Application deployment with Ant: ROXES ANT Tasks

ROXES ANT Tasks are a collection of 16 Ant tasks for simplifying application deployment.

• win32.properties - provides access to special Windows directories like desktop, program menu, program files and many more.
• win32.registry - lets you create/read/write/delete windows registry subtrees and entries.
• win32.shortcut - is able to create Windows Shortcuts. Both Windows Shortcut file formats (.url and .lnk) can be read and written.
• sfx - creates native self extracting executables out of ZIP archives. Currently supported target platforms are Windows, MacOS X, almost any Unix and self executable JAVA Jar files. For Windows the executable command may contain placeholders for registry, enviroment and executable filename which are evaluated at runtime. The icon for the windows executable can be defined by the task.
• jstub - jstub creates native executables for Windows, MacOS X and almost any Unix System out of a working JAR archive. For Windows the executable command may contain placeholders for registry, enviroment and executable filename which are evaluated at runtime. The icon for the windows executable can be defined be the task.
• jnlp - simplifies the creation of JNLP files for JAVA Web Start. The jnlp task is able to handle ANT Filesets as resources. This feature makes jnlp file creation using the jnlp Task much more easier.
• preferences - lets you access the JAVA Preferences API. You can read, write, import, export and test preferences data and nodes. Using this task is very useful for configuring applications.
• properties - The properties task is able to write Java property files. This task can merge existing properties files with custom properties defined in the ant build file. The custom property definition can be used in conjunction with conditions. properties can be used to store user input during build for later use.
• find - The find task is able find files using a pattern. This task is especially useful when you use libraries which name contain version/build information which may vary over the time. Using the find task you can use the file of your choice without changing the build file again and again.
• compare - This task can compare 2 values either numerical ore aplanumerical and set customziable properties depending of the result.
• execute - executes a block of tasks one ore more times depending of a condition.
• call - executes a task one ore more times depending of a condition.
• os.properties - creates properties containing informations about the underlying os.
• unix.properties - makes important properties of the underlying unix system available as ant properties. espcially common kde directories like program menu, desktop etc. are supported.
• unix.link - creates a unix soft link. works only under unix.
• unix.kde.shortcut - creates a kde shortcut file used to create desktop or program menu entries.
• unix.kde.directoryshortcut - creates a kde directory shortcut file used to create desktop or program menu entries.