Hello, I would like to expose some thoughts about the current move for the deployment of Freenet on windows platforms.
Currently as far as i understand, toad and operhiem1 are the only to maintain the windows installer of Freenet. This Freenet installer and all Freenet EXE (freenet.exe, freenetlauncher.exe ) are written in AutoHotKey. Due to its limitations (Unicode support) and recurrent false positives from anti viruses, it has been considered to move away from AutoHotKey. Toad summarize thoughts here: https://bugs.freenetproject.org/view.php?id=5456#c9883. After reading this, i have started (with curiosity in mind) to work on an installer written with InnoSetup (https://github.com/freenet/wininstaller-staging/issues/12), which is a true and dedicated software for creating installer for Windows. But during this process and with some previous experiences related to Freenet on windows (https://bitbucket.org/romnbb/freenetfortraveler) a question came to my mind: Does Freenet needs an installer on Windows ? What this installer currently does : - Check port availability and writing settings in freenet.ini file before its first launch. - Determine how much ram to allocate to java (wrapper.java.maxmemory) - Extract all Freenet related files What if Freenet package is provided as a Zip file (Toad post: https://bugs.freenetproject.org/view.php?id=5842) and all pre-required settings handled, at a "First launch step", by the main program on windows : Freenet.exe (aka Freenet Tray) ? Upsides: - A simple zip file can easily fits the maintainability requirement. Files that change the most are related to the core of freenet (freenet.jar, plugins and maybe others) not those related to windows. - There is no doubts or problems creating zip files natively from Linux. Downsides: - Users need to know what to do with this Zip file. That, most probably, why Installers are commonly used on Windows : user will click, click , click , click ... (without reading most of the time...) - Handle of pre-settings must be ported to the main program (freenet.exe). And with that come an other related question. If so, what to do about Freenet.exe (freenet tray), which is the desktop interface between Users and Freenet main interface (freenet proxy). Keep using AutoHotKey ? Re-write it in another language (Java ? FreePascal ?). Maybe i have missed some important things about this deployment on windows that can changed my thoughts if i am aware of. So, feedbacks are welcome. Whatever the direction taken, i will gladly help to maintain the windows side of Freenet :) . Best regards, Romain. PS: sorry if my english appears to be a bit "crude". It's not my native language and long text doesn't help.
