Maple 2018.2

[ianmb]

Does anyone have a recommended workflow for repackaging Maple 2018, using Composer or similar? Preferably for a networked license server.

[mark_mahabir]

I had this requirement recently so reached out to Maplesoft support. This was their response:

In order to repackage Maple 2018 for mass distribution on MacOS I would recommend you to run a silent installation of Maple. For that you can follow these steps: Create a text file called installer.properties (the extension is .properties), then save it in the same folder as the Maple installer. (Any file name is allowed, in fact.) For example:

mode=unattended
desktopshortcut=1
configureMATLAB=0
matlabpath=
licenseType=network
serverName=myServerName
portNumber=27000
enableUpdates=1
checkForUpdatesNow=1

For further information, please see the "Silent (Unattended) Installation" section of the "Maple 2018 Installation and Licensing Guide": https://www.maplesoft.com/support/install/maple2018_install.html Open a Terminal Window, then navigate to the location of the Maple installer file. Mount the installer image, and navigate to the installer file:

cd /Volumes/Maple2018MacInstaller/Maple2018MacInstaller.app/Contents/MacOS

Then, execute the installer while specifying the full name for the options file (including extension). For example:

installbuilder.sh ––optionfile installer.properties

So based on this advice, I captured a snapshot in Composer of both the Maple2018MacInstaller.app and the installer.properties file in /Users/Shared and put the following line into the Files & Processes > Execute Command section of the policy:

/Users/Shared/Maple2018.1MacInstaller.app/Contents/MacOS/installbuilder.sh --optionfile /Users/Shared/installer.properties; rm -Rf /Users/Shared/Maple*; rm -Rf /Users/Shared/installer.properties

This seems to work well, but if anyone has a more efficient way of doing this then please shout up!

[jkaigler]

It's been a few months since I packaged it, but I am pretty sure I just used composer.

[mark_mahabir]

@jkaigler Interesting. The last time I tried to repackage it in Composer it crashed on the machines I'd distributed it to....

However, it went a lot better this time. Install the program on a test machine or VM then capture both the directories:

/Applications/Maple 2018
/Library/Frameworks/Maple.framework

...with a Composer snapshot and all should be well. The important file for your licencing is:

/Library/Frameworks/Maple.framework/Versions/2018/license/license.dat

I also noted that the uninstaller app included as part of the distribution doesn't always get rid of all the relevant files; it leaves /Users/abc1/Library/Preferences/Maple present, for example.

[jkaigler]

That looks right, I'll convert mine back to back to source and check it out.

[jkaigler]

In addition to the /Applications/Maple 2018 and /Library/Frameworks/Maple.framework, I also captured /Library/Fonts . Not sure if it was needed but I have had no complaints ...yet.