RE: [perl-win32-gui-hackers] Distributing manifests [Was: Application that in installed in perl bin directory to start up samples]

[Jeremy W. <jez...@ho...>]

>I don't have access to XP, so have not looked into manifests.  I can see 
>that distributing them (or otherwise making them available) would be a good 
>thing, but I'm not so sure about installing them in the perl bin directory 
>- is there any down side to doing that?

The manifest is a simple XML string:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
  <assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
      <assemblyIdentity
          processorArchitecture="x86"
          version="5.1.0.0"
          type="win32"
          name="Your application"
      />
      <description>Win32::GUI Application</description>
      <dependency>
          <dependentAssembly>
              <assemblyIdentity
                  type="win32"
                  name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls"
                  version="6.0.0.0"
                  publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df"
                  language="*"
                  processorArchitecture="x86"
          />
      </dependentAssembly>
      </dependency>
  </assembly>

When saved as "perl.exe.manifest" in the bin dir it automatically turns on 
XP styles for any script ran with perl.pl - the manifest has no effect with 
other versions of Windows. When converted to an exe, the manifest can exist 
as a separate file or you can add the manifest as a resource to the exe 
(which is the approach I take).

Perhaps it's worth including the manifest in the source - and even for the 
PPM the manifest is extracted somewhere?

>How about a Wiki page explaining what is needed as a starting point?

Sure, no problem - it might be worth having it as part of the core 
documentation aswell.

Cheers,

jez.