Thursday, August 9, 2007

Another day, Another Installer Release

Hi folks. I had a super-productive day today during my visit to OpenMRS headquarters in Indianapolis. Below you'll find a changelog for this release and the link for the download (eventually).

  • Added Start Menu link to the OpenMRS website
  • Fixed the custom Tomcat port issue. Now, whichever port you specify will be the port used when launching the browser
  • Added support for changing the webapp name (the name that Tomcat uses to identify OpenMRS)
  • Added option to allow/disallow loading of modules through the webapp
  • Fixed the custom OpenMRS database name issue. Now, if you specify a different name for the OpenMRS database (not the default 'openmrs'), this change will actually be respected.
  • Added option to change the MySQL OpenMRS account (only used internally). Previously if you changed it, it would ignore you. Sorry.
  • Full support for the runtime properties file. Up to this point we weren't using it at all. Now, every relevant option is reflected in the runtime properties file such as MySQL username/password/port/database name, boolean module upload, etc...
  • Fixed the top-right logo that was out of proportion. Thanks Ben.
  • Tomcat is now installed as an automatic service instead of a manual service.

If you tried out my previous installer, follow these steps to obtain a "clean" system to test this one.
  • Open a command prompt - Start, Run, "cmd"
  • net stop mysql
  • sc delete mysql
  • net stop "apache tomcat"
  • sc delete "tomcat6"
That will stop both MySQL and Tomcat, as well as delete them as Windows Services. Those are the main testing points for the installer as the silent Java install never fails, so don't worry about it. It may also be a good idea to delete the previous installation directory after executing those commands. If you try to do it before hand, chances are MySQL and/or Tomcat will still be running and it will fail.

I think that's about it. A few issues to keep in mind...

  • Somtimes, for no reason at all (most likely a timing issue), Tomcat does not get installed as a service. This will cause the net start "apache tomcat" command to fail, clearly, since it hasn't been registered as a service. I'm working on this, but it's random and it I'm nearing cluelessness on this one...
  • Again, sometimes the MySQL database does not get created. I'm confident this is a timing issue because it only happens for me when I'm at home on my laggy VMware image. Today at OpenMRS HQ, the only thing that gave me trouble was the occasional failed Tomcat Service install. The MySQL worked every single time
  • Sometimes, the browser will launch prior to Tomcat finishing starting. In this case you will see an error that you can't connect. Wait a few minutes and refresh the screen. If you continue to get the unable to connect error, Tomcat probably never installed as a service and thus didn't start. If you see a Tomcat error page stating that OpenMRS could not be loaded, this means that the MySQL database wasn't created. Let me know either way and I'll help you out.
If you encounter either one of these issues, please let me know. I'll have you up and running with very little effort. If you encounter any other issues, or you have suggestions, please let me know those as well. Thanks!

http://resources.openmrs.org/OpenMRS-1.0-windows-installer.exe

2 comments:

Burke said...

Zach - is the version number in the file name the version of OpenMRS or the version of the installer? If you want to include the installer version, it might help to have a naming convention like "OpenMRS-1.1-windows-installer-1.0.exe". Just a thought, so people don't think it's an old copy of OpenMRS. :)

private said...

I think "neither" would be my best response to that question... :) That's what BitRock put in there and I just never changed it. From now on I'll follow that convention when uploading the files, thanks!