This project is indeed nearing a releasable form. I've given a pre-release copy to geekboy, and posted a quick link to the download in both the Cemetech and Omnimaga IRC channels for quick testing, and I've found one thing out.

The SWT libraries that drive the interface will not work in a 64-bit JVM. I can think of a couple of solutions for this, but what would be the best one? I could...
(1) Package the 64-bit SWT libraries and have the app choose which to load at run-time
(2) Build two packages, one 32-bit and the other 64-bit.
(3) Tell the user to download a 32-bit JVM if they're using a 64-bit machine.

Other possible bugs weren't found, since the only tester to report back told me that he couldn't run the program on his 64-bit machine.

So far, the visible changes made to the packager since the last time I posted includes checkboxes next to the names of each file that lets you exclude files for packing. While that feature is next to useless if you have nothing but individual files, this is almost essential if you're putting in group files but need to exclude certain parts of it. (No, I will not add support for .tig files. You can use WinZip or your favorite .zip program for unpack those)

I've also finished up a working version of the Athena self-extracting installer. It works in a test case where I have the metadata file in the build, but now I need to get it so the packager can apply stub needed to make the output files self-extracting.

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The .jar file is 1.92MB large, with less than 40KB of it being the code I wrote. Everything else is dependencies. I find this disgusting, but what can I do other than not use Java?

If you can think of any related utilities that might go well with this project, please suggest them.

As a Mac/Linux user, I say don't package the SWT libraries, just tell the end user to get the relevant version for their OS with a link to download.

What other dependencies do you have? I recommend a startup script that runs something like this, and don't put anything but your own classes (and maybe some data files if you have pictures in the UI) into your .jar file.



Code:


or for 32bit:

Code:

I've updated the Athena Packager/Installer, and it is now available here in the archives. You'll need to download the appropriate copy of SWT (32 or 64 bit windows package) from Eclipse's web site and place "swt.jar" in the "_Ath_lib" folder, then run the file "_Ath.jar" however you can. On my system, I'm able to double-click it, though you may need to use the command prompt to navigate to the folder and type in "java -jar _Ath.jar" to make it work.

Let me know how it works out.

Also, if you have any suggestions as to how to get away from needing to use pucrunch.exe (other than re-implementing it in Java. I have no plans on doing that), or getting pucrunch.exe to work on whatever platform of your choice, I'm all up for suggestions.[/url]