[Distutils] pre-pre PEP: wininst improvements

M.-A. Lemburg mal@lemburg.com
Fri Jan 19 08:52:01 2001


Thomas Heller wrote:
> 
> It seems there are a lot of wishes for wininst, maybe
> it is time to write a bdist_wininst PEP?
> 
> What I have collected in my mind:
> 
> - The default installation directory should be \Python\Lib\site-packages
>   instead of \Python.
> 
> - The installer should be able to install in a directory
>   supplied by the user, comparable to what
>   'python setup.py --root <whatever>' does.
> 
> - bdist_wininst should have more options to change
>   the appearane of the installer: Background bitmap
>   instead of simply displaying the installation title,
>   possibility to change the 'python powered' bitmap
>   into one supplied by the packager.

Some more wishes:

* there should be a way to add a license agreement page
  (which is then shown in case a license is passed to the
  installer via a new option --license-agreement)

* the strings shown by the dialogs should come from some
  .ini file which the maintainer can then change; this would
  also allow limited i18n

> - bdist_wininst should collect uninstall information
>   and register an uninstaller in the windows registry.
> 
> - bdist_wininst could create shortcuts in the start menu
>   and on the desktop for scripts ('applications') installed.

Would these be the ones you put into scripts or do we need
a new option for application entry points ?
 
> (I've left out problems which should be more or less
> solved by distutils: Installation of documentation,...)

+1 on all of these.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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