What is InstallerFX ?

InstallerFX is a graphical addon program for the standard Commodore Installer program.

Why

I am sure you have seen some installer programs for Machintosh or PC with nice graphics and logos. I though it could be nice to have something similar on the Amiga without rewriting the whole Installer program. My solution was to make a program which works as an addon program for the Installer and that is as flexible as possible.

How

If the Installer program had an Arexx interface this could be very easy to do, but the Installer program does not have an Arexx port. It had to be done by other means. I also needed to make it work on any Amiga on any AmigaOS without any error reports to the users with old OS or some missing libraries.

Installer and InstallerFX only communicate in one way. Messages go from Installer to InstallerFX with help of the FileNotify() function in dos.library.

Simple Example

  1. Installer copy: "mypicture.iff" to t:
  2. Installer runs InstallerFX: "InstallerFX t:mypicture.iff"
  3. InstallerFX loads and displays the picture at the screen.
  4. Installer does some stuff. Asking user about destination ?
  5. Installer copy an new image over the old image in t:mypicture.iff
  6. InstallerFX close the windows and load and display the new picture.
  7. When the Installer is finished it removes the t:mypicture.iff
  8. InstallerFX is exiting
  9. Installer is exiting

If the Installer script is aborted the installer script shall remove the t:mypicture.iff and the InstallerFX is also quitting.

For a real installer script example, look at this example:

Screenshot