mustangman530 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have written a *.exe in Perl that installs images, documents, and xml files into specific folders. I would like my exe installer to check for a required program and if it doesn't exist send someone to a site download it or pop up a download box on the screen.
  • Comment on install of secondary program from perl created .exe

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Re: install of secondary program from perl created .exe
by ww (Archbishop) on Dec 20, 2007 at 14:50 UTC
    <rising inflection> ...and? </rising inflection>

    Oh, you mean you want us to write it for you?

    Well, even if we were inclined to do so, we'd need quite a lot more information; in fact, we'd need quite a lot more information to do what we really do, which is

    • offer advice,
    • point out resources relevant to a Seeker's concerns and/or
    • help troubleshoot (your!) code.

    So, please, read PerlMonks FAQ AND How do I post a question effectively?. After doing so, you may wish to update your question.

      I'm not looking for someone to write anything. I just need someone to point me in the right direction for help. I need an install to pop-up a box for a download of a secondary program. I've been looking for 3 days and can't find anything on this topic.
        Well, lacking further info, sounds like javascript forums may be a spot to look.

        Update: Added initial clause

        You could look into a recent discussion about Perl/TK for GUI creation.

        Update: Out of curiosity, since there's not much info to go on, in your 3day journey of discovery what did you search for (i.e. search words/pkgs) and where?

Re: install of secondary program from perl created .exe
by talexb (Chancellor) on Dec 20, 2007 at 15:50 UTC

    This question is way too vague for us to begin helping you.

    It sounds like you want to check for the existence of a particular program at install time and then .. what? Go fetch it? Or put up a pop-up box to tell the user to go get it?

    What if the program is installed, but it's not where you were expecting it to be? What if the system isn't connect to the Net? Can the program that's being installed run without this package that you want to download?

    What platform(s) are you targetting? Do you have any examples of software you've downloaded that behave the same way? How are you going to do a pop-up box if the software's being installed from the command line?

    Alex / talexb / Toronto

    "Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

      The exe I wrote installs a manual, which requires a SVG viewer to run, with out the viewer it will close. It is ment to run on a windows box and uses IE as it's shortcut. The installer works well but I wanted to know if perl had the ability to launch IE and direct the user to a download site and if anyone knew where i could find information on it.

        OK -- now we're getting somewhere!

        Yes, Perl can launch an external program, most likely using system. I'm not that familiar with IE, but certainly Firefox can be launched with a URL so that it opens to that location on the web.

        Again, a safer approach would be to launch the browser with a static local page that has a link to a number of locations where SVG viewer could be obtained -- the machine you're installing on may not have a connection to the Net, and you should plan for that eventuality.

        Alex / talexb / Toronto

        "Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

        mustangman530:

        OK, given that information, what I'd do is:

        • Build a web page document telling them the problem, and include a link to the download site.
        • If your program determines that the EXE isn't present, then start their browser with the location of the .html file you included (e.g. "file:///C:/Program Files/mustangman/need_svg_viewer.html").

        ...roboticus

Re: install of secondary program from perl created .exe
by MidLifeXis (Monsignor) on Dec 20, 2007 at 21:13 UTC

    How about NSIS? Quite a powerful system.

    --MidLifeXis