Simple filesystem-based desktop application deployment for Windows

unfurl is a simple desktop application deployment tool for Microsoft Windows.

The main objective is to create a simple and robust alternative to systems such as ClickOnce. Inspired by nlaunch, the objective is to create an application/environment/language-agnostic deployment tool that does not require sophisticated infrastructure.

1. unfurl is started with the manifest file as the first argument. Any additional arguments will be passed along to the target application. Examples:
   • unfurl.exe myapp
   • unfurl.exe myapp.xml
   • unfurl.exe apps\myapp
   • unfurl.exe P:\deploy\myapp.xml
2. It finds the manifest file based on the first argument:

• If the argument is an absolute or relative path, it is used
• Search the working directory for the manifest file, adding .xml if needed
• Search the application directory for the manifest file, adding .xml if needed

3. The manifest file is parsed.
4. It checks the local APPDATA folder for existence of the latest version of the target application binary.
5. If a local binary was not found, the latest application package is found in repository. The package naming convention is [identifier]-[current-version].zip. E.g. myapp-1.0.zip. The package is extracted to the local APPDATA folder.
6. The application specified by binary is launched, passing along any additional command line arguments.

If an error occurs during unpackaging, the local copy is removed from APPDATA.

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<unfurl>
  <binary>myapp.exe</binary>
  <repository>P:\deploy</repository>
  <identifier>myapp</identifier>
  <current-version>1.0</current-version>
</unfurl>

• Tests
• Package dependencies (e.g. a Qt package containing all DLL's)

This code is copyright 2013 Logan Raarup, and is released under the revised BSD License.

For more information, see LICENSE.