Windows standalones

[Ken Ray]

Shari,

> * questions *
>
> When doing the standalone build, should the Windows icon be embedded
> somewhere in the stack first?  Or just as is, the .ico file in the
> same folder as the program?

It doesn't matter where the .ico file is - when you select it in the
Distribution Builder, it just uses that path to compile the icon into the
standalone itself at the time of building it.

> How does Windows handle the creator code and file types?  On the Mac,
> I set the file type and creator of the external stack so that
> double-clicking the stack would launch the standalone, rather than
> Metacard.  Also, the standalone has it's own icon, not the same icon
> as the standalone.  This is done in the resource fork on a Mac.  How
> would I achieve these same results on Windows?

You need to use a file extension. For example, .doc files are associated
with Microsoft Word on the PC. When you install Rev, Rev associates the .rev
extension to itself. For your own application, you need to register an
extension of your choice to your application. You will need to modify the
Windows Registry to get this to work properly; many people depend on the
capabilities of an installer to make those registry tweaks for you (although
you can do it with Rev's 'setRegistry' command if you know what you're
doing).

> It took quite a bit of diddling to find a combination that worked.
> As the wrong combination would overwrite the custom icon of the
> external stack, with Metacard's icon.  How to accomplish this for
> Windows?

I don't understand what you mean by "finding a combination that worked". A
combination of what?

> Presumably it should be saved as a Zip file.  Any words of wisdom here?

You mean if you build a standalone for Windows on a Mac? I don't know how
Rev handles this (as I normally build Windows standalones on Windows and Mac
standalones on Macs).

> Presumably if I dragged the final zipped file to a PC formatted disk,
> or burned it onto a CD, anyone with Windows could access it?  Or is
> there something special that needs to be done here?

The Zip format is only compression. To get it over to Windows, your
application will need to end with .exe and be uncompressed. You don't need
to compress an executable on Mac to port it to Windows - since Windows
doesn't use the resource fork anyway, it will look like a plain document
icon on the Mac, but will be executable as a program on Windows.

I hope this helps - if I was unclear or you need additional info, please
post.

Thanks,

Ken Ray
Sons of Thunder Software
Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/