From lurking on the list for a while and also from the more recent "Customer Friendlier Boost Installation" thread here is a feature/wish list of items
Hi, I am in the process of looking at how feasible it would be to use WIX to create an MSI installer package for Boost for the Windows Platform(s). Now bearing in mind that I have never used WIX before and have been out of the programming game for a while I think I would like to help/run with this task. that I have seen or would personally like: * Install boost using an installer application * Detect necessary installation information * Provide "header only install" or header and lib file install" * Install foo library and dependencies and that is it * Configure various IDE's to support using boost * Install and register an MSDN Library of the boost documentation Obviously this list has some items on it that may not even be possible but hey we need something to aim for. Also the main goal would be to develop an automated rather then hand-rolic process for creating this MSI file. To help reach this goal I am hoping someone with more experience with the boost development process could shed some light on these questions. 1. Can we write a program that could work out if a library is header only? (generating a list of all these files) 2. Can we write a program that could work out if a library needs to be compiled as a lib file? (generating a list of all these files) 3. Can we write a program that could work out the dependencies between different libraries? (generating a list of all the dependencies) 4. Is there a number of files that you would consider to be core boost files (ie something that the majority of boost libraries/users would use)? Or if we cannot write a program to work it out how feasible would it be to have library maintainers maintain another file (for each library) containing this information? *ducks for cover* Seriously this file could be used for any platform to help with creating any form of installation package (RPMS, Debian Packages, whatever Darwin uses, ...) In effect if we could some how generate these files. We can then write a script that would create an XML file that the WIX application can convert into a useable MSI installation package automatically with virtually no user interaction (just need WIX and maybe the Windows Installer SDK installed). See this link for an example of how someone is doing an automated install build on windows: http://weblogs.asp.net/lorenh/archive/2004/05/09/128899.aspx?Pending=true With the finished tools/process I would almost hope it to be as simple as "Bjam package". Also the other main benefit with this would be all the files used to generate the MSI would be text files and can be checked into and out of CVS for version control. Thoughts? Peter. PS. Useful links for those who have never heard of WIX include: WIX Homepage: http://sourceforge.net/projects/wix/ Tutorial for WIX: http://www.tramontana.co.hu/wix/index.html