On Sat, 24 Jul 2004, Tim Jenness wrote:
> Brad has created "native" Mac java applications. The Observing Tool
> installs itself that way.
It is actually a bit of a pain to create these .app bundles. Apple's
native app builder program for Java applications called Jar Bundler is an
exercise in how not to build a GUI application. There's no way to load in
a currently existing app (or even a template) so every time you want to
create a new app you have to start from scratch. Adding jar files is
frustrating -- there's no way to point to a directory and say "add
all the jar files in this directory" -- you have to load them in one
at a time. And god forbid you forget to set the classpath before
loading in jar files, because then they get loaded in with absolute
paths and thus won't work on anybody else's system. It's awfully fun
loading in a couple dozen jar files, then realizing you've forgotten
to set the classpath and have to reload them all over again. Bah.
There are a few idiosyncracies with the XML file it creates that catch me
nearly every time I build the OT. As it is now it takes me about an hour
to build the OT each time around (45 minutes for the first telescope, 15
for the second once I've remembered what to do).
It's a good idea for things like the STARJAVA suite, being able to bundle
up, say, SPLAT, and have a double-clickable icon on the desktop for that.
It'd also be useful for GAIA, I'd say. I don't know how useful it would be
for things like FIGARO or KAPPA where it's more of a command-line
interface. Xoracdr might work as well, but ORAC-DR might be a miss.
Jar Bundler is (obviously) meant for Java applications. I'd have to take a
look at Gimp's bundle to see how they've done it. Unless they've rewritten
it in Java...
Cheers,
Brad.
|