Pragma wrote:
> Nicolai Waniek wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I agree with you and as soon as I have some spare time (and a win32
>> machine
>> under my fingers) and if you guys wish it, i'll write an inno setup
>> script for D
>> so walter could package a Win32 installer. Inno Setup is for free, but
>> i'll have
>> to read the licence so there are no licence infringements.
>>
>> This could - of course - then be adopted by the tango team :)
>>
>> regards and give me some time, possibly I have some this evening
> 
> This made me think: would that script be responsible for looking at ftp.digitalmars.com and installing any *newer* releases as well?
> 
> This is one thing that's really missing - installing it the first time is one thing, but keeping in sync is another.  So much software these days "phones home" on demand*, so why not D?
> 

Well no, that wouldn't be possible with InnoSetup i guess, but it would be nice to have a software. Maybe i have a look at something like that because it seems as everyone has an inno script already ;)

Nicolai Waniek wrote:
> Pragma wrote:
>> Nicolai Waniek wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I agree with you and as soon as I have some spare time (and a win32
>>> machine
>>> under my fingers) and if you guys wish it, i'll write an inno setup
>>> script for D
>>> so walter could package a Win32 installer. Inno Setup is for free, but
>>> i'll have
>>> to read the licence so there are no licence infringements.
>>>
>>> This could - of course - then be adopted by the tango team :)
>>>
>>> regards and give me some time, possibly I have some this evening
>> This made me think: would that script be responsible for looking at
>> ftp.digitalmars.com and installing any *newer* releases as well?
>>
>> This is one thing that's really missing - installing it the first time
>> is one thing, but keeping in sync is another.  So much software these
>> days "phones home" on demand*, so why not D?
>>
> 
> Well no, that wouldn't be possible with InnoSetup i guess, but it would be nice
> to have a software. Maybe i have a look at something like that because it seems
> as everyone has an inno script already ;)

The NSIS installer can do that kind of thing.  Of course you have to write the functionality mostly yourself, but it is possible.

--bb

dsss net install gdc-gcc-4.1
[or]
dsss net install dmd

Installing DSSS itself may involve extracting an archive, but at least it's only one archive, and one change to PATH :)

 - Gregor Richards

Bill Baxter wrote:
> 
> The NSIS installer can do that kind of thing.  Of course you have to write the functionality mostly yourself, but it is possible.
> 
> --bb

I didn't have a look at NSIS yet, but maybe that's the thing to use

Nicolai Waniek wrote:
> Bill Baxter wrote:
>> The NSIS installer can do that kind of thing.  Of course you have to
>> write the functionality mostly yourself, but it is possible.
>>
>> --bb
> 
> I didn't have a look at NSIS yet, but maybe that's the thing to use

I've used both Inno and NSIS.  My take is if you've got fairly simple requirements use Inno -- it's much easier and handles the common cases very well.  But if you need something special like connecting to the internet, etc, use NSIS.   NSIS really makes you write down just about every action explicitly though.  For instance you have to put in a command for each file you want installed, *and* for each file you want uninstalled.  Why there's not some sort of default to uninstall everything you install is beyond me.  I ended up writing some python scripts to generate an NSIS include file with the file lists needed by my installer.

--bb

I actually have one written for inno setup , it downloads the most recent dmc + dmd , here it is -> http://www.the-charlie.com/dmd_setup.exe .

Charlie

Nicolai Waniek wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I agree with you and as soon as I have some spare time (and a win32 machine
> under my fingers) and if you guys wish it, i'll write an inno setup script for D
> so walter could package a Win32 installer. Inno Setup is for free, but i'll have
> to read the licence so there are no licence infringements.
> 
> This could - of course - then be adopted by the tango team :)
> 
> regards and give me some time, possibly I have some this evening
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Georg Wrede wrote:
>> It seems to be usual to "download D" and then not have the thing work
>> off the bat. (d.D.learn has some excellent examples, and many of them by
>> able people, some even with a long C++ background.)
>>
>> With two compilers, all the platforms (Windows, Mac, various Linuxes)
>> and at least two lucrative base libraries (Tango and Phobos) -- and
>> especially since the newcomer can't simply choose like "compiler, OS,
>> lib, root/luser" etc, and simply have a self-installing complete binary
>> automatically sent to you (hint, hint), I suggest the following:
>>
>> Just like hello.d we should have a checkinstall.d that you should try to
>> build. It would have static asserts (or whatever it takes) that inform
>> the user about what's wrong. Probably one should first run a
>> checkinstall.{sh|bat} too to inform of the most basic problems.
>>
>> Such should be standard issue with all distributions.
>>
>> Today, many end up tweaking paths, library paths, choosing install
>> directories, contents and placements of the "ini" file, and whatnot. Of
>> course such could ultimately be avoided by adequate and prominent
>> documentation and targeted binary installs. But the checkinstall stuff
>> is more robust and could in principle be bullet proof. As in, either it
>> passes, or it discovers what's wrong. Oh, and how to remedy that.
>>
>> After all, there are only so many places where the train can derail, but
>> figuring out these is unnecessary hard for precisely the people who do
>> stumble on them.

Charlie wrote:
> I actually have one written for inno setup , it downloads the most recent dmc + dmd , here it is -> http://www.the-charlie.com/dmd_setup.exe .
> 
> Charlie
> 

Huh, how did you get Inno setup to do that?
Did you have to use a Pascal extension or something?  I had forgotten about that 'cause there's no way I'm going to write anything in Pascal.

--bb

Yea scripting for registering env vars and unzipping the package, but there is an extension http://www.istool.org/default.aspx/ that does the downloading work.

Charlie

Bill Baxter wrote:
> Charlie wrote:
>> I actually have one written for inno setup , it downloads the most recent dmc + dmd , here it is -> http://www.the-charlie.com/dmd_setup.exe .
>>
>> Charlie
>>
> 
> Huh, how did you get Inno setup to do that?
> Did you have to use a Pascal extension or something?  I had forgotten about that 'cause there's no way I'm going to write anything in Pascal.
> 
> --bb

Charlie wrote:
> Yea scripting for registering env vars and unzipping the package, but there is an extension http://www.istool.org/default.aspx/ that does the downloading work.

I guess Inno has been sprouting more bells and whistles since I last looked.  The thing I was after specifically was connecting to an http-based database interface.  Maybe inno has that too now.

Hey that's good news to hear, because I didn't have much time the last few days. So no work for me, and a lot of thanks to you :-)