Killer Game Programming in Java

Appendix A. Installation Using install4j

This appendix describes install4j (http://www.ej-technologies.com/products/install4j/overview.html), a cross-platform tool for creating native installers for Java applications. install4j supports Windows, Unix, Linux, and the Mac OS, though I’ll only be creating installers for Windows. This is mainly to keep things simple and because I only have regular access to Windows machines. Any kind souls who have written example install4j installers for other platforms should contact me, and I’ll include a link to their work in a future version of this book.

I’ll develop installers for two examples from the book: BugRunner and Checkers3D. BugRunner comes from Chapter 11 and uses the standard parts of J2SE and the J3DTimer class from Java 3D. Checkers3D, from Chapter 15, was my first Java 3D example.

install4j can create an installer that includes a JRE as part of the EXE file or downloaded automatically from install4j’s web site when the installer first runs. However, I’ll assume that Java is installed. Creating an installer is tricky for an application that requires parts of Java 3D, an extension that isn’t included with J2SE or JRE. That’s a large part of the reason for choosing the version of BugRunner that uses J3DTimer.

The installers will be built with an evaluation copy of install4j Enterprise Edition v.2.0.7. It’s fully functional but adds several “this is not a registered copy” messages to the installation sequence.

install4j Versus JWS

Before ...