The FEATURES view allows to manage packaging project feature objects. Compared to the Feature view available within the Visual Designer mode, the FEATURE view of the Advanced mode is designed to provide in depth access to advanced feature properties and settings, including access to the components assigned to a specific feature.
The FEATURES view is organized to display the tree structure of already existing features (and the components which are assigned to them) on the left-hand side, and a details pane on the right for reviewing and manipulating properties and settings for the currently selected feature.
Since the tree structure of features and their components may become quite extensive within complex packaging projects, RayPack offers some supportive interface options for swift orientation:
•At the bottom of the feature tree view, there is an option Show components. It is activated by default. Disabling the checkbox immediately reduced the displayed objects of the tree view to features - components are hidden.
•Additionally, the tree structure may be totally expanded or collapsed by the options provided by the context menu that is revealed when a user right-clicks anywhere within the feature tree display area.
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Note: Since the FEATURE tree view usually displays features and components, selecting an object from that tree may either display the details pane for feature or component properties. This help section is about features. Please refer to the COMPONENT view help section for details regarding the functionality provided for component management. |
Feature Object Structures
Features are organized in a tree like structure: based on one or more root features (= nodes), packagers nest child features as further node levels and add component assignments as leaves for the tree structure. Since features need to have at least one component assignment, and features cannot be nested below a component, features should never be the leaves of this specific feature tree construct.
Hidden features (the features that are not visible in the installer user interface) are displayed in a grayed out mode and always shown before any other visible features.
Features represent the lowest level of user interaction regarding decisions about what parts of a deployment package (which may be a software application, simply a group of resources transferred to the target machine, or even a set of scripts designed for execution on the target machine) should be actively executed during the package sequences. Since users do not see components but, if configured to be visible, features, it is highly recommended to keep the user perspective in mind when the feature tree is built.
The FEATURE view allows to define settings that prevent users from seeing or optionally selecting features. It is even possible to decide whether a feature may be advertised or installed remotely. Please refer to the following help sections for details about available, recommended and default feature property settings.
Core Feature Management Procedures
•Assign components to a feature
When a feature is right-clicked from the tree view area, the context menu reveals options to rename and remove features, as well as items that allow to add a new child feature, and to call the already focused object row in the Features table within the TABLES view.
Selecting Go to Row from the context menu loads the TABLES view with the Feature table displayed, and the data row of the selected feature highlighted for swift recognition.