IzPack

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IzPack
IzPack
OS	Cross-platform
Genre	Software development tools
License	Apache License
Website	http://izpack.org

IzPack is an opensource software installer generator that targets the Java platform.

It generates installers that fit in single JAR archives. As such, IzPack-generated installers are cross-platform: the same installer works on any operating system that has a working Java Runtime Environment.

IzPack is released under the terms of the Apache License version 2.0.

1 History
2 Features
3 References
4 External references
5 See also

[edit] History

IzPack was started in 2001 by Julien Ponge. A community started to appear around the project, and the development began to be made using a CVS server hosted by Tuxfamily.

The project moved in January 2004 to BerliOS. It later opted for Subversion instead of CVS.

In February 2008, the project moved to Codehaus^[1]

[edit] Features

Although primarily meant to create cross-platform installers^[2], IzPack allows for some operating system dependent customizations. For example, it is able to create shortcuts on Microsoft Windows systems and freedesktop.org-compliant desktop / window managers.

IzPack installers can be greatly customized. Each step of an installation is materialized by a panel. A wide range of panels is available for packagers to use: it is possible to freely choose and order them. Shall the choice be too limited, custom panels can be created by application developers.

The installer builder is available as a command-line tool. It can be invoked from Apache Ant automated build as well.

Finally, IzPack provides a set of utilities:

a native application launcher that can be used to first check for a Java Runtime Environment, then launch the installers
a tool that wraps installers inside self-extracting Windows executables (based on 7-Zip)
a tool that wraps installers inside Mac OS X application bundles.