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After starting the program, you are presented with the main screen showing a number of fields and radio Buttons (as well as the menu bar and the toolbar). Some of the fields might also have a "Browse" button beneath them. Before you start to create an installation, you should think of some things: 1. Do I want to distribute a binary version? If not, kinst is at the moment not the right thing for you. kinst is meant to install binary versions only. 2. Which packaging format should I use? kinst supports gzipped tars (TGZ) as well as RPM formats as package source files. The general pros and cons of both kinds of distribution apply. The Debian package format (DEB) is not yet supported, but is planned to be integrated in the (near?) future. Before you start to use kcreateinst, you should have created those source files so kcreateinst can use them. Please note that the TGZ's root will be the root kinst will deal with, and so the usual source code distribution habit of having a separate root directory in the TGZ (like kdice-1.0/...) is generally not wise when using kinst. Now, you're basically ready to use kcreateinst. README files and other additions that might be used can be created before you start with kcreateinst or while you are already using it. The first thing you should now do is to tell kcreateinst the position of your TGZ or RPM file. Use the "Source File" field for this, and set the "Source File Type" radio button in the General Options section accordingly. Then you should give the whole thing a name in the field "Program Name". Now you have to choose the executable (you can browse your TGZ by pressing "Browse"), enter the default installation folder and the default menu folder (in C/English locale). The last thing to do is to implement a simple installation detection by pressing "Previous Installtion Detection". If you're using TGZ as source file type, you should use the "File Check" field of the appearing dialog. Enter a filename relative your applications root dir that will be checked for the detection of a previous installation. If you are using RPM as source file type, you use the "RPM Check" field. Please enter the name the RPM database will hold if your RPM is installed. Now you're ready to press "Create !". In the following dialog you can choose to create a "one-file package" (which is always recommended) and a "self-extracting installer". Then you just choose the destination folder (where kcreateinst will put all the files), and after pressing "Start", you should have a working installation set.
The are some additional functions of kinst, partly self-explanatory. Documentation on these will come soon.
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