Upon opening the ReST packager, you will notice several distinct elements of the layout. First, the packager is built on the same framework (ReST Wizard Framework) as the ReST Installer. Using the same framework allows the packager to become familiar with the Wizard Framework as well as providing a simple means of walking packagers through the complex process of creating a ReST Package. Each major section in package creation is located on an distinct panel listed on the left side of the packager. The panel that is currently selected has an arrow on the left side (left callout in Figure 2.1). Separating the sections into distinct panels allows packagers to better focus on each individual section and have a firm roadmap for package creation. Each element has an associated tooltip which describes the purpose of the entry. After the packager is open, it is possible to open both ReST Packages (.rsp) and ReST Package XML (.xml). It is important to make sure that the all of the included files listed in the package files are accessible to the packager.

Figure 2.1. Create Header

The common elements in all panels of the packager (cutout in regular size with the packager window in the background). Yellow dialogs denotes required entry and left panel list shows location and todo list of package creation.

There are several important tags in the above example. The titlesets the package title that will appear in the Installer. If the title is longer than 25 characters, a second, shorter title may be set with the roleattribute set to short. If no short title is provided and the title is longer than 25 characters, then in space-constrained parts of the application the long title will be truncated at 25 characters. The baseelement gives a way of grouping packages that should be installed in a similar area. For example, packages for the LAPACK and BLAS libraries have been written with a base of libso that they, and other libraries, will be easy to find and use. The baseshould always be set to a value that will be valid for the filesystem on all target machines.

The contents of the versiontag should be the version on the software in the package and not the version of the package itself. The version of the package can be given as an attribute of the packageroot element if desired. Additional tags exist for the package header, including options for editing configuration files, added files to the package, and defining actions that can be performed once the package has been installed. All of these tags are defined with examples in a reference sectionat the end of this document.