For information about customizing the supplied Notes install kit to add new custom or third-party features during Notes install, see the topic Customizing Notes installation using the install manifest in this guide. While this process describes how to customize the install manifest and update site to prepare to install Notes, the information can be useful as you create the third-party installer and install custom or third-party features into an existing Notes runtime.

For information about signing new features and configuring responses to provisioning trust prompts during install and update, see "Signing custom or third-party features and plug-ins for install and update."

Assumptions and prerequisites

Assumptions and prerequisites are as follows:

• A team consisting of a developer, assembler, and deployer has created a new Eclipse™ feature or feature set. The team is preparing to create a third-party installer that will deploy that feature or feature set into an existing Notes runtime.
• You have a working knowledge of Eclipse feature development and deployment practices, including file and format conventions.
• You have a general knowledge of IBM® Lotus® Expeditor development and deployment practices.
• Notes is already installed on the platform-supported clients to be provisioned.
• The feature or feature set to be installed adheres to the standard Eclipse file and directory structures for the deploy directory which contains the install manifest INSTALL.XML and PLUGIN_CUSTOMIZATION.INI files.
• The feature or feature set to be installed adheres to the standard Eclipse file and directory structures for the update site directory containing the features and plugins subdirectories and the site index SITE.XML file.
• You have signed all JAR files in the Eclipse update site.
• The choice of single user or multi-user install has been decided.

This procedure uses a combination of existing Expeditor and Notes documentation to describe the process for creating a third-party installer. Each step may contain one or more links to topics in which you will find information about how to complete the step.

The overview steps for creating and deploying a traditional third-party installer within the context of Expeditor and Notes are:

1. Create the new feature using the Expeditor integrate development environment (IDE).

This tool creates the Eclipse update site, including the updateSite\features subdirectory contents, updateSite\plugins subdirectory contents, and updateSite\site.xml index file. Although you can create the feature or feature set using any Eclipse tools, the Expeditor IDE helps prepare the update site for you.

3. Create the install manifest file in the deploy directory, deploy\install.xml.

4. Determine where the Notes <install_dir> \framework is located on the target system. For example, the Notes <install_dir>framework directory may be Programs and Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes\data\framework.

5. Create a new PLUGIN_CUSTOMIZATION.INI file in the deploy directory, deploy\plugin_customization.ini.

Read the existing PLUGIN_CUSTOMIZATION.INI on the target system to help determine what preferences to add to your new installer's PLUGIN_CUSTOMIZATION.INI file.

7. Start Notes.

8. Process your install manifest, deploy\install.xml, to install the new feature or feature set to the existing Notes runtime on the target system. You can do this using the rcplauncher tool or you can bundle the new installer in a kit.

The steps above are explained below and, where possible, contain links to explanatory help.

9. Create the feature, for example, using the Expeditor integrated development environment (IDE).

10. Create or confirm the features and plug-ins content in the update site. If you used the Expeditor IDE, the features and plugins subdirectories and their JAR file contents should already exist.

11. Create or confirm the SITE.XML index in the update site. If you used the Expeditor IDE, the SITE.XML index should already exist.

12. Sign the feature and plug-in JAR files in the update site.

13. Create a PLUGIN_CUSTOMIZATION.INI file and add any additional settings that you need. For example, you might specify the name of a default update server. Ensure that this file resides in your deploy directory, deploy\plugin_customization.ini.

Note Your third-party installer should merge its PLUGIN_CUSTOMIZATION.INI file with the PLUGIN_CUSTOMIZATION.INI file resident on the target client (<install_dir\framework\plugin_customization.ini). You can use the site registry to determine where Notes is installed on the target client. To do so, click Start - Run - regedit and then click Software - Lotus - Notes - 8.x. The DataPath value states where Notes is installed.

15. Perform a Merge Manifest operation. For more information, see the following topics in the Lotus Expeditor information center or Lotus Expeditor wiki:

• Deploying features to the platform
• Understanding the merge processing for the provisioning manifest

Note: Scenario 5 and 6 are the most applicable for Notes.

Note Before you can install, you must know where the Notes platform resides on the target system. Use the site registry to determine where Notes is installed on the target client. Click Start - Run - regedit and then click Software - Lotus - Notes - 8.x. The DataPath value states where Notes is installed.

You can use the rcplauncher command to process the install manifest and initiate install. You can also optionally package the third-party installer in an installation kit and initiate installation from that kit. For more information, see the following topics in the IBM Lotus Expeditor Information Center or Lotus Expeditor Wiki.
• Using the Provisioning application:
Note Expeditor does not currently display a progress bar during install.
• Managing using another management system:
• Using the Provisioning application when the platform is already running:

Lotus Expeditor documentation references

You may find the following Expeditor topics helpful as you begin to create third-party installers. See the Lotus Expeditor Information Center or Lotus Expeditor wiki.

• Using the provisioning manifest -- This describes how to find the Expeditor installation in the registry/etc directory or home directory property files.
• Understanding the merge process for the provisioning manifest and provisioning manifest DTD -- These describe how to create the appropriate manifests to install/remove/update features.
• Using the provisioning application -- This describes how to install and uninstall features in Expeditor.
• Using the provisioning application with Dcommands -- This describes how to launch the platform provisioning application using Dcommands regardless of whether the platform is currently running.

Eclipse files and folders in the install kit
Signing custom or third-party features and plug-ins for install and update
Managing client plug-in deployment
Client feature deployment
Deploying client plug-ins with widgets and the widget catalog
Lotus Expeditor Wiki
IBM Lotus Expeditor Information Center

Glossary