Overview
Creating a plugin installer is very easy. You simply add your compiled plugin to a zip archive and change the extension from .zip to .rhi. Once this is done, you can double-click the archive and the Rhino Installer Engine will begin to install your plugin. That’s all there is to it!
An Example
Imagine you have a plugin and want to support multiple versions of Rhino. For example, you want to:
- Install the latest version of the plugin for Rhino WIP
- Install an older version of the plugin for 64-bit Rhino 5
- Install yet another version of the plugin for 32-bit Rhino 5
- Include a custom toolbar file (e.g. MyToolbar.rui)
This is possible. You need to:
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Create an “installer image” folder. In this example, the folder is the name of the product – Marmoset. This folder will contain only the files you want to install on the user’s system.
Marmoset/ ├── Rhino 6/ │ ├── Marmoset.rhp │ └── required_wip.dll ├── Rhino 5.0/ │ ├── x86/ │ │ ├── Marmoset.rhp │ │ └── required_v5_x86.dll │ └── x64/ │ ├── Marmoset.rhp │ └── required_v5_x86.dll ├── Marmoset.rui ├── Marmoset.chm └── README.txt
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Copy the appropriate files into the folders1. Note that all three versions of the plugin can have the same name, so long as they are in different folders.
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Add all the files inside the “installer image” folder to a new ZIP2 archive
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Change the extension from .zip to .rhi
Everything but the kitchen sink
Because the Rhino Plugin Installer Engine unzips your .rhi file into a directory specific to your plugin, you can include anything you want: help files, documentation, etc. These files will end up inside your plugin directory; The Rhino Installer Engine cannot be used to install files to other parts of the hard drive.
Related topics
Footnotes