Re: Windows Installer for Emacs-27

[Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>]

On Wed, 22 Nov 2017 23:09:44 +0000 phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) wrote: 

PL> Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
>> On Tue, 07 Nov 2017 11:21:40 +0000 phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) wrote: 
PL> - asks for elevation but doesn't need it
PL> - supposed to use show a logo but doesn't
PL> - doesn't know how to uninstall an existing version
>> 
>> I assume you mean the contents of
>> https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/emacs-27/

PL> Yep.

>> In order to check for updates, can you also push a .txt or .json file
>> with enough information to identify the installer's version (which I
>> assume is also the Emacs version) and other metadata, like what DLLs
>> are included or even a manifest?

PL> The files for snapshots are now dated. Is this enough? Manifest is not
PL> so easy, since msys2 is a rolling release. The DLLs are the same as
PL> those in the pre-test dependencies zip file.

I think that's good, assuming the date acts as a version string, and the
latest release is always the version the user wants.

>> Then it will be easier to implement something in Emacs to check for
>> available updates on that platform by looking at that version.

PL> Let me know if you don't have enough.

Anything else we can do from Emacs to help the user would be good:

* check signature of installer (ideally without GnuPG, since installing
  that on W32 is not easy)
* check what DLLs are out of date and will be updated by the installer
* look at the release notes for this installer

I understand this is not necessarily easy, but it would be helpful to
Emacs users on that platform. None of it is required, though. We can
already start checking that URL for "the latest" if the user enables it.
Can you just look at that list and consider if any of it is feasible?

Thanks
Ted