What's in the FotoStation app bundle?

FotoStation for Mac can be downloaded from the Downloads section of the Fotoware Customer Portal. It comes as a disk image (.dmg) that can be mounted on the desktop and contains a single file - the FotoStation app, a bundle containing all the components required to run FotoStation.

When the application is launched after being copied to the hard drive, it unpacks all required components and places them in different folders within the Mac OS Library folder. It creates a configuration for the individual user in the user's Library folder. For more information on where the files are stored, see Where are configuration files stored in Mac? 

If FotoStation has not previously been installed on the Mac, the FLEXnet licensing service folder needs to have special permissions set, as does the folder where the trusted storage files are created. This requires user elevation with a password. However, by scripting the creation of these folders and placing the necessary files in them during deployment, a user with limited access in Mac OS can double-click the FotoStation app, and everything will run smoothly without user input. This also means that subsequent updates to FotoStation can be rolled out by simply replacing the FotoStation bundle in the Applications folder.

Which actions require deployment scripting?

The FLEXnet licensing service has to be manually put in the right place, and special permissions must be set using chmod. The file can be found in the FotoStation bundle: Right-click it and choose Show Package Contents. Open the Contents folder and then open the SharedSupport folder.

Scripting product activation

When deployed, large-scale FotoStation can be activated in two ways:

• regular online activation using the Fotoware license tool (part of the FotoStation app bundle)
• configuring FotoStation to get its activation from a license server

Presetting FotoStation to load a centrally stored configuration

The DefaultConfiguration.zip file is located in the SharedSupport folder in the application bundle. This is the configuration that FotoStation automatically unzips to /Library/Application Support/Fotoware/FotoStation when it starts, assuming no configuration is already present.

Copy this zip file to your local desktop and unzip it to find the locationData.xml file, which manages the location from where FotoStation loads its configuration.

Open it in a plain text editor (for example, TextEdit in Mac OS) to change the configuration type and location.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Fotoware_Settings>
 <Group name="ConfigLocation">
 <String name="locationType">FwpLogon</String>
 <Int name="showOffline">0</Int>
 <String name="logonPath"></String>
 <String name="serverUrl">IMSERVER</String>
 </Group>
</Fotoware_Settings>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Fotoware_Settings>
 <Group name="ConfigLocation">
 <String name="locationType">Logon</String>
 <Int name="showOffline">0</Int>
 <String name="logonPath">\\MYSERVER\Shared Data\FotoStation Logon</String>
 </Group>
</Fotoware_Settings>

What's next?

If you have not already created server-stored configurations for FotoStation, see Managing several FotoStation configurations on the network.