Packing into executable with Instantiations VA Smalltalk™?

Question

I wonder if is possible to package into an executable in VA Smalltalk. Posts on this subject seem to have contradictory or old information. The README from Instantiations comments about splash screen and other resource tweaks for client installs, but is not clear about making an executable application for distribution.

In that case:

Does generating an exe file implies stripping an image? Is the image bootstrapped, i.e. built from scratch?

Answer 1

so here is my attempt to give a short answer. You do ship several components when you deploy your application as a runtime:

• Your stripped down image (VA ST has a very powerful tool called Packaged Image Browser for this task)
• The Virtual Machine (a .exe on Windows). You can customize this exe to display your splash screen or your window icon.
• A number of additional files that are needed by the VM and/or your image. These are pictures, message catalogs, additional DLLs etc. VAST has an exhaustive list of which files you have to ship if you use some feature of the product in the VAST documentation

So there is no mechanism to bundle VM and Image together and turn them into a single .exe file, like in Dolphin Smalltalk and maybe more. What you ship is usually a Directory with a few subfolders in it.

Answer 2

There's no way to embed the image (.icx file) into the executable (.exe file) with VA Smalltalk. The best you can do is have an exe file for the VM and your own custom icx file for the image plus a .ini file for configuration. The "Make Executable" option in the organizer creates these files for you but you still have several files.

Answer 3

Here is a good resource for starting out making runtimes. Although, as mentioned, you can "Make Executable" from the option menu, my experience is based on the runtime packaging.