CabSetupCreator

Lately on current project we needed a tool, that will take our implemented classes, files and libraries, pack them all into one .cab file, which could be then installed on the remote WinCE/WM device. Well, there is such tool. It is called QuickCab. It has newest version 2.0. But the problem is, this is free for non-commercial use. So my customer had to buy this. Okey, price was not so high at all, so we decided to test this. And it didn’t help us a lot, because there were some bugs in it, like for example when you copied whole directory, the files in that directory went to first directory, that was nested in copied directory…well in summary we were not decided to use it. And it’s okey. We said, we don’t have such a lot files at all, we can for our first tests simply copy the files on the device and it will also work. But this was annoying me all the time (so the last week). This “copy thing”, it just don’t look good. I mean, okey we can do it during development, especially when someone changes 1 .jar file, so we have to override 1 .jar file on the device, and that’s it. But finally we will need such tool, that will create .cab files thought. So I’ve started to explore internet on the last weekend to find out, what are our options. Well….there aren’t so large. When someone offers .cab file creator, then it appears that this is free-trial-version for personal use, or something like this…So, I thought, okey…We need a tool, which will take those files we need (mostly jars and JNI libraries) and create from them an inf-file, which can be then used to create .cab-file with Microsoft’s cabwizard. It didn’t sound so bad on saturday morning (about 9:00). I went at hotels restaurant, eat my breakfast, went back to my room, and tought…ok…we are developing in java, using eclipse…hmmm…I thought this is not a bad idea to create a tool integrated with our environment…so the right answer was of course eclipse RCP.

So, the effect of this 2 days work at weekend is below. This is the first version of the tool, so be gentle with your comments and opinions. First of all it takes what was good in quickcab – GUI organisation, but it is whole new project, and everything was designed from nothing. So, I didn’t re-engineered quickcab (quickcab works on .NET), cabsetupcreator works on eclipse RCP Those are whole different stories.

Cabsetupcreator in version 1.0 has 4 main views :

DeviceFilesView – where you simply organise your devices directory/files structure, by creating directories or simply “adding” files from your local PC to devices directories/files structure :

New added files are shown in red foreground color.

ShortcutsView – this is where you organise your shortcuts, name it and so on. You can create shortcuts from the files you copied into devices directory/files tree structure in DeviceFilesView :

New added shortcuts are shown in red foreground color.

RegisterView – here you organise your register entry. You can add new keys, values to keys and so on.

New register entries are shown in red foreground.

CreateView – here you simply choose application name (it’s needed for cabwizard, so don’t forget about it), provider (this is also a must), then you choose where your cab file should be created, and you give the path to the cabwizard. If you don’t have cabwizard then don’t worry. Only inf-file will be created. You can borrow cabwizard from your buddy in front of you (who have MS Visual Studio), and generate your .cab file.

Okey, I think that’s all…

Ah, yes…installation notes and links…

REQUIREMENTS:

1. you have to have eclipse RCP running version (I’ve used eclipse indigo 3.7 for RCP and RAP developers), so you can download it from eclipse page

2. you have to have jdk(jre) 1.5 at least , but if you are java developer you know, what I mean

INSTALATION :

1. Download eclipse .jar plugin from CabSetupCreator_1.0.0.201112132306.jar

2. Copy this file to eclipse’s plugin directory

3. start/restart eclipse

4. choose perspective -> CabSetupCreator

YOU CAN CREATE .CAB FILES (or at least inf-files, if you don’t have cabwizard) AUTOMATICALLY.

CabSetupCreator is free for use (personal/business or both ). Thanx in advance for any comments about it (if you successfuly launch it).