C#•3y ago

Need help creating a small installer

Using Spectre.Console, I wanna create a really small console app which simply downloads Trace Spy (https://github.com/smourier/TraceSpy), a custom config for it, and a font to go with it (Cascadia Code). I just need some guidance on how to use Spectre, and some insights into best practices and the like. I'll also need a lot of help getting progress bars to work, as well as unzipping and installing the font for the user.

76 Replies

eroOP•3y ago

let me start with the obvious bit; letting the user choose the directory which they would like to download WpfTraceSpy.exe to. my current choice is the user's desktop. should i change this to the directory they opened the installer in?

AnsiConsole.Write(new Rule("[yellow]Directory[/]").LeftAligned());

string desktopPath = Path.Join(
    Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.UserProfile),
    "Desktop");

string directory = AnsiConsole.Prompt<string>(
    new TextPrompt<string>("Where would you like to install Trace Spy?")
    .DefaultValue(desktopPath)
    .ValidationErrorMessage("Path is not a valid directory or directory cannot be accessed.")
    .Validate(path =>
    {
        try
        {
            using FileStream tempStream = File.Create(
                Path.Combine(path, Path.GetRandomFileName()),
                1,
                FileOptions.DeleteOnClose);

            return true;
        }
        catch
        {
            return false;
        }
    }));

AnsiConsole.Write(new Rule("[yellow]Directory[/]").LeftAligned());

string desktopPath = Path.Join(
    Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.UserProfile),
    "Desktop");

string directory = AnsiConsole.Prompt<string>(
    new TextPrompt<string>("Where would you like to install Trace Spy?")
    .DefaultValue(desktopPath)
    .ValidationErrorMessage("Path is not a valid directory or directory cannot be accessed.")
    .Validate(path =>
    {
        try
        {
            using FileStream tempStream = File.Create(
                Path.Combine(path, Path.GetRandomFileName()),
                1,
                FileOptions.DeleteOnClose);

            return true;
        }
        catch
        {
            return false;
        }
    }));

my reasoning for the Validate func is that a try-catch there will eliminate absolutely any and all doubt that this is a directory i can save the .exe in that should be fine, yes?

Unknown User•3y ago

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eroOP•3y ago

it's a singular exe, i don't think i want to hide that in appdata where someone may not find it after installation also it's not my app honestly i'm not too happy with spectre as a whole

Unknown User•3y ago

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eroOP•3y ago

like sure, you can set a "default value" for a prompt, but for an inexperienced user, this might not look like a "default" they can just hit return on

eroOP•3y ago

you can't insert the default where the user is typing, you can't tab-complete paths when typing very underwhelming

Unknown User•3y ago

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eroOP•3y ago

yeah i think i'ma just drop this whole thing lol too much work for what it's worth

Unknown User•3y ago

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eroOP•3y ago

basically, yeah my audience would be using it to read ODS traces

Unknown User•3y ago

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eroOP•3y ago

ehhh i dunno i need to download the tracespy exe, which i need to get from the latest release on the github repo i need to get cascadia code, also from the latest release on github, unzip, and install all font faces and i need to download a config for tracespy, but that's really not an issue, literally just a plain text file

Unknown User•3y ago

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eroOP•3y ago

i mean, i can bundle all that into an app too the point is to download and extract it dynamically in case there's a new release

Unknown User•3y ago

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eroOP•3y ago

i mean i could trim it, right $singlefile

MODiX•3y ago

dotnet publish -c Release -r <runtime identifier> -p:PublishSingleFile=true Use of -r|--runtime implies --self-contained true. Add --self-contained false to publish as runtime-dependent. -r ... and -p:PublishSingleFile=true can be moved to .csproj as the following properties:

<RuntimeIdentifier>runtime identifier</RuntimeIdentifier>
<PublishSingleFile>true</PublishSingleFile>

<RuntimeIdentifier>runtime identifier</RuntimeIdentifier>
<PublishSingleFile>true</PublishSingleFile>

but to target multiple RIDs, you have to use dotnet publish with the -r option for each RID. You can also add -p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true to include native libraries (like Common Language Runtime dlls) in the output executable. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/single-file https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/rid-catalog https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/tools/dotnet-publish

Create a single file for application deployment - .NET

Learn what single file application is and why you should consider using this application deployment model.

.NET Runtime Identifier (RID) catalog

Learn about the Runtime Identifier (RID) and how RIDs are used in .NET.

eroOP•3y ago

meh, whichever it is

Unknown User•3y ago

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eroOP•3y ago

but yeah i don't even know how to get a file from the latest release on github cause github.com/Foo/Bar/release/latest redirects to the actual tag okay, i may have a way. but i need some web api help, since i don't understand much of it github has an api

eroOP•3y ago

https://docs.github.com/en/rest/releases/releases#get-a-release

GitHub Docs

Releases - GitHub Docs

eroOP•3y ago

for example, https://api.github.com/repos/smourier/TraceSpy/releases/latest will get me the latest release all downloadable files are stored in the assets array it would seem and the actual download url of the asset is under browser_download_url i'm not sure if it would be bad practice to just hard code that url?

Unknown User•3y ago

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pip•3y ago

i mean it depends on the nature of your app, and your future plans. if you are simply using this application as a one-off and don't care about reusability and extendability, then i see no problems with hard-coding that url. if you plan to extend/retune this app later then going directly through github api sounds better. if the url changes in the future, the github api should catch that and your program would automatically adjust.

