Some notes on packages

Installation

To make package installation even easier than before, I made a setup tool.
Most packages include the setup tool.
It's really easy: start Setup.exe, specify the Dev-C++ directory, click at Install, and you're done!
However, to uninstall a package, you'll need the Package Manager, which is not included in Dev-C++.
So download and install the Package Manager.

You can still install packages without any problem if you don't have the Package Manager, though.
You just can't uninstall anything.

Both programs (the setup tool and the Package Manager) are released under the GNU General Public License. Here are the source codes (written in Delphi 3):

Package Manager:
http://www.oocities.org/honglilai/bins/package-manager.zip (249 KB)

The setup tool:
http://www.oocities.org/honglilai/bins/setup-src.zip (8 KB)

Archive formats

All files in a package are compressed in one single archive.
Sometimes I use the well-known Zip format to compress them, but sometimes I also use the Tar+Gzip (*.tar.gz or *.tgz files).
That's because sometimes, Tar+Gzip provides better compression than Zip.
The GTK+ package for example, will be about 200 KB larger when compressed with Zip.

How to decompress/unpack/extract it

Everybody knows how to extarct Zip files, but Tar+Gzip is different.
Tar+Gzip is widely used in the Unix/Linux world, but almost unknown to Windows users.
If you're familiar with Unix and it GNU tools, you can use the MS-DOS port (they support long filenames!) of GNU tar and GNU gzip.
If you prefer a GUI, you should use WinZip version 6.0 or higher.
WinZip supports Zip, Tar, Gzip, Tar+Gzip, and more.

Download the GNU tools

GNU tar:
http://members.fortunecity.com/honglilai/bins/tar-dos.zip (107 KB)

GNU Gzip:
http://members.fortunecity.com/honglilai/bins/gzip-dos.zip (77 KB)