We have this one here #155 and now after you have asked this question and I started looking into this I run into this InnoSetup that one of the users already provided a script for. So this might speed things up. I'll close this one, further discussion please in #155

Ok, InnoSetup seems to be not supporting creating MSI, might be a more complex task.

I'm checking on the Qt forum is anyone has experience with that.

Would a standard setup exe work for you?

I believe we need an MSI to automate deployment. I can also try to look into it. Where are the windows releases currently assembled? Is there something like GitHub actions or travis for this or is it done manually on some windows computer?

Everything is done by Travis-CI, the yml is the entry point https://github.com/ksnip/ksnip/blob/master/.travis.yml

WIX Toolkit seems the way to go, and somehow cmake has a WIX capability? Documentation

Looks like a good starting point, we might give it a try. Thanks for the hint :)

Another alternative seems to be Qbs with Wix Module https://doc.qt.io/qbs/qml-qbsmodules-wix.html

Which option is easier / better?

No clue, both is new territory for me. We use cmake and Qt so both might work. For cmake there is a mailing list where you can usually get feedback from people that know the stuff. Qt usually has good documentation but it might be harder to reach people of knowledge