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/****************************************************************************
**
** Copyright (C) 2012 Digia Plc and/or its subsidiary(-ies).
** Contact: http://www.qt-project.org/legal
**
** This file is part of the Qt Installer Framework.
**
** $QT_BEGIN_LICENSE:FDL$
** Commercial License Usage
** Licensees holding valid commercial Qt licenses may use this file in
** accordance with the commercial license agreement provided with the
** Software or, alternatively, in accordance with the terms contained in
** a written agreement between you and Digia. For licensing terms and
** conditions see http://qt.digia.com/licensing. For further information
** use the contact form at http://qt.digia.com/contact-us.
**
** GNU Free Documentation License Usage
** Alternatively, this file may be used under the terms of the GNU Free
** Documentation License version 1.3 as published by the Free Software
** Foundation and appearing in the file included in the packaging of
** this file. Please review the following information to ensure
** the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.3 requirements
** will be met: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html.
** $QT_END_LICENSE$
**
****************************************************************************/
/*!
\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.
*/
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