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** Copyright (C) 2012 Digia Plc and/or its subsidiary(-ies).
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** This file is part of the Qt Installer Framework.
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/*!
    \contentspage {index.html}{Qt Installer Framework}
    \previouspage index.html
    \page ifw-overview.html
    \nextpage ifw-getting-started.html

    \title Overview of Qt Installer Framework

    The Qt Installer Framework provides a set of tools and utilities to
    create installers once, and deploy them across all the supported desktop
    Qt platforms without rewriting the source code. The installers will have the
    native look and feel on the platform where they are run: Linux, Microsoft
    Windows, and Mac OS X.

    The Qt Installer Framework tools generate installers with a set of pages
    that guide the users during the installation, update, or uninstallation
    process. You provide the installable content and specify information about
    it, such as the name of the product and the installer and the text for the
    license agreement.

    You can customize the installers by adding widgets to the predefined pages
    or by adding whole pages to provide users with additional options. You can
    create scripts to add operations to the installer.

    You can create either \e offline or \e online installers. Offline installers
    contain all the installable components and do not require network
    connections during or after the installation.

    Online installers download components from a repository on a Web server.
    They enable users to install additional components from the server after the
    initial setup, as well as to receive automatic updates to content as soon as
    the updates are published on the server.

    \section1 Choosing Installer Type

    You can provide end users with an offline or online installer, or both,
    depending on your use cases.

    Create an offline installer to enable users to directly download the
    installation package on a media for installation on a computer later. You
    can also distribute the installation package on a CD-ROM or USB stick, for
    example.

    Create an online installer if you expect the users to have reliable network
    access, because it provides the users with automatic updates to installed
    content and easy access to all content that is added later.

    \section1 Promoting Updates

    Create online installers to be able to promote updates to end users who
    install your product. The easiest way to provide an update is to recreate
    the repository and upload it to the web server. For large repositories, you
    can update only the the changed components.

    \section1 Providing Content for Installers

    You can enable other content providers to add components to the installer
    as add-on components. The component providers must set up repositories that
    contain the installable components and deliver the URL that points to the
    repositories to end users. End users must then configure the URL in the
    installer. The add-on components are visible in the package manager.

*/