Windows installer

[p0nce]

No description provided.

[abaga129]

I'll start tracking the work here. You can assign this to me if you would like.

• Convert HTML and MD license files to plain text files
• duplicate windows-keyfile fields from pace.json in plugin.json
• Only show format name for each section (VST, VST3, etc) instead of (VST (32bit), VST (64bit), etc)
• Sign .exe using signtool from Windows SDK (only tested on Windows 10)
• Use header bmp image to customize installer
• Replace default Nullsoft Install System vX.X.X text with plugin.vendorName
• Separate description for VST (32bit) and VST (64bit) install directory pages. This will make things clearer to the user.
• Add descriptions to each section of the components page that will suggest what hosts/applications each format is used for.
• Improve Space Required estimation on the components page.

I've found a way to set the background image, however it requires a bmp image rather than a png. I believe we can covert the background image using the dub package imageformats. The background image can only be set by using the Ultra-Modern User Interface for NSIS. This extension makes the UI look nicer anyways so I'm okay with this.

[p0nce]

Hi, can we disallow HTML file as licence file since there is no rightful way to convert it to text?

[p0nce]

With regards to PNG, could you instead add a new key to the plugin.json, and the user would add a .bmp file no? imageformats is not exactly maintained

[abaga129]

Hi, can we disallow HTML file as licence file since there is no rightful way to convert it to text?

Sure. Should we have a license.txt for Windows and a license.html/license.md for MacOS? Or just a license.txt for all?

With regards to PNG, could you instead add a new key to the plugin.json, and the user would add a .bmp file no? imageformats is not exactly maintained

That would definitely be the simpler route. And I suppose it wouldn't be too much to ask the user to convert the png to bmp.

[0xEAB]

Ultra-Modern User Interface for NSIS

Doesn't look that modern to me. Screenshot on the linked page reminds me of 2010.

and the user would add a .bmp file no?

PowerShell should allow us to convert images, too

[p0nce]

The less dependencies the better, so if we can avoid depending on Ultra-Modern and the cost is not having a background image, then I'm all for not having a background image!

[0xEAB]

Also, it shouldn't be to hard to use a custom solution for background images. Nevertheless, does anyone use background images for their installers nowadays?

[abaga129]

Doesn't look that modern to me. Screenshot on the linked page reminds me of 2010.

Yeah its a bit misleading! Changing the background makes it look a little better though.

I think Modern UI (which is built into NSIS) looks better than UltraModern UI (can be installed with NSIS all as one install). Modern UI only has the ability to change the header image though. If we are going to have a separate bmp it may be better to just make a header bmp that has the company logo and use that instead.

@p0nce The installer I sent you previously was built with Modern UI.

[p0nce]

I liked that installer! Let's go header and separate bmp then? Looks like a win as you said.

[abaga129]

Great!

So do we want to have a separate text and html file for the license? Or only a single text file to be used on the mac installer as well? I'm fine with either way.

[0xEAB]

I'd say those formatted (RTF, HTML, etc.) license text neither look modern nor good nor justify the bloat they might introduce.

[p0nce]

Yup, I'd say we should force a Markdown licence, that will look acceptable in text form and is converted to HTML for the Mac installer already. I don't think anyone use Dplug with a HTML licence and allowing it to be fully custom doesn't really work (it's too much powerful for the use case).

[abaga129]

What should we do about keyPassword-windows and keyFile-windows? These are needed to sign the installer.

1. Leave them in pace.json and reuse the paceConfig object (my least favorite option, but this is what I'm currently doing)
2. Move them to plugin.json.
3. Duplicate the fields in plugin.json

I'm not sure if it makes much sense since to move the fields to plugin.json since it seems unrelated to the plugin itself.

[abaga129]

Another option would be maybe to make the pace.json a little more ambiguous and rename it to something like credentials.json since it is used for more than just Pace Eden now. Or maybe I'm just over complicating things 😃

[p0nce]

Mmmm it seems for the Mac installer I've choosen to duplicate the field "developerIdentity-osx" into plugin.json. I guess the idea was that the PACE signing could use a different certificate than the binaries... and the values are indeed different in my tree (!?). I don't think a different certificate is actually used.

So I'd vote for 3 if only to make that mistake consistent. :| and 2 later on but this is not your problem anymore :)

[abaga129]

Unfortunately I had to disable the Space Required feature from the components page for the installer. The reason is that File /r "someFilesToCopy" from the installer adds to the calculated Space Required. The reason we are copying the files this way is because of a work around that allows us to have separate install directories for VST 32bit and VST 64bit.

[0xEAB]

Shouldn't it be possible to let the user select what sub-components (VST, VST3, x64, x86) to install, plus have a size count for each of those? At least, that's what other installers do.

[p0nce]

I don't think "space required" is super interesting. A dplug plug-in will almost always display a small size, which isn't particularly a good thing as far as consumer go. You may remove that feature without damage. I don't think it really affect the decision to install or not.

[abaga129]

Shouldn't it be possible to let the user select what sub-components
I actually considered this. It would actually be simpler to go this route. Right now for VST and VST3 it installs both 32bit and 64bit. LV2 installs based on the bitness of the users OS.

[p0nce]

Implemented by @abaga129 in #361