295065 - Add install switch to specify which shortcuts to create.

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Installer, enhancement)

Description

[Tristor]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050521
Firefox/1.0+

To make scripted installations easier, there needs to exist an installer switch
that would allow the user to keep the portion of the installer that asks about
creating shortcuts from appearing as well as prevent their creation at all.  I
was able to (for some freaky reason) get this effect with (I believe) the -ispf
switch, but that is apparently not the correct behavior for that switch per bug
290704.  Adding this enhancement would make it easier for people who have
multiple versions of FF installed for testing purposes and don't want to worry
about it creating unused and ultimately annoying shortcuts all over the place.

Comment 1

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Morphing this somewhat:

The installer should have a flag that defines a subset of shortcut locations, so
that sysadmins can selectively create shortcuts.

Something like --as=N, where N is a bitmask of possible values.  In the current
windows installer we support Desktop, Quick Launch, and Start Menu locations
(defaulting to all three).

Desktop      1
Quick Launch 2
Start Menu   4

Thus, --as=0 would create no shortcuts, and --as=6 would create Quick Launch and
Start Menu shortcuts.  Given that the only people who really care about this
would be sysadmins/testers, I think we both need and want the flexibility, even
if it needs to be more documented.

Comment 2

[Tristor]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Morphing this somewhat:
> 
> The installer should have a flag that defines a subset of shortcut locations, so
> that sysadmins can selectively create shortcuts.
> 
> Something like --as=N, where N is a bitmask of possible values.  In the current
> windows installer we support Desktop, Quick Launch, and Start Menu locations
> (defaulting to all three).
> 
> Desktop      1
> Quick Launch 2
> Start Menu   4
> 
> Thus, --as=0 would create no shortcuts, and --as=6 would create Quick Launch and
> Start Menu shortcuts.  Given that the only people who really care about this
> would be sysadmins/testers, I think we both need and want the flexibility, even
> if it needs to be more documented.


Wow, that is a much better solution than what I had planned.  I like that idea,
and it would make sciptability improve dramatically, IMO.  The only issue I had
was with the switch name you chose.  --as isn't very descriptive of what it
does, unless it is some acronym I am not familiar with.  I can't think of
anything at the moment that would be descriptive and short, unfortunately.

Comment 3

[Tristor]

For some reason (must have been something I hit accidentally) this got
retargeted.  Fixing it back to where mconnor put it.

Comment 4

[Tristor]

I realize this already has a target milestone for 1.1, but I believe it should
block the release of 1.1 as well.  This is extremely important to people who QA
on Windows, or at least those who know about all the nifty things you can do
with the installer in scripts.

Comment 5

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Patches welcome, but we're not going to block on this.

Comment 6

[Tristor]

(In reply to comment #5)
> Patches welcome, but we're not going to block on this.

I understand the logic, but I am not quite sure what portion of the source
should be patched.  I would be more than willing to try to write a patch for
this, unfortunately, I am not familiar enough with the source to know exactly
what all needs to be changed.

Comment 7

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

This is something I am planning on handling with NSIS.

Comment 8

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

pushing out non-critical-path bugs to b2

Comment 9

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

Attachment: Config file

To support this I am adding an optional command line argument for specifying a configuration ini file for specifying shortcut creation, start menu folder name, install dir name or full path, and whether to close the app if running as follows:

; The name of the directory where the application will be installed in the
; system's program files directory. The directory must not exist or if it exists
; it must be a directory and not a file. If this value is specified then
; InstallDirectoryPath will be ignored.
; InstallDirectoryName=Mozilla Firefox

; The full path to the directory to install the application. The directory must
; not exist or if it exists it must be a directory and not a file.
; InstallDirectoryPath=c:\firefox\

; Close the application when installing into a location where the application
; is already installed and the file is in use (e.g. it is already running). If
; this value is not specified the installer will not exit without installing
; the application and will return an error code of 1.
; CloseApplication=1

; By default all of the following shortcuts are created. To prevent the
; creation of a shortcut specify false for the shortcut you don't want created.
;
; Create a shortcut for the application in the current user's QuickLaunch
; directory.
; QuickLaunchShortcut=false
;
; Create a shortcut for the application on the desktop. This will create the
; shortcut in the All Users Desktop directory and if that fails this will
; attempt to create the shortcuts in the current user's Start Menu directory.
; DesktopShortcut=false
;
; Create shortcuts for the application in the Start Menu. This will create the
; shortcuts in the All Users Start Menu directory and if that fails this will
; attempt to create the shortcuts in the current user's Start Menu directory.
; StartMenuShortcuts=false

; The directory name to use for the StartMenu folder.
; note: if StartMenuShortcuts=false is specified then this will be ignored.
; StartMenuDirectoryName=Mozilla Firefox

Comment 10

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

The patch in bug 344490 provides the ability to specify which shortcuts to create via a config file. I think this is more than adequate for fixing this bug since it supports scripted installations including several additional parameters for controlling how the app is installed.

Comment 11

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

Fixed on trunk and MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH by the checkin of bug 344490 - see bug 344490 for details.