
>> to explore other options).
>> But we hope it might be good option for many deployment scenarios.
>>
>> Please give it a try and provide feedback (and report bugs of course),
>>
>> -igor
>>
>
>
>