To ''install'' a piece of software is the process of getting it into a system in a way that it will operate appropriately.

Some software has simple installation requirements - [tclkit] for instance needs only be present in a directory that will be searched when you invoke it.

Other software requires a bit more work - while some software requires quite a lot of work to get installed.

Many times, software comes with instructions regarding installation.

If a particular piece of software does not come with such instructions, then one can either contact the author or other maintainers asking for assistance, or one can contact a web forum or usenet group which has a background familar with your computer operating system (or sometimes with the language being used in the application - or even sometimes a web forum specifically for the software package!) where one can ask for help.

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[RS]: Self-contained scripts [[we need a wiki page for what this phrase means and techniques to accomplish it]] also need no installation, if they do [exec magic] for Unix, and a regular Tcl installation (with .tcl association, etc.) is present on Windows.
In place of delivering separate icon files, they may be put in the script as [base64] encoded data, and loaded as such.
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[Stu]: ''Jan 4, 2003'' Here's a mini-installer for single-file tcl scripts using exec magic.  An interesting side-effect is that an installed program can still be used to install again.

 #! /bin/sh

 #########################################################################################
 #                                                                                       \
     if [ "$1" == "--help" ] ; then
 #                                                                                       \
         echo "Run without options to run normally, or install with:"
 #                                                                                       \
         echo "  --install src dest user group mode path-to-tclsh"
 #                                                                                       \
         echo "Do it like that, the installer is dumb."
 #                                                                                       \
         echo -n "Example: ./myapp.tcl --install ./myapp.tcl"
 #                                                                                       \
         echo " /usr/local/bin/myapp root bin 555 /usr/local/bin/tclsh8.4"
 #                                                                                       \
         exit
 #                                                                                       \
     elif [ "$1" == "--install" ] ; then
 #                                                                                       \
         echo "Installing ($2) to ($3), user($4) group($5) mode($6) path-to-tclsh($7)"
 #                                                                                       \
         sed -e "19,39s!/usr/local/bin/tclsh8.4!$7!" < "$2" > "$3"  &&  \
 #                                                                                       \
         chown "$4":"$5" "$3"                                       &&  \
 #                                                                                       \
         chmod "$6" "$3"
 #                                                                                       \
         exit
 #                                                                                       \
     else
 #                                                                                       \
         if [ -x /usr/local/bin/tclsh8.4 ]
 #                                                                                       \
         then exec /usr/local/bin/tclsh8.4 "$0" ${1+"$@"}
 #                                                                                       \
         else exec tclsh "$0" ${1+"$@"}
 #                                                                                       \
         fi
 #                                                                                       \
     fi
 #                                                                                       \
 #########################################################################################
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[Category Deployment] |
[Category Glossary]