IzPack 3.9.0 review

IzPack is an installers generator for the Java platform

License: The Apache License 2.0 File size: 0K Developer: Julien Ponge

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IzPack is an installers generator for the Java platform. IzPack project produces lightweight installers that can be run on any operating system where a Java virtual machine is available.

Depending on the operating system, it can be launched by a double-click or a simple 'java -jar installer.jar' on a shell. The most common use is to distribute applications for the Java platform, but you can also use it for other kinds of projects.

The main benefit of IzPack is that it provides a clean and unique way of distributing a project to users using different operating systems.

A big care has been put in making IzPack as small as possible in order to reduce the weight of IzPack itself in the final installer archive. Also, IzPack has been designed around modularity and flexibility.

As a consequence, you are able to specify how your installer should be by selecting the panels that you want to show to the final user. Sometimes there are even several panels for the same usage so that you can pick the one that suits the best your needs.

If ever you don't find your way through the available panels, you can still develop your own ones with the nice and easy IzPack API. There's even an embedded XML parser !

Here are some key features of "IzPack":
XML-based installer descriptors
Uses the maximum Jar archives compression level
Jakarta Ant integration
Great flexibility and modularity, it is very easy to extend IzPack
No native code is required, but you can extend IzPack with native code
Shortcuts creation system
Flexible and powerful user input panel
Automatic uninstaller creation
Easy localization with XML langpacks: 16 langpacks are provided by default
Variable substitution system
OS-specific scripts interaction

What's New in This Release:
New panels and new translations were added.
A lot of work was done on the GUI code.
It also contains Many bugfixes were made, and users are strongly recommended to upgrade to this new stable release.