Install documents as archieve

[Fleaby]

Hi, I'm new (obviously), I'm also extremely new to setup factory, so sorry if I sound a bit stupid. My problem requires a sort explanation of our company. We produce manuals that are in word and excel documents and they are distributed on CD. We contracted an outside company to make a setup file to 'install' the documents to the clients computer which turns the read-only off thus making them achieves. To use this setup file with any documents we like they set it up so that we put anything we like in a folder called "Documents" and this folder, along with the setup file is burnt onto the CD. The company told us they used Setup Factory to produce the setup file. We have come to a point where we need to update the file but unfortunately they have now gone out of business, so we decided to purchase Setup Factory and do it ourselves and thus we come to our problem.

We have no problems with the screen and think we've got the changing files from read-only to achieve figured out but we can't figure out how to get the "Documents" folder bit to work. If anyone could give us some idea of how to go about this it would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Fleaby

[Darryl]

Re: Install documents as archieve

If I understand your question correctly, you need to have the number and names of the files in the "Documents" folder on the CD-ROM dynamic. Normally using the Archive tab and the CD-ROM tab, the files that are defined at design time, must be present or you will receive an install error. Therefore another method will need to be used.

You also need to modify the attributes of the file. Therefore the action you will need for that is the "Install File" action which will install one file.

One method you could use is the following:

1) Use a "Search for File" action that searches the custom directory %SrcDir%\Documents on the CD-ROM for all files (*.*). This will return a variable containing a semi-colon delimited string of file paths in that folder.

2) Use the "Count Delimited String" action to get the number of delimited strings in the variable. This will be the number of files within that folder that you need to install.

3) Next you will need to create a loop with a counter and the IF control structure, or a WHILE loop that will loop through each delimited string.

4) Inside the loop you will need to get each file, therefore you would use the "Get Delimited String" action to get each file path from the variable.

5) You would then use that path from 4) in an Install File action that will install it to the user's system.

I believe that is the basic framework you will need to use in this situation, however someone else may have some other suggestions.

One question I have is how important is it that the files be dynamic? Are they going to be changing a lot? If not, you would probably be much better off archiving them inside of the installation executable.

Give that a try. Hope that helps.

[Fleaby]

Re: Install documents as archieve

In answer to your question, yes unfortunately it is very important that it be dynamic as it is possible (and more often than not) to purchase the manuals in pieces.


Thankyou very much for your assistance I will give it a go.