How to create plugin installer for adobe after effects - adobe

Does anyone know how to create an installer for Adobe After Effects plugins, which installs a plugin, directly in the Adobe After Effects plugin folder on the user machine.

Lots of options here, but first: the best place to put plugins is in the Common/MediaCore/ folder, since it will be installed for all AE (and Premiere) versions. This way, you don't have to release a new installer because a new AE version (with a new name) came out. Read more here: https://ae-plugins.docsforadobe.dev/intro/where-installers-should-put-plug-ins.html#intro-where-installers-should-put-plug-ins
Plugins installation is very easy in a sense: It's just a copy of the .plugin or .aex file in the right folder.
I would argue that the AE user community is used to installing files by copy-pasting them in the right location because of the extensive use of Scripts and Plugins in AE. The classic way of distributing your plugin is a PDF or a readme file that tells the user where to put your plugin file.
But if you want to build an installer, (maybe because you have more files and dlls to install), there are a few options, but I had success in the past with InnoSetup. You also have to consider that AE is cross-platform (Mac and Windows), so your installer should also be available in both platforms.

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Create Visual Studio project from existing Umbraco Website

So this is my problem:
I currently have an existing Umbraco Website, v7.2.1, not installed with Visual Studio, so there is no solution file.
I want to migrate this site to the typical Umbraco solution, so I can run it locally, and make it more familiar to my way of working with Umbraco.
I have tried to create an .NET project and installed the Umbraco Core nugget (also version 7.2.1) followed by importing the website. With no avail.
I rather not move everything manually into a new Umbraco solution.
Help me Umbraco community, you're my only hope.
It depends on how much customization has been done, I think?
I would probably install UmbracoCms -version 7.2.1 (not "just" Core) from Nuget into a fresh solution, build it and then point the connection string to the existing database (if not an .sdf file already). Then you'll (hopefully) only have to copy over folders like /Views and /config plus whatever scripts/styles folder you have, I think? Once copied over, all you have to do is include the folders in your project, and voila.
Unless that too is too much "manual" work? ;-) I'm not sure if you could get by with creating a package on the original site (with templates, doctypes, content, styles, scripts and everything) and importing it into a new, blank site :-s
Again, if you have installed any packages either via Umbraco Package Repository or Nuget, or indeed if you have made changes to /umbraco or /umbraco_client, I don't see any other way to do it other than manually copying them over.
Try doing a, complete, fresh install of Umbraco 7.2.1, then literally copy all the files from the current site, and simply paste and replace them into the new Umbraco solution. That should work.
This is indeed "manual work", but you can literally move all files at once and just overwrite the existing ones in the newly created solution.
Good luck.
Like Jannik said, it depends how much you've build around your current solution and what exact results you're expecting.
Option 1 - WebSite project
You can easily create an empty solution in VS and add new Web Site project (ASP.NET Empty Web Site). Then, paste and include all the files from your current location. You'll have new solution and VS project with your files / website.
Option 2 - ASP.NET Application
If you would like to have it as a ASP.NET app, I would follow these steps (almost the same as Jannik's steps described above):
Create empty ASP.NET Web Application in Visual Studio.
Nuget: Install package -UmbracoCms -version 7.2.1
Repoint connection string to current site database (or replace SDF database file in App_Data directory if it was on SQL CE).
Analyze what packages you've used and try to also install them from Nuget (if they have Nuget packages). If not - move them manually (DLLs etc.).
Copy all static files from your current site (App_Plugins, Configs, Views, Partials, MacroScripts, Scripts, CSS etc.).
But I see also the 3rd option, which may interest you especially if you want to kill two birds with one stone and update Umbraco to the latest version at the same time.
Install uSync and uSync Content Edition on your current website. Perform Full Export. Read more: https://our.umbraco.org/projects/developer-tools/usync/.
Create empty ASP.NET Web Application in Visual Studio.
Nuget: Install package -UmbracoCms
Install uSync and uSync Content Edition on your new web app.
Install all packages used in the previous version.
Copy files from uSync folder in old website and place them into the new one. Perform Import / Full Import.

Which folders to commit when using Github with CMS systems

Probably a silly question, but I cannot find any good advice on the internet so far, so hopefully you guys have some good advice. I would like to use GIT for version control and use it to deploy changes to my websites to the server(s). It's easy when I use NodeJS, but a bit more complicated when using a CMS system, to my opinion.
When I use NodeJS
When I use NodeJS it's quite easy to have a node_modules folder which contains all the external libraries which I will install on deployment. The rest(my own files) will be saved on Github and deployed to my server if changed. Obviously I will not store the node_modules folder on my Github account or send it to my server (node modules will be installed on the server, on deployment). So it's pretty easy to keep those two (third-party an my own files) seperated.
When I use Wordpress, Magento or something similar
Now it gets complicated. Mostly because CMS systems like Wordpress have a folder structure like wp_content/themes/theme_name/, so your own theme files are more or less entangled with the core structure, instead of separated like NodeJS. And it doesn't seem right to commit all my core files to my Github account as well or send all those core files to my server on every deploy (I would prefer to install them using composer or something, serverside), because I'll never touch the core files, obviously.
So is there any advice? Is there a better whey to handle this? Maybe change a configuration file with the path to my theme folder or something?
The best way to do this is to move your wp-content folder outside of your standard installation. I tend to have a folder called "wp" with the basic WordPress installation in it and a folder called "wp-content" at the same level for my content files. You can then tell WordPress that your content folder is elsewhere with the following:
define('WP_CONTENT_DIR', dirname(__FILE__) . '/content');
That goes into wp-content.php which you can also take out of the main WordPress install (and thus add to git) and place at the same level as your folders.
To make things even better consider looking at composer https://getcomposer.org/ and using that to bring in WordPress core and plugins https://wpackagist.org/ is your friend here. This guide got me started on using composer with WordPress and its a good start https://roots.io/using-composer-with-wordpress/ you can pull in your theme from git as well via composer which is great for when you deploy etc... Capistrano for example can run composer on a server :)

