Distributing Add-ons
The TEZ mechanism offers an easy way for third party developers to distribute TerraExplorer add-ons to users:
§ See "Distributing Tools" for information on distributing new tools.
§ See "Distributing a New Start Page" for information on distributing an alternate Start page.
Note: If a TEZ named setup.tez is placed next to the TerraExplorer installation file during installation, it will automatically be installed. See "Managing TEZ Files" for more information.
For easy distribution of tools to TerraExplorer users, zip the actual tool, the tool’s .xml defining the tool, and all other resources used by the tool into a standard zip archive. Then rename the zip file to the TEZ extension. You can include multiple tools in a single TEZ file by having multiple folders in the archive, each with a tool.xml.
Once a TEZ is installed, the files will be saved to a predefined “Skyline\TerraExplorer” folder in the “Application Data” space of the current user.
Note: If the folder contains a file by the same name, the existing file is overwritten without a prompt.
Note: The Application Data folder path changes between different users and different Windows operating systems. To find the path used by your client look at the %APPDATA% environment variable.
All COM DLL’s referenced in tool.xml by <file> are dynamically registered and require no access to the computer registry.
For easy distribution of a customized Start page, create a folder named StartPage which includes a “texp_default.htm” new Start page together with an .xml file that sets the id as "StartPage" and defines the path to the texp_default.htm file. Zip this folder into a standard zip archive and then rename the zip file to the TEZ extension.
<Tool caption="Start Page" id="StartPage" Path="StartPage\texp_default.htm">
</Tool>
Once a TEZ is installed, the Start page TEZ is placed in a StartPage folder under the Add-ons folder in the “Application Data” space of the current user.
Note: If the folder contains a file by the same name, the existing file is overwritten without a prompt.
Note: The Application Data folder path changes between different users and different Windows operating systems. To find the path used by your client look at the %APPDATA% environment variable.
All COM DLL’s referenced in tool.xml by <file> are dynamically registered and require no access to the computer registry.
The Add-ons tab in the TerraExplorer Options dialog box lists all tool folders that were previously installed. From this management dialog box, tools can easily be added by browsing to the required TEZ file, or removed from TerraExplorer by deleting the corresponding folder.