MindVision Software has made Installer VISE, its application installer solution, compatible with Mac OS X 10.1. The new version equips developers for installs on the latest revision of the next generation operating system and is available for download now.
Version 7.4 supports set permissions for install items. With support for groups and permissions, Installer VISE lets you control user access to items you install on Mac OS X. You can now pass an install path to Unix shell scripts and an installer that calls a Unix shell script before or after installing an item will now also pass the install path to the script.
With the update, you can install symbolic links, a way to reference files and folders in the Mac OS X file system. There’s also support for longer file names — for Mac OS X installs, Installer VISE now supports file names of up to 63 characters compared to 32 previously.
A new Edit Text File action item lets you edit text in the data fork of Mac files, including hidden files. You can use the new Launch URL action item to launch the default Web browser on the system — and open a specified URL.
With version 7.4, there’s now comment support for installer archives The new Comment action item allows developers to note logic in their installer archives. These comments have no effect on the installers that are built.
A spiffy new feature also lets you keep applications running during uninstalls if you wish. And with its extended user authentication, Installer VISE can authenticate user access privileges for all versions of Mac OS X. In fact, it runs on Mac operating systems starting with 7.1.
Installer VISE can create installers, both Mac and Windows flavors, in 16 languages. The cost starts at US$275 per year for 3,000 copies of a product. There’s also a “lite” version available, which has a $295 one-time fee per programmer. And MindVision offers its installer tools free to shareware developers. Fully functional evaluation copies of MindVision products can be obtained directly from MindVision.