Installers generated by install4j can be run in three modes:
-c argument, the interaction with the user
is performed in the terminal from which the installer was invoked. The same applies to the uninstaller.
-q argument, there is no interaction with the
user, the installation is performed automatically with the default values. The same applies to the uninstaller.
The screen flow and the action sequence is executed in the same way for all three modes. If
some actions or screens should not be traversed for console or unattended installations,
you can use the methods context.isConsole() and context.isUnattended()
in their "Condition expression" properties.
Also see the command line options reference for installers.
In GUI mode the keyboard shortcut CTRL-SHIFT-L shows the log file in the Explorer on Windows,
in the Finder on macOS and in the file manager on Linux/Unix. This shortcut is not advertised to
the user, but you can communicate it to the user for debug purposes.
Installers generated by install4j can perform console installations, unless this feature has
been disabled in the
application configuration of the
Installer step.
In order to start a console installation, the installer has to be invoked with the
-c argument.
All standard screens in install4j present their information on the console and allow the user to enter all information as in the GUI installer. Not all messages in the GUI installer are displayed to the console installer, for each screen the subtitle is displayed as the first message. All standard screens in install4j have a question as their subtitle, if you add customizable screens to the screen sequence, you should phrase their subtitles as questions in order to create a consistent user experience for the console installer.
Also, form screens are fully mapped to console installers, each form component is displayed on the console, form components that expect user input will allow the users to modify or enter values.
On Microsoft Windows the information of whether an executable is a GUI executable or a console executable has to be
statically compiled into the executable. Installers are GUI executables, otherwise a console would be displayed
when starting the installer from the explorer. This is also the reason why the JRE supplies both
the java.exe (console) and the javaw.exe (GUI) on Windows.
A GUI executable can attach to a console from which it was started, though. GUI executables are started in the background by default, therefore you have to use the start command like this to start it in the foreground and be able to enter information:
start /wait installer.exe -c
If you develop new screens or form components, you have to override the method
boolean handleConsole(Console console) throws UserCanceledException
Console
class that is passed as a parameter.
Installers generated by install4j can perform unattended installations, unless this feature has
been disabled on the
application configuration of the
Installer step.
In order to start an unattended installation, the installer has to be invoked with the
-q argument. The installer will perform the installation as if the user had accepted
all default settings.
There is no user interaction on the terminal. In all cases, where the installer would have
asked the user whether to overwrite an existing file, the installer will not overwrite it.
You can change this behavior by passing -overwrite as a parameter to
the installer. In this case, the installer will overwrite such files. For the standard case, it
is recommended to fine-tune the
overwrite policy
in the distribution tree instead, so that this situation never arises.
The installer will install the application to the default installation directory, unless you
pass the -dir parameter to the installer. The parameter after -dir
must be the desired installation directory. Example:
installer.exe -q -dir "d:\myapps\My Application"
For the unattended mode of an installer, response files are an important instrument to pre-define user input.
On Windows, the output of the installer is not printed to the command line for unattended installation.
If you pass the -console parameter after the -q parameter, a console
will be allocated the displays the output to the user. This is useful for debugging purposes.
If the installation was successful, the exit code of the installer will be 0, if no suitable JRE
could be found it will be 83, for other types of failure it will be 1.
If you develop new screens or form components, you have to override the method
boolean handleUnattended()