I would like to create a terminal based installer/wizard.
Ideally, it'd be like the Ubuntu server installer, or the Arch Linux installer - a ncurses (?) heavy GUI with lots of form and arrow key goodness.
Second best would be a simpler question/answer type thing, similar to the "adduser" command prompting for password, username, etc.
I am Ruby biased, and would prefer a scripting language (not C), but I'm open to anything. It will only run on Ubuntu server, if that helps.
What are my options?
I'm not certain what you're asking. If you're looking for an implementation tool, you could look at urwid, which is a Python-based GUI toolkit library. It lets you write programs using GTK-style widgets and event interfaces for a text-based interface. If you're a decent scripter, it shouldn't be too hard to start from there and write the code to drive an installation process.
InstallJammer can do what you want in the second form. No ncurses interface to speak of though. 0-] It's written in Tcl/Tk, so it meets your scripting requirement though obviously not in your language of choice. We all have our language of choice, I suppose. 0-]
It would be easier to answer if you specified what you're trying to do. If you're installing something, it might make sense to just create a debian package and use install time configuration options available via debhelper.
If bash or shell scripting is okay, I'd suggest looking at package "dialog". Just put "dialog" as pre-depends for your package and you can use dialog features for your deb installer.
Another possibility could be the "pdmenu" package (origin: http://kitenet.net/~joey/code/pdmenu/).
Related
I am just starting out in Tcl and am trying to properly configure an editor and interpreter for use. On Tcl's download page it is recommended to use ActiveState's ActiveTcl, but I am learning Tcl for possible production use and want to avoid paying for it.
I tried setting up Eclipse's DLTK to use for learning, but from what I found I need to direct it to the tclsh executable to use it as the interpreter. In Tcl version 8.6.6, I can't find anything that will work. The supposed formats (I'm on Windows) should follow what's seen here, as I've seen this a few examples/tutorials.
As a last resort, I tried following the Windows instructions here to use my MS Visual Studio 2015 work with this, but there is no such vcvars file (what's asked for when reading makefile.vc after downloading Tcl).
I would really like to use Eclipse for this, so I guess my question is as follows: How do you use tclsh as a Tcl interpreter in Tcl 8.6.6?
ActiveTcl isn't a pay-for product. (ActiveState have some of those, but their language distribution isn't one of them as long as you're not after a support plan.)
To configure Eclipse to use the right installed version of Tcl, go to the Tcl → Interpreters page in the main Preferences panel. That lets you Add… an interpreter, which essentially just requires you to find where the tclsh you want to use is on your filesystem, and to give it a name. I use names like “Tcl 8.6” in my installation, so it isn't exactly rocket science. The DLTK system can find out pretty much everything else once it knows where the interpreter implementation is, but if you have several set up (e.g., I have both 8.5 and 8.6) then you'll need to say which one is default using the checkboxes in the list in the Interpreters pane.
(I've verified the above against Eclipse Neon running on OSX, but I don't think it will vary very much with other versions or platforms.)
Instead of having a different download of a program for Windows and Linux, would it be possible to make the download be a cross-platform script/executable that can download the correct installer from an FTP server and start that? What language should I write it in? The only one I can think of would be Java, but I don't want to take the time to learn it. I can't write it in Python or BASH, because most Windows machines don't have these installed. How should I do this?
Cross-platform executable(like an exe or a.out or ELF) is out of question. An executable is never cross-platform when Windows is involved. The scripting languages(or JIT compiled) have to be brought in for this purpose. We are in a CHICKEN-AND-EGG paradox. You may have to detect the OS the downloader is using, using a Javascript script in your website page and decide on what is to be done next etc...
Although not exactly what you are looking for, below are some pointers.
The best tool I know of, for multi-platform installers, is Flexera Software's InstallAnywhere. That might be a bit costly. For free options I would look into options like:
PERL
PYTHON (but this is out of question as per your post, but look at the end of my post for more options for Python)
Although writing the installer in any of the above languages might mean a lot more work, they provide you unmatched flexibility and complete control.
Perl requires that you install Perl interpreter and modules on Windows. But this also seems to be out of question for you. So you may avoid the headache by looking into:
PAR
pp
For Python go through:
py2exe
pyinstaller
I enjoy developing in Haskell, but am presently confronted with a challenge. At my place of education, I don't have administrative rights on my account. I want to debug/test while there. I need a way to run Haskell code without installing haskell-platform or ghci or anything else requiring of an administrative level of privilege. For instance, a web site which will run haskell code (abeit limited to not include file access of course) or a java utility (or standalone .app, though java is preferred due to the nature of the "parental controls"), or something else I haven't thought of. Source or compiled Java, Flash, and source code in Ruby or Python are preferred to native code. This is on Mac OS X 10.6, for reference.
You can install GHC without admin privileges, but you'll have to build from source. Check out the Building on MacOS X for more details.
Essentially, like any other open-source project, you can compile code and install it, generally, anywhere on your filesystem like into a folder in your home folder (I often use the ~/.local folder for that purpose).
As the linked page mentions, you can also use MacPorts and install it to any place you can write to. Once MacPorts is installed you can install GHC.
EDIT
As pointed out by Carl in the comments below, you don't need to build from source. Just grab the binary tarball from http://www.haskell.org/ghc/download_ghc_7_4_1#binaries.
In addition to all the other ideas, several companies will rent you virtual (cloud) linux servers for a few cents an hour. You have root on those and can install whatever you want, then freeze the image until you need it again.
Normally this might not be advantageous over a local solution if you can make one work, but a possible extra benefit would be that your work can stay on a single "computer" which you could access while sitting in front of any variety of modern PC that might be available to you on a given day.
An alternative not only for Haskell is http://ideone.com/
For the website option, TryHaskell will hardly cut it, it's way to limited.
codepad, OTOH, is more liberal, and should be of more use.
But honestly the bindist option is the best one, clearly!
If you truly can't install anything, then there's
http://tryhaskell.org/ -- like GHCi, but you can't load modules, which means not only that you can't use many standard functions (say, the functions in Data.List), but also that you can't use certain language features (like user-defined algebraic data types).
I also remember a hpaste-style site which executes its code -- and allows you to have private pastes -- but I can't remember it at the moment. Edit: I was thinking of http://codepad.org/ -- thanks #Mog
Try http://hiji.tinyrocket.se/ It is a haskell interpreter written using javascript.
http://ghc.io/ GHC.IO is a version of the Haskell interactive interpreter, ghci, that runs online in a web browser.
You just need to install homebrew, which you can do without root rights if you do so in your home directory. You can then brew install cabal-install
which will automatically install cabal and ghc, or brew install stack to install stack.
There is a web-based interpreter for Haskell at http://tryhaskell.org/. However, it may not provide enough functionality for your requirements.
I wrote a program in Perl, and now I want to send it to buddy. I don't want him having any kind of bother with launching it.
How do I make some package which he can just click and have all things ready to launch?
PS. I can ask him to download ActivePerl and install it beforehand.
PPS. I don't need to hide .pl sources from him. I need though automatic download and install of all required CPAN modules.
Also, what if in future I will need to scale it for production delivery? Meaning, it will be not a buddy on the receiving side, but Mr. Client?
I have used pp with great success. It can package a Perl interpreter and used modules all together into an executable file.
Then again there is always B::C which provides a perlcc utility, but I haven't had as much luck with that.
For easy distribution to windows clients, its hard to beat PerlApp, Par::Packer (aka pp), or Cava Packager.
Although I like Joel's suggestion best I'd want to point out another solution for you. As it seems you're targeting Windows you could also use the portable version of Strawberry Perl. Install the modules you need, add your script/application to it, setup a simple batch script to launch it with the portable environment and you're set.
The biggest downside compared to the pp (PAR::Packer) solution is that the size of your application will be rather big as pp only includes that what is necessary.
You might be looking for IndigoStar's perl2exe:
Perl2Exe is a command line program for converting Perl scripts to executable files. This allows you to create stand alone programs in Perl that do not require the Perl interpreter. You can ship the executable files without having to ship your Perl source code. Perl2Exe can generate executables for Windows and Unix target hosts.
Of course, the easiest way would be if your clients could run perl.
Yoy may wish to try Cava Packager. It can produce executables from Perl code on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It takes an alternative approach to PerlApp, pp and perl2exe. You should probably try them all and decide which you like best.
Note: As indicated by my name, I am affiliated with Cava Packager.
Par::Packer will do the job for you, without any fuss and is completely free. As long as you have installed the correct dependencies, you simply (on a windows machine) open a command prompt, CD into the directory where your perl source (e.g. 'samplefile.pl') resides and type: pp -o sampleprogram.exe samplefile.pl. After a minute or so, 'samplefile.exe' is compiled, and you can send it to your friend to run
Perl2Exe is a proprietary solution, and although it is good, is not free
Good luck!
I'm now learning Tcl/Tk, but as I'm running Windows, I want to create a fully featured(professional) development environment for this language, but I need to know:
Which tools I need to install(first of all)?
What are the IDEs that support Tcl/Tk development?
What is the best text editor to develop in?
Where I can find some librarys for it(if exists)?
It's possible to do some web applications with it?
It uses CGI?
Start off by installing ActiveTCL. It is free and includes TCL and TK bindings. If you have a favorite text editor you can use that. Make sure you have syntax highlighting. If you want something more advanced, I'd recommend Komodo. It is by active state and has a free version. It semantically understands TCL, so it is more intelligent than a standard text editor. For example it highlights syntax errors while you code.
Now write some code and spread the TCL love!
For an interactive Tcl shell, use TkCon
For an editor, I use Komodo or Vim
For web apps, there are FrameWorks, servers: TclHTTP, Aol Server, Apache modules, and of course CGI
For a text editor I would recommend trying jEdit; it has TCL syntax highlighting. When installed I would also recommend installing the following plugins (which can be done via the built-in plugin manager):
Project Viewer: Allows you to organise your files into projects, which gives it more of an IDE feel.
Editor Scheme: Gives you a set of pre-defined syntax highlighting colour schemes to choose from. My preference is for "zenburn".
As Byron mentioned, ActiveTCL is the place to start when using TCL on Windows. As for a text editor, I personally like SciTE, but any text editor that will do syntax highlighting will do (code folding helps as well).
The TCL wiki has the following page regarding IDEs: http://wiki.tcl.tk/998
If you are in need of a library providing specific functionality, I would first check the TCl wiki. There is no central repository of TCL extensions, but the wiki seems to be the central repository of TCL knowledge.
Yes, you can use TCL for web-based projects. You can find a bit of info here regarding CGI and TCL. Some webservers (AOLServer for instance) have a built-in TCL interpreter.
Others have already mentioned TkCon but most people don't utilise the full power of TkCon. It is much more than a REPL loop (for that you could have just used tclsh or wish). My favourite feature is TkCon's edit command.
Basically:
edit some_file.txt
lets you view and edit files.
set my_variable "some value"
edit my_variable
lets you view and edit the content of a variable, even arrays
proc my_function {} {}
edit my_function
lets you view and edit the body of a proc. In fact, this is how I usually write non-trivial procs in TkCon.
If you're going to write code that needs Windows-specific functionality, you will definitely want to get TWAPI the Tcl Windows API library.
With regards to the mentions of ActiveTcl - ActiveState (the creators of ActiveTcl) have been developing an extension repository. Certainly there are extensions which do not (yet) appear there, but there are over 3000 entities in their repository at this time, so many extensions are present there. ActiveTcl comes with a program called "teacup" which provides a command line interface to the repository, allowing you to install specific extensions (or, if you are like me, allowing you to install all the extensions relevant to your platform).
The Tcler's wiki has a number of references to additional tools and extensions. However, your favorite web search engines are likely to turn up utilities, tools, extensions, and applications not yet documented on the wiki or added to the ActiveState repository.
MyTcl is a fairly nice IDE with a Tcl environment included, autocomplete, syntax highlighting, debugging, etc. It has a similar look and feel to Visual Studio. The homepage is in Korean, but it's not too hard to find the download.