Anton•3y ago

if it needs to be user friendly, you might be better off making a dialog window app instead

eroOP•3y ago

it has like 2 prompts buuut you're not entirely wrong with a gui you can at least browse your pc with the explorer to choose your install directory

Anton•3y ago

yeah

eroOP•3y ago

and while you can probably also do that in a console app, it's much less expected

Anton•3y ago

a neat gui would probably be more work too I know a game where the dev built their updater in spectre console, IRule maybe it's open source, idk

eroOP•3y ago

don't really care about the work i know wpf pretty well a neat gui wouldn't take me more than a few minutes

Anton•3y ago

wpf is only for Windows tho, keep that in mind

eroOP•3y ago

so is trace spy

Unknown User•3y ago

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eroOP•3y ago

i do :) as in, i literally do need help already. i'm not sure how to get started

pip•3y ago

like interacting with a REST API?

eroOP•3y ago

ya never done it

pip•3y ago

now is as good a time as any, REST APIs are so fun

eroOP•3y ago

not very familiar with anything web related, really

pip•3y ago

have you gone through tutorials like this yet? https://zetcode.com/csharp/httpclient/

C# HttpClient - creating HTTP requests with HttpClient in C#

C# HttpClient tutorial shows how to create HTTP requests with HttpClient in C#. In the examples, we create simple GET, HEAD, and POST requests.

eroOP•3y ago

never is there not a more... official one?

Unknown User•3y ago

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pip•3y ago

here's the official one, srry : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.net.http.httpclient?view=net-6.0

HttpClient Class (System.Net.Http)

Provides a class for sending HTTP requests and receiving HTTP responses from a resource identified by a URI.

pip•3y ago

then for REST quickly explained : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sUbt-Qp6Pg&ab_channel=WebDevSimplified

Web Dev Simplified

YouTube

What is REST?

If you have used any modern website, then chances are you have interacted with a website that uses REST. Even YouTube uses RESTful URLs on its site, but what exactly is REST? For starters, REST stands for Representation State Transfer and is just a fancy way of saying that a server responds to create, read, update, and delete requests in a stand...

pip•3y ago

if you want to use an easier framework to start, try looking up RestSharp Although i think the general consensus is httpclient is better because no dependencies

eroOP•3y ago

just skimming over the very first link, does it at all go over those like, parameters or whatever you'd call them? /repos/{owner}/{repo}/releases/{release_id}

Unknown User•3y ago

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eroOP•3y ago

cause as of now i only see those as placeholders that i would still just hard code or, if anything, pass them as args into a method

Unknown User•3y ago

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eroOP•3y ago

and then just $"api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/releases/{release_id}" man i hate this stuff, it's so complicated

Unknown User•3y ago

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pip•3y ago

i can guarantee though that while it's complicated now, it'll be so easy when you get the hang of it. and it's super fun. you can literally make anything interact with anything, automations, bots quite frankly, making the installer itself sounds harder than REST to me 😄

eroOP•3y ago

other way around for me well, frankly, i could just hard code all urls but that doesn't feel right

pip•3y ago

here's your plan if you want to do it via the API and don't want to hard code it -> use the get request at the Git API endpoint you linked before -> use https://json2csharp.com/ to get its models(you can play with the casing settings at the bottom) -> Use your JsonSerializer to convert the GET request's response to an object -> get the urls from the object's

browser_download_url

browser_download_url

field -> you're happy and fulfilled now

Convert JSON to C# Classes Online - Json2CSharp Toolkit

Convert any JSON object to C# classes online. Json2CSharp is a free toolkit that will help you generate C# classes on the fly.

eroOP•3y ago

the only difficult part here is step 1 i know how to work with json just fine

pip•3y ago

so the first part is probably the easiest, from the docs above you just do

static readonly HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
async Task YourFunction()
{
HttpResponseMessage httpResponse = await client.GetAsync("http://www.contoso.com/");
string stringResponse = response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
//do your jsonserialization with the string response
}

static readonly HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
async Task YourFunction()
{
HttpResponseMessage httpResponse = await client.GetAsync("http://www.contoso.com/");
string stringResponse = response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
//do your jsonserialization with the string response
}

eroOP•3y ago

so, what, i still just hard code the url?

pip•3y ago

for the api endpoint? ye probably. if the endpoint has specific vals that you want the user to be able to change, pass those in like the example you had above

Unknown User•3y ago

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pip•3y ago

yup good point, you can have the baseurl read from a config or server or anything

eroOP•3y ago

hm. i mean i've used httpclient like that before, i thought there might be like... some other magic behind it

Unknown User•3y ago

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eroOP•3y ago

hm. i mean at that point almost no difficulty remains really the hardest part is unzipping and installing the fonts

Unknown User•3y ago

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eroOP•3y ago

shouldn't that be using HttpClient client = new HttpClient(); :p

pip•3y ago

NOPE!

eroOP•3y ago

pip•3y ago

oops didn't mean for caps there hahaa

Unknown User•3y ago

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pip•3y ago

i'm pretty sure the HttpClient should be static/singleton or else you're going to be exhausting connection pool

eroOP•3y ago

i can do using because i'm just gonna download all the things in the same method call

pip•3y ago

well yea I guess my point here is that httpclient shouldn't be a local variable, it should be defined statically at the class level or managed via a factory

eroOP•3y ago

Unknown User•3y ago

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pip•3y ago

so i guess technically you're right, if it's local then it should have using

Unknown User•3y ago

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pip•3y ago

yea i don't think it's that huge of a deal, but i remember someone yelling at me that "using" is bad bad bad on httpclient, so it just stuck with me haha

Gaming

Programming

Need help creating a small installer