Command Line Installation of Personal Capture for Mac

Owned by Hannah Petty
Last updated: Sept 12, 2016Version comment
4 min read

In this section:

Overview

Personal Capture for Mac allows for command line installation (or unattended) of the software via command line execution on the target computer.

The command line install process is nearly identical to the standard installation process except for these differences.

  • You use a configuration file to convey the installation parameters, rather than entering them through a wizard. The same configuration file can be used for all installations of the same product (Personal Capture for Mac).
  • You invoke the installer from the command line.
  • You can start the installation process and walk away, leaving the installation unattended.

Personal Capture for Mac is supported on Mac OS X 10.7 and above (including support for 10.9 Mavericks and 10.10 Yosemite).

For Re-Installation or Upgrades

Both this and future upgrades can be executed from the Personal Capture installation by clicking on the upgrade message provided in the bottom bar of the application window.

If Personal Capture is not performing correctly and Customer Support has suggested you perform a fresh installation, uninstall the existing instance and restart the computer before re-installing.

Installation Procedure

Command line installation of Personal Capture involves the following steps:

  1. Create a configuration file to use for all of the classroom installations.
  2. Identify the computers where you want to install Personal Capture.
    • If the Macs are associated with different ESSs, perform the installations for each ESS group separately. The installation executable you download MUST be from the ESS to which the installation will communicate and be registered. The ESS information is located in the device.xml file contained within the installation package.
  3. Verify that the computers are running Mac OS X 10.7 or above.
  4. Download the installer from the ESS. If you have multiple ESSs, be sure the installer you use is from the same ESS with which the Personal Capture installation will be used.
  5. Run the unattended installation command. 

Create the Configuration File

The configuration file contains the same information you would normally enter via the installation wizard, and includes the following parameter:

  • installdir - This is the directory to which the program is installed. The directory shown in each example below is the default directory used by the installation wizard. As with the wizard, you can identify any location you want.

Create the configuration file and save it. You can name the file anything you want. The examples shown in the instructions on this page assume the name of the file is config.txt.

An example configuration file for Personal Capture mode installation:

installdir=/Applications/Echo360/Personal\ Capture.app

If you are installing Personal Capture for Mac to multiple Academic Staff Macs, note the following:

  • You can use the same configuration file for all of them.
  • Be sure the installation executable you are using was downloaded from the ESS to which the Personal Capture recordings will be published.
  • If you are upgrading Personal Capture installations via command line installation, be sure both you and Academic Staff users understand the possible ramifications for any existing recordings they may have, noting that:
    • Existing recordings will appear in the new version.
    • Staff will NOT be able to use the new Personal Capture to edit previous recordings that have two visual inputs (A/D/V or A/V/V).
    • Instead, they can publish their previous version's A/D/V or A/V/V personal captures and edit them through the ESS.

Run the Unattended Install

The installation procedure provided below assumes the following:

  • The installation file has been downloaded and you know the directory to which the executable was saved.
  • The directories identified in the configuration file can be created on the target computer.
  • You know and can include the fully qualified path to the configuration file.

If you are not familiar with the standard installation process, see Install Personal Capture Software.

To perform an unattended install:

  1. Create and save a configuration file as described above.
  2. Download the installation executable package (EchoSystemPersonalCaptureForMac.zip) from the ESS Downloads page, then unzip it.
    Note the following:
    • If you have multiple ESSs, be sure the installer you use is from the same ESS with which the Personal Capture installation will be used.
    • Be sure to note the location of the executable. You will need to run the installation command from this location.
     
  3. Open the Terminal.

  4. Navigate to the directory where the installation executable was saved.

    cd ~/Downloads/Echo360PersonalCaptureInstaller.app/Contents/MacOS

  5. Enter the following commands to adjust the permissions needed for this procedure.

    chmod +x Echo360\ Personal\ Capture && chmod +x osx-intel && chmod +x installbuilder*

  6. Run the installation using the configuration file parameters. Be sure to use the fully qualified path to the configuration file. The example command shown below assumes the configuration file is saved on the Academic Staff member's desktop on the target computer. Replace ~/Desktop/ with the appropriate directory/path.

    ./installbuilder.sh --mode unattended --optionfile ~/Desktop/config.txt


  7. When the installer is finished, close the Terminal window.

Troubleshooting the Installation

If you have problems with the installation, you can turn on a higher level of error messaging by adjusting the "debuglevel" option in the configuration file and specifying the location of the debug results. The most "verbose" debug level is level 4, and should provide you with sufficient information. 

An example configuration file for additional debug logging (The example file that is shown below assumes the debug file name being created is debug.txt and that it is being saved on the Academic Staff member's desktop on the target computer. Replace debug.txt with the appropriate filename and ~/Desktop/ with the appropriate directory/path):

installdir=/Applications/Echo360/Personal\ Capture.app

debugtrace=~/Desktop/debug.txt

debuglevel=4

Next Steps

For Personal Capture installations, inform the Academic Staff members of the new or upgraded program. You can point users to Personal Capture for Academic Staff online documentation, or instruct them to click the Help link in the interface for a PDF containing instructions for use.

If you upgraded Personal Capture installations for Mac users, you may want to inform staff of the new interface, and of the following:

  • Existing recordings will appear in the new version. If users do not see them, have them navigate to the Settings page and check or edit the path to their recordings folder.
  • Staff will NOT be able to use the new Personal Capture to edit previous recordings that have two visual inputs (A/D/V or A/V/V).
  • Instead, staff users can publish their previous version's A/D/V or A/V/V personal captures, then edit them through the ESS.