Can't create new projects in VS2013 -- most references are missing

About a week ago I noticed strange behavior with my install of Visual Studio 2013 Pro. Creating new projects always results in missing references to EntityFramework and most of the Microsoft.* components. I had reinstalled .NET 4.5 in repair mode around that time but can't recall if this problem happened before or after that install.
As it stands, I can no longer create a functioning project. I have an existing project I'm working on that will compile and run without issue, but creating any new projects (which I need for spike solutions etc) is no longer possible until this is fixed.
Screenshots follow. These are all from creating a new MVC project with all defaults accepted.
References list showing missing references
Error list upon building
Reference paths are empty (this was mentioned in another answer that did not directly address my specific question, so I'm including it)
Regedit showing .NET versions installed
Even though I have "repaired" .NET 4.5 it appears from regedit that I only have up to .NET 4 installed? Am I reading that correctly?
Also, due to network restrictions I cannot download packages from Nuget automatically -- I have to download them manually from a laptop off-network and then sneakernet them over to install. The network physically blocks all connections to Nuget, github, etc.
If allowing VS to connect to Nuget is the only viable option then I have considered installing VS on the laptop, creating the project there and installing all necessary dependencies, and then moving the project folder over to the restricted computer and continuing from there. But I don't know if that is a solution to this problem or not.
Any advice appreciated, thanks.
.
The network blocks all connections to Nuget, github, etc.
It's almost like they don't want you to be productive.
Anyway the project templates (which you seem to be talking about) reference specific NuGet packages. Packages by default are stored relative to your solution.
Place a nuget.config in your disk's root (or any point into your projects directory, if you keep them organized like C:\Dev\Visual Studio\Projects, then each of those subfolders will be file) and point in that file to a shared package directory on your development machine. Here you can dump all packages you require.

Flex / Flash Builder SVN: what files and folders should not be checked into subversion?

Background: Trying to set up my dev. environment in new job. Have subversion installed ok in Flash Builder 4, and checked out the project folders I will be working on. Work to date was developed in FB3, I'm going to be using FB4.
The folders/files that get imported to the project also include .flexProperties, .actionScriptProperties, .project, html-template etc (basically everything).
I would have thought that just the src, libs, lib-rsl etc should be part of the svn?
UPDATE:
Here is a good link to setup details for sharing svn flex projects using 2 folders, one of which has the checkout code, the other of which has folders linked to the first (but without the project/setup files)
It depends on the the development group. If everyone is provided the exact same set of tools in the exact same environments it can be ok to include the IDE project files. But if there is any chance that anyone is going to use a different environment (this includes a rolling upgrade of tools) then it is a bad idea. I recommend against putting these files in source control.

How to install a Qt application on a customers system?

I've got a Qt app that I need installed on a customers computer, which I can't assume has Qt installed on it. I'm on a Mac OSX and the computer I will be installing it on some Unix based system. I will be installing it myself so I don't need a GUI installation wizard or anything like that. Ideally I'd like to end up with a script or makefile, along with a folder of all the sources and necessary libraries, I just don't know where to start. References would be much appreciated, I haven't found anything useful after many google searches.
My question lies somewhere between these two:
Can you create a setup.exe in qt to install your app on a client computer?
Create Linux install for Qt application?
I don't need a full-blown install wizard (question 1), but I also won't have my machine at the installation site to just keep copying libraries until all dependencies are met (question 2). Basically I need to have everything on a CD ready to install when I get there. Thanks in advance.
There are two ways to install a Qt application on a system:
1 - You can compile Qt statically. This will allow you to deploy you app without any qt dependencies.
2 - You need to deploy your app with Qt librairy files you need (like qtcore.dll on Windows)
You will find all explications for each platform in the Qt documentation : http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/deployment.html.
To create installer you can use InstallJammer for Windows and Unix.
For MacOSX you need to create a dmg image. This is very simple. Read the following web page for help : http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-DMG-File-on-a-Mac. By using apple script you can customize dmg (like an Application folder link into the dmg).
My preference for Win32 installer is NSIS.
Hope that helps!
Not sure why you want to avoid the install wizard. It can also help you create Uninstaller, desktop and start menu shortcuts, etc. As mentioned in the posts you refer to, you could use BitRock InstallBuilder (Nokia uses it for Qt Creator)
If you do not want to use a wizard and don't want to compile statically, then you can bundle Qt libraries in the same folder as the app and setup a shell script that sets the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to that directory

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