The Blank Installer Project
 

The Blank Installer Project

The Idea.

Even with the HTL, which can make things so much easier for a hacker’s life, not everyone chooses to use the HTL or even wants to install it, and then there is the rule that no hack may be released with out a txt or other installer if it uses the HTL, which is not under discussion here. So as we all know every hacker is left writing their own installer which can take just as long - if not longer than the hack itself to write.

The idea behind this project is to create a blank installer system that can be used for any hack at least at first, a template, as it would be. The installer should be able to use vBulletin’s own XML files, for both adding new templates, and adding new phrases, to help decrease time in having full templates and or full phrases in the system if it is at all possible.

Now, my self being a sub par hacker as it is, I would hope that the vBulletin community could get together and work on this as a group, where everyone could contribute what they are able to, and then in the future release this for all future hackers to be able to use.

This has been discussed for a while now, but nothing has arose..

It would be great if such a thing could be created, but many people are currently busy with their own projects, or don't have the knowledge to help with such a thing (myself included probably). The HTL was a step in the right direction though..

API & IDL. :)

Are you going to be doing this for us jerry :p

Sounds like a great idea, and I'd love to see it happen. :)

Honestly, I've always prefered simple plain text instruction on how to apply a hack. Firstly, I want to know exactly what a hack does to my board. And secondly, I have my own way of commenting applied hacks, which enables me to make it easier to upgrade vB later on.

If someone people prefer automated installers, like based on HTL or a "blank installer" (whatever that is :)), that's fine with me; I only hope that hack authors will continue to always supply plain texts file as well.

It would be wise for them to display both versions, as some people prefer installing it manually.

All i plan for this to be is a tempalte for other hackers to use as an installer, for txt files its becoming too much of a hassle, to apply some changes that way, having to mass change querys to work with prefixes is a problem in it self. Not to mention having to add 30+ phrases would be insane, i get fed up adding 5 as it is now.

Most big hacks are released with installers, all they do is add templates settings and phrases and maybe a query or two, they still require you to manualy change files and templates.

Well, if the installers were put to that use, it would be fine. But couldn't these be used to install whole hacks for you, without you editing a thing yourself?

i just wanted (when i requested it in the other thread) something that inserts the templates and phrases, basically does all database additions.

thank you zach, wish i had more knowledge but this is a great move for this community :)

Ah, well, that will be handy then. Just ignore my stupidity about this. :p

Yes it could, but we tried that once, like vB hacker, its much better to let a real person do the template & file modifctions in the long run ;)

Well I'm a bit busy with about 15 more importers atm ..........

aw, no real work for you to do then ^^

Getting there, just about to start some more flat files ones, and that always slows things down !! :tired:

A question for you Jerry - if such a system were to be implemented by you how would you go about it and what kind of framework would it involve :)?

A problem with automated installers is that they can barf horribly when being applied over an already-hacked system. For example, a hack I'm working on at the moment has this instruction:

That's great, unless a previous hack has been installed with its own permission specified for 1048576. At least with a human being reviewing changes as they are made, they can cater for this if they know what they're doing. I wouldn't be confident of writing something that could cope with this sort of thing automatically though.

Ditto.

After re-reading this thread, I think what Zachery means by the mysterious "Blank Installer Project" is a standardized script that only offers automated installs of templates and phrases.

Templates, phrases, settings, any querys that need to be run.

Somthing that should help newer and even older users just coming up with an installer, if we have a more standized script where things can be "pluged" into it makes things so much simpler. :)