Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ssbell!mcmi!amperif!unocss!dent
From: dent@unocss.UUCP (Dave Caplinger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Writing Installer scripts (and ChooserName too)
Keywords: ChooserName Installer
Message-ID: <1028@unocss.UUCP>
Date: 3 Jul 89 18:39:40 GMT
Organization: U. of Nebraska at Omaha
Lines: 47

Now that I've stumped everyone with "How to lock the ChooserName"... :-)

(Incidentally, from all of the responses I've gotten, there is no "clean"
way to do it.  One method that /works/ is to patch the Chooser so it
modifies a different 'STR ' resource number than the ChooserName is in,
but obviously, this is not ideal.  The closest answer to what I wanted was
the recently posted ASharePonder INIT, but even it is not quite correct.
ASharePonder will grab the username out of the AppleShare Prep file,
which means that I have to have the Macs set up for auto-mounting of
AppleShare on boot-up, which is not what I want to do.  So, there was
no real "satisfactory" answer.  As Tim Maroney has repeatedly pointed out
:-) changing the text box to "static text" or moving it out of the Chooser
window do /not/ work at all, and really make the user interface confusing!)

On to the next question:  Is there a program or a way to write Installer
scripts?  I would like to simplify the re-loading of Macs on AppleShare
(or whatever they end up on) by writing an Installer script to copy
the System folder.  Thus, Consultants on duty in the user rooms can just
boot from an Installer disk, (which I will have auto-login to the AppleShare
server) and click "Install" to re-load the Mac's bootup software from
the backup held on the server.  The whole point is that I will no longer
have to go do it any more. :-)

In addition to just copying files, I need to set the startup application, and
make the system folder invisible.  Also, one of the files copied into the
system folder has a different name depending on which Mac is being restored,
and that name needs to be changed back once installed...  All in all, a process
I would very much like to automate. :-)

I have looked at various Installer scripts that ResEdit 1.2b3 would
be nice enough to load (the System ones were "too big"), and I may be
able to hack at it a while to work up somehting, but surely there is a
program to do this for me, yes?  :-)

Also: Can an Installer script be set up to copy files/resources from a
disk /other/ than the boot disk?  (I.e., boot from one disk, and copy
files from the server to the local hard drive.)

Any help would be greatly appreciated!  (And if I had the mac programming
experience, I would write the INIT myself that would load the ChooserName
with some predefined string... :-)

-/ Dave Caplinger /------------------+-----------------------------------
 Microcomputer Specialist            |  Internet: unocc07@zeus.unl.edu
 "Computing and Data Communications" |  UUCP:     uunet!btni!unocss!dent
 University of Nebraska at Omaha     |  Bitnet:   UNOCC07@UNOMA1
 Omaha, NE 68182                     |    or      dc3a+@andrew.cmu.edu