Re: [Gnumed-devel] Re: windows installer

[David Grant]

Ian Haywood wrote:

> On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 14:09:36 +0100
> Hilmar Berger <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>  
>
> > Sebastian Hilbert schrieb:
> >
> >    
> >
> > > I am working on an graphical Windows installer once again.
> > > This is just to let you know to avoid duplicate effort.
> > >      
> > I would suggest to a) choose a modular approach (one module = one task) 
> > and b)
> > use python scripts once python is installed (which would mean that you 
> > have to install python at the very beginning). This has the advantage 
> > that one could re-use modules in a Unix/Max environment.
> >    
I'm not sure why Hilmar mentioned "install python at the very 
beginning".  Why is gnumed even concerned with installing python?  The 
gnumed install should not work if python is not installed/detected.

> Problem is, to be graphical and portable, you need wxPython also so
> sizewise 90% of the install is already done. ;-)
>
> Unfortunately, a Windows-native installer is required for this inital part. I 
> would
> recommend the NSIS installer which is totally scriptable and can execute other 
> programs
> (such as Python scripts) for the final configuration steps.
>  
I agree NSIS is good.  But I think most of the work should be done by 
distutils and NSIS should just call "python setup.py" or whatever.  I'm 
not an expert on this BTW.

> I assume you are just writing an installer for the client only. For the server, 
> users need
> Cygwin, which has its own (pretty good IMHO) installer and package system, I 
> suggest we
> just write a 'gnumed' package for that system.
>
> One final suggestion: don't use environment variables such as PYTHONPATH to 
> tell gnumed where
> to find modules. 
I don't get this.  All modules (like wxPython) should be in 
site-packages, so any python program should find them fine.

> Windows has a 128-byte limit on the size of the environment (same as CP/M). 
> Use the Windows registry, or write the gnumed.py script at install-time
> from a template with the correct paths embedded.  
>
> Ian
>  
>
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--
David J. Grant
M.A.Sc. Candidate in Electrical Engineering
a-Si and Integrated Circuits Lab
University of Waterloo
Room DC3707
519-888-4567 x2872
http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~djgrant