me. what did you expect?

no comment.
watch

As part of a competition, i’m making an iPhone iOS App!

The app’s name is “Let’s Choose”

It is an application that establishes a live collaboration between a subscribed group which shares one common screen and provides the ability to add, delete and vote for choices.

Example A: (applicable to youngsters).
Consider a common scenario of Friday night and 5 friends deciding to choose where to spend their night.
Let’s name them Alice, Bob, Charlie, Dave and Eve. Let’s also assume they are only using SMS messages to communicate between them (to ease the example below, as actual cases may include more than 4 ways of communication).
Alice sends to Bob and suggests TGI Friday’s.
Bob replies he likes the idea.
Alice sends to Bob that she will ask the others.
Alice sends to Charlie and suggests TGI Friday’s.
Charlie sends to Eve and suggests TGI Friday’s but prefers Spur.
Eve replies she also prefers Spur but also suggests the Irish Pub.
Charlie sends to Alice about Spur and the Irish Pub.
Alice sends to Bob new suggestions.
..
.. (23 smsses later).
..
Alice is still busy sending to Eve and discussing another Pub.
Dave is hungry.
Bob is eating already.
Charlie is driving to Spur with Rachel.

Let’s now assume that they all had Let’s Choose installed on their iPhones.
Alice sends a suggestion to TGI Friday’s to a group she created a while back.
Bob gives +1 vote to that.
Charlie adds Spur.
Eve adds the Irish Pub.
Dave adds a vote to the Irish Pub.
Alice dislikes Spur.
Eve posts to the mini-wall “The Frajolistic Bloomers are playing at the pub! Vote up!”
Bob adds a moves his vote to the pub.
Bob hits “happy with this”.
Alice moves her vote to the pub.
All participants hit “happy with this”.
The top selection (irish pub) is selected.

Long story short, this application can have many applications and many cases. The simple idea that you can suggest an idea and others can choose and suggest makes everyday choices easier than verbal communication.
Choosing lunch at work. Making a shopping list with your wife while she’s home and you’re nearing the shop. Choosing your baby’s name between family. Suggesting WPF over WinForms. I can go on

Comments are appreciated from all three of you who know this website exists

Perhaps my title should be: InstallShield Profesional 2010: How to write your own InstallScript to handle new installs, update (or upgrade) installs and uninstalls (removal).

However, *bleh* is more like the thing I say after the word InstallShield, after spending 4 days getting it to work.

The real reason why I dislike it, isn’t the program itself, it’s mostly the lack of proper documentation. I found myself learning how to add a new property and value, (by using right click) instead of finding what %&*#@ values I can include!

Anyway, to help out those who might has less hair now, I’ll be listing parts of my InstallScript Rule and later a guide on how to setup an MSI based installation that saves the config to xml for the app to use (which can be configured during installation) and reads from that xml during update installations. (stay close for that post).

The most useful thing I found online (from FlexeraSoftware) was this image:

Can also be found here.

Here’s a snippet of my script, which should help you get started. For some reason, mine never had any “default” scripts or “samples” so I had to lose some hair getting there. (not that I have plenty left).

//========= ALWAYS RUN ========
//this is called always, first
function OnBegin()
begin
//call 1st
end;

//this is always called, third
function OnMoving()
begin
//call 3rd
end;

//this is always called, fourth
function OnMoved()
begin
//call 4th
end;

//this is always called, last
function OnEnd()
begin
//call last
end;

//========= NEW INSTALL =======
//this is called when it's a new install, second
function OnFirstUIBefore()
begin
//call 2nd
MsiSetProperty(ISMSI_HANDLE,"APP_STATE","NEW");
NewInstall();
end;

//this is called when it's a new install, fifth
function OnFirstUIAfter()
begin
EndInstall();
end;

//========= UNINSTALL ========
//this is called when it's a uninstall, second
function OnMaintUIBefore()
begin
MsiSetProperty(ISMSI_HANDLE,"APP_STATE","REMOVE");
GetRegistryInstalledValue();
MaintInstall();
end;

//this is called when it's a uninstall, fifth
function OnMaintUIAfter()
begin
EndUninstall();
end;

//========= UPGRADE ===========
//this is called when it's a upgrade install, second
function OnResumeUIBefore()
begin
MsiSetProperty(ISMSI_HANDLE,"APP_STATE","UPDATE");
GetRegistryInstalledValue();
UpgradeInstall();
end;

//this is called when it's a upgrade install, fifth
function OnResumeUIAfter()
begin
EndUpgrade();
end;

i wrote this like ages ago and never posted it. ages, meaning ‘Last edited by admin on November 9, 2010 at 11:46 am’.
so i decided to go ahead and post it anyways. yes, and not edit it. thank you for saying that loud.