windows installer

[whyrusleeping]

as a followup to #16, we can use https://github.com/atom/grunt-electron-installer to build a windows installer for us, it looks pretty nice and should help a lot with getting people to have ipfs installed.

[whyrusleeping]

This one looks better: https://github.com/maxogden/electron-packager

[daviddias]

We currently ship .exe for Windows (npm run dist-all) but it would be nice if we would have a 'installer dialog' like Windows users are used to.

Or maybe nowadays with Win 8.1, Win 10 and their app store the convention is different. Is there some Windows users that can advise?

[jbenet]

cc @gatesvp

[whyrusleeping]

the electron package will build that installer dialog

[gatesvp]

While I won't argue with a Windows Installer, it's kind of a weird set up in the Windows world.

IPFS on Windows should run as a service, kind of like BitTorrent. However right now, it is only available as a command line app. So what do we bundle? If the installer runs IPFS as a service, then maybe we can set up a shortcut to the "localhost" in a browser.

If we want IPFS as just a CLI tool, then we can use chocolatey.org and build something that targets CLI users. Of course if we have the above service installer, Chocolatey can run that installer as well.

I seem to recall that we had investigated a Windows service wrapper a few months back. Did they ever get installed for setup? On Aug 8, 2015 9:35 AM, "Jeromy Johnson" notifications@github.com wrote:

the electron package will build that installer dialog

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/ipfs/electron-app/issues/20#issuecomment-129004940.

[jbenet]

some quick thoughts:

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@whyrusleeping

the electron package will build that installer dialog

oh yeah? nice

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@gatesvp

IPFS on Windows should run as a service, kind of like BitTorrent. However right now, it is only available as a command line app. So what do we bundle? If the installer runs IPFS as a service, then maybe we can set up a shortcut to the "localhost" in a browser.

Yeah, this repo (electron-app) makes a tray-hosted service. try it out!

[gatesvp]

Looked at the screenshots for all these and this process makes sense. Do we have these binaries built anywhere so that I can test them out? Or are we waiting for them to get built? (i.e.: does someone need help for Windows here?)

[whyrusleeping]

@gatesvp we need windows help! (could you stop by irc for a chat?)

[whyrusleeping]

(although, not entirely related to this repo)

[bogdoslav]

Hello! I have created insttaller for windows: https://github.com/bogdoslav/ipfs-windows-installer Firewall rules and windows start-up task created during install. Please test and give a feedback.

[lidel]

Another piece of the puzzle: https://github.com/marcin212/ipfs-gui It does not touch firewall, but provides basic GUI via tray icon: