BUILDING THE KICS INSTALLER

    I) The Visual Studio 2005 Part

  1. Start Microsoft's Visual Studio and open the KICS project via VSS to obtain the most recent source code.
  2. Set the current build version number by changing the AssemblyVersion and AssemblyFileVersion numbers in the AssemblyInfo.cs file under Boundary\Properties.
  3. Now that you have the latest source code and have set the build number, you will need to make two build executables: one for target machines that will have Powerpoint installed, the other for machines that don't.  Click on "SolutionConfigurations".  Choose "Release" and build it.  Do the same with "Release-NoPowerPoint".  The "Release" build will only work if your system has PowerPoint 2003 installed on it. 
  4. Upon a successful build, Visual Studio will have created the two builds under two folders (in the Boundry project's BIN folder in the filesystm). You now have to incorporate these into an application setup program for the customer. This will require the 3rd party Application Installer NSIS.  If you do not have the NSIS software, then you will need to install NSIS from here.

    5. II - The NSIS Application Installer Part

  5. Once NSIS is installed, you will need to download KICSBuild.zip.  This zip file contains the install script for NSIS, KICS' help file, license.txt etc. Unzip the contents of this file into desktop\KICSBuild (we'll use this folder as the application building folder).
  6. Then copy into it the files created by Visual Studio when building the release in Part I (Typically from ...\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\KICS Backend.root\KICS Backend\Boundary\bin).  There are two builds in this folder.  Copy the contents of the "Release" folder into desktop\KICSBuild\PPP .  Copy the contents of the "Release-NoPowerPoint" folder into desktop\KICSBuild\MPP .  PPP is short for PlusPowerPoint.  MPP is short for MinusPowerPoint.
  7. Open desktop\KICSBuild\Kics_Script.nsi .  This file you downloaded and unzipped in step #5.
  8. Go to line of this file which starts with "!define PRODUCT_VERSION", and change the version number.  Close the file and save it.
  9. You will also need to change the version number references in readme.txt .  This file you downloaded and unzipped in step #5.
  10. Now start MakeNSISW (Compiler GUI).  This should be under NSIS in your Start Menu.
  11. Click on File, Load Script.  Load desktop\KICSBuild\Kics_Script.nsi
  12. This creates the combined KICS installation file named "Kics_Installer-1.0.X.exe" in desktop\KICSBuild.
  13. Rename the installation file to reflect the version number of the build.
  14. Upload the latest build into ~eb/public_html/kics .  Remember to change their properties so as to be downloadable by the public (chmod 775).
  15. You will need to edit the Index.html under ~eb/public_html/kics by adding links to the new versions.  Use the format you see in the file.  Move the older versions to the "Previous KICS Releases" list.
  16. Now you'll need to delete the src directory under ~eb/public_html/kics .  Unix command: rm -r src
  17. Create a new src directory under ~eb/public_html/kics
  18. Copy the new build source code and files into the new src directory.
  19. Change the properties of the src directory to be KICS group writable.  Unix command: chmod -R 775 src

Congratulations!  You've hopefully completed a KICS build.

Note:  If you are using the source code provided on the KICS website and are running local builds on your machine, then ignore instructions above related to VSS (Visual Source Safe) and instructions for updating the KICS homepage.