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Bruce Gardner
Quality Assurance Engineer |
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he new BBj® 5.0 marks the debut of some much anticipated additions and enhancements, including:
- BBj 5.0 for Mac OS X - the very first BASIS product for Macintosh
- A new BASIS IDE – based on NetBeans 3.6, and now available on all supported BBj platforms
- A new FormBuilder module – a cross-platform replacement for ResBuilder®
- A completely rewritten BBj SYSGUI subsystem
With such an important release as BBj 5.0, BASIS is packaging it in an all-new installer as the BASIS Product Suite. Written
using InstallShield X, the most versatile multi-platform installation tool on the market today, the BASIS Product Suite
simplifies the installation process with a single, cross-platform interface and empowers the end-user and developer with
important new features.
Cross-Platform GUI/CUI Installations
The primary objective of the new install is to provide a consistent installation interface in both appearance and
functionality across all platforms. This is, after all, one of the many strengths of Java. Whether you need a console mode
install for server-side deployment, GUI mode for client platform installations, or silent installs for enterprise-wide
deployments, the BASIS Product Suite provides the same intuitive interface across all supported platforms. Figure 1 and
Figure 2 shows the same interface on two different operating systems.
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| Figure 1. The GUI product selection screen on Linux. |
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Figure 2. The GUI product selection screen on
Macintosh OS X. |
Hierarchical Installation Structure
Notice in the GUI installation images in Figures 1 and 2 and in the console installation image in Figure
3, that BASIS arranged the components of the installation package in hierarchical trees. This installation hierarchy
provides the user with the ability to manage the installation package down to the smallest detail, affording significantly
more control over which BBj components to install than ever before.
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Figure 3. The Suite console installation's product
selection screen on Linux. |
The BASIS Product Suite installer remembers which products the user installed so he or she can add components or remove
components later without affecting other installed components.
New -noservice Option for BBj Services on Windows
Many customers requested the ability to configure BBj Services to run as an application, rather than as a service on Windows
NT-based systems. Running BBj as an application can simplify or eliminate some problems that arise when the Windows NT system
account attempts to connect to such mapped and shared resources as networked drives and printers. The BASIS Product Suite
delivers this functionality with a new option to run "after user login" as shown in Figure 4.
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Figure 4. The new 'run after login' option on
Windows NT-based systems. |
Silent Installations
Many developers rely on silent installations to deploy their application to multiple systems without user intervention. The
BASIS Product Suite installer provides a more robust silent installer with the convenient ability to record the options
chosen during a regular installation to an "answer" file – or installation script – that can control silent
installations on other systems. Developers can easily modify the installation scripts to have complete control over which of
the dozens of available features to install, providing more than double the number of options available in the previous
installer.
Updates
With the BASIS Product Suite, updates are easier to apply than ever before. Using InstallShield's version-checking
functionality, the user applies new updates to an existing installation with minimal impact on the operation of the
application. The previous BBj installer required a complete product uninstall before running the entire installation again to
add or remove one or more features.
Also, with the release of BBj 5.0, individual components are available for download from the BASIS Web site. For example, to
add the BBj ODBC Driver to an existing BBj installation, download the ODBC Driver from
www.basis.com/devtools/bbj/downloads.html as a single component and quickly add it to the existing installation, without
affecting the current installation. The BASIS Product Suite product selection screen displays only those individually
downloaded components as available for installation.
To improve the update process further, BASIS is evaluating InstallShield Update Service (ISUS), where end users can quickly
check for and receive important updates simply by clicking an 'update' shortcut in the BASIS program group.
Summary
The new installer successfully reflects many customer requests and helpful suggestions; common appearance and functionality
across all platforms, improved flexibility, and complete updateability, to name a few. Finally, full control at your
fingertips over all installable features puts you in the driver's seat.
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