Dll's in subfolder of exe?

Hedge

[quote author="Franzk" date="1305625156"]As long as there is only one executable in the directory, there isn't much they can do wrong, no?[/quote]

From the point of view of a healthy human, yes.
You should see the questions people sometimes ask on my blog about my other tools.

I guess it comes down to survival of the fittest. If you can't find the .exe you shouldn't use the tool.

Franzk

If there's really a lot of non-savvy users, you should create an installer and be done with it.

Or tell people how to create a short cut in their start menu.

goetz

I would recommend creating an installer too. I use "InnoSetup":http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php with great success, others use "NSIS":http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page. If you're brave you can have a look at Qt's own "Installer Framework":https://qt.gitorious.org/qt-labs/installer-framework on the labs.

Those make it easy to setup desktop icons, taskbar shortcuts and application menu entries. Additionally, the installers (at least Inno and NSIS) support updates, so when a new version of your software is out, the users would not have to fiddle around themselfs, but the installer replaces the necessary pieces.

Hedge

Thanks for your suggestions but I'm a die-hard portable application advocate.

goetz

Hm? You lost me :-) You mean portable in a sense of Win/Mac/Linux or in the sense of having just an application folder that you can drag between different workstations of the same os?

Hedge

Sorry, for not being clear.

I mean portable in a sense of "Put that folder wherever you want and never care about it again".

giesbert

Hi Hedge,

for which platform do you do that?
There are platform dependent ways to achieve new dll directories (e.g. for windows, you can call SetDllDirectory: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms686203(VS.85).aspx ).

[EDIT: fixed link, Volker]

goetz

Ah, ok :-)

That should work. Windows has alias files (files ending in .lnk if shown on another OS). I don't know if these work on absolute or relative path names. If they work on relative paths, you can put everything, including the exe, in a subdirectory and have an alias point to your exe). But as said, I don't know if that still works if you move the directory to another direction or copy it to another windows box.

Hedge

My aplication will be on OSX and Windows.
On OSX I'm already pleased with the structure.

On Windows I'll try your suggestion.

goetz

[quote author="Gerolf" date="1305629162"]Hi Hedge,

for which platform do you do that?
There are platform dependent ways to achieve new dll directories (e.g. for windows, you can call SetDllDirectory: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms686203(VS.85).aspx ).

[EDIT: fixed link, Volker][/quote]

That will not work as it needs a running application and application startup will fail on missing QtCore4.dll

giesbert

That's correct, not for startup, I forgot.
I used this for dynamically loaded dll with loadLibrary...

and it does not create link files, it just expands the dll search path for a while :-)