On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 11:31 PM, Bob Arnson <b...@joyofsetup.com> wrote:
> > Then Votive VSIX (or it's MSI equivalent) should include the Wix.dll
> > since it's a dependency.
>
> Votive itself doesn't use wix.dll directly (last time I checked) but
> it's useless without a full toolset install, including MSBuild.
> Hmmm...VSIXs don't have a lot of deployment power, but I assume it could
> include a full toolset. It wouldn't work to run a command-line build,
> but the toolset installer could theoretically be installed at the same
time.
Votive requires Wix.dll in only one place. It uses the
AssemblyDefaultWixExtensionAttribute
and WixExtension classes to validate extensions in the
WixReferenceValidator extension
> It's a big change to do a VSIX-style per-user install. But really it's
> no different than the instructions in the .chm about how you can check
> in the WiX binaries and redirect the import of wix.targets (which is
> basically what NuGet would do for you).
In some sense, isn't this the direction MSBuild tools seem to be going? A
check-out
allows you to build everything by downloading dependencies. If you want to
have
the awesome features of Votive, you install that too but less system-level
dependencies
on a build server would be nice I'm sure.
> > I think it'd be easier if Votive was in a totally different repo and
> > depended on Wix like a third party component would. Whether that's via
> > Wix shipped as a NuGet package which your VSIX and templates use
> > (that'd be slick if it worked well) or if it just uses the tools from
> > Program Files, I think it'd make developing Votive simpler. You
> > wouldn't have to worry that you need to modify something like
> > WixBuild.targets or WixBuild.props or override it.
>
> Historically, Votive and the core toolset were more tightly bound, as
> they were both developed simultaneously. Votive was also where the
> MSBuild targets originated. But that's just history. I whiteboarded an
> idea about breaking Votive out, mostly with the fantasy that Votive
> could support multiple toolset versions like VS languages do. Then WiX
> could be side-by-side.
I think this would be awesome. Votive would be let you manage different Wix
backends
for your project. No worries about the Wix version on the system
conflicting, you can "bind"
your Wix project to a given version and trust that it will work.
> I'll happily encourage and support (where I can) any experimentation you
> want to do with Votive. Its current level of functionality means that it
> mostly work through MSBuild so it's fairly loosely coupled with a
> particular toolset. We have a decent chunk of time for WiX v3.10 to make
> bigger changes.
I think I'll try to pull Votive out of the Wix tree and just see how
feasible this is to just
include the current toolset. I have a little time over the next few days I
think so we'll see
what I can get done.
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