How to create instalation package of plugin

[Ondrej Vyhlidal]

Hi all,

I would like to know, if is necessary to create some instalation package of my plugin, or it just can be copied to another computer? I have prefix id registered within adobe site, on my mac is everything ok, but when i try to copy release build to another mac with indesign it just gave me error message.

thanks for the answers

[Manan Joshi]

No it is not necessary to create an installer for the plugin, unless it does not have a dependecny on something that needs to be copied onto the deployment machine. What kind of error are you getting?

It might be because you may be using a third party framework which you are not copying onto the new machine.

Manan Joshi

- Efficient InDesign Solutions -

MetaDesign Solutions

http://metadesignsolutions.com/services/indesign-development.php

[Ondrej Vyhlidal]

It says:

Adobe Indesign does not recognise eTag creator.InDesignPlugin as a valid plug-in. Please reinstal ...

[Manan Joshi]

Does the plugin have a dependency on any third party framework, does this release plugin load on your development machine?

Manan Joshi

[Ondrej Vyhlidal]

If I run this plugin on development machine everything is ok. If I run it without launching from Xcode, it works fine.

I use only C++ libraries and namespaceses eg: std, some streams ... only thing that comes to my mind, I have used singleton created from my template but that shouldn't be problem ...

Could be problem in that I would like to rename my project and plugin?

[Manan Joshi]

Try loading the release plugin of any sample plugin that ships with Indesign SDK on the deployment machine. If that loads on that machine, then either there is a problem in the project setting of your project or there is some dependency for the plugin to load that you are missing.

Last thing you could do is install Xcode on the machine and try to debug the problem.

Manan Joshi

- Efficient InDesign Solutions -

MetaDesign Solutions

http://metadesignsolutions.com/services/indesign-development.php

[Ondrej Vyhlidal]

I tryed to run WriteFishPrice on target machine and result was same as in case of my plugin -> same error message. On target machine, there is only 30 days trial of Indesign, but i thing that should not make any difference.

I have Xcode on target machine, but I dont have Indesign that supports debuging ...

[Manan Joshi]

Make sure you are using the correct version of Indesign to load your plugin, for ex: CS5 plugins are not compatible with CS5.5 and vice versa.

Secondly you can debug plugin's using release version of Indesign too, you just need to create the debugging symbols for it. There are restricted debugging support on the release build, in this case you just need to look into the gdb console for any messages.

Manan Joshi

- Efficient InDesign Solutions -

MetaDesign Solutions

http://metadesignsolutions.com/services/indesign-development.php

[Ondrej Vyhlidal]

I have had checked version on both machines and they are same: 7.5.2 so, there shouldnt be problem. I will try to launch project from xcode and hope that will see sometnihng in gdb ... Could you gave me a clue how to create debugging symbols for that, please?

[Dirk Becker · Accepted solution]

Show/inspect package contents on both destination and source plugin. Probably the internal links are broken.

If so, forget about SMB shares, SFTP or what else you used. ZIP the plugin using Finder's "Create Archive" ...

Dirk

[Ondrej Vyhlidal]

Hi Dirk,

It looks like that are internal links broken..., I didnt use default location for plugin when I was creating it ... My project base location is in folder that contains whole indesign package, so Iam not able to create zip package because there is a lot of other files, that are not needed in plugin package ...

This is how it looks like:

[D¡rk Becker]

The build / output location is irrelevant. I build straight into a subfolder of the plug-ins folder.

Btw, this is just a matter of taste but I would not dump my sources into the SDK folder - it is no fun if you have to support multiple versions of InDesign.

File system links are broken during transport - having a look at the package of the source plugin that works on the development machine should be the proof.

If you are not scared by a command line, you can also use terminal:

ls -l /drag/your/plugin/into/terminal/window/to/produce/its/path...

If you need to transfer a whole folder, use ZIP on that.

I forgot to mention an alternative, the Disk Utility can be used to create DMG files from folders.

XCode also includes a tool "PackageMaker" that creates whole installer packages.

Dirk

[Ondrej Vyhlidal]

I know that output location is irrelevant, I have same setting as you. Thank you for all the tips, Iam going to try PackageMaker and will see.

[Ondrej Vyhlidal]

I had looked at package on development machine and content of SelectionTest.InDesignPlugin was following:

And then I do the same on machine, where I would like to run my plugin and the plugin package contained only one folder: Versions. The other folders wasnt included, so I assume that there are internal links broken... I have no clue how to repare this ...

[Dirk Becker]

I assume my repeated suggestion to use ZIP at least as proof has also failed.

Is the target machine a plain OSX installation that you took out of the box yourself, or could you be fighting some antivirus software?

Dirk

[Ondrej Vyhlidal]

On targeted machine isnt any antivirus or similiar software. I will try to create zip file at tomorow morning...

Thank you for info

Ondrej

[Ondrej Vyhlidal]

Hi all,

solution with ZIP archive worked, from my point of view it is a very elegant solution. Thank you all, that you helped me again