daemon-plugin

[Greg Nelson <gr...@gmail.com>]

Hello,

I am working on a project that will require the user to download and install
a Java daemon onto their machine (Windows, OS X, Linux, ...), and I've been
looking for something that would help me create installers for each
environment.  I'm using commons-daemon.  I stumbled upon the daemon-plugin
in the Maven repository and have read what documentation I can find.  I've
gathered that it's pretty much exactly what I'm looking for.  I've tinkered
a little with it (version 1.1.5) and finally got it to generate a DMG for my
project.

It seems, though, that "Apache Server Directory" is hard coded in several
places, like the .pkg name, for instance.  Also the installation layout
seems to be fixed to what is needed for your project.  And probably several
other places.

I just have a couple of questions if you have a quick second to respond:

1.  Am I barking up the wrong tree?  Is this plugin not meant for use with
other projects?
2.  Is there some documentation I can read to wrap my head around it a
little better?

I'm willing to make the plugin more extensible to accommodate my project and
contribute back so others can benefit as well.  Any guidance would be
greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Greg

Re: daemon-plugin

[Emmanuel Lecharny <el...@apache.org>]

> 1.  Am I barking up the wrong tree?  Is this plugin not meant for use with
> other projects?

We just wrote this in order to be able to build and package Directory
for many different platforms. This is obviously very ADS oriented,
just because our goal was to build an installer for ADS, not to build
the installer for everything. You are free to use what we have done,
but you will have to get rid of all the hard coded part in it to fit
your need.

> 2.  Is there some documentation I can read to wrap my head around it a
> little better?

Hmmmm, can't we consider code as documentation  ? ;) Sorry, there is
not that much but code, atm. And I'm not sure we will add any
documentation soon, as we are pretty lazzy... This part of the code is
a little bit like the smallest room in your appartment : you need to
have one, but you most certainly don't want to spend days in it :)

>
> I'm willing to make the plugin more extensible to accommodate my project and
> contribute back so others can benefit as well.  Any guidance would be
> greatly appreciated.

The best possible way would be to post Q to this ML, expecting one of
the three guys who worked on this installer to be available to give
you guidance.

Hope it helps.

-- 
Regards,
Cordialement,
Emmanuel Lécharny
www.iktek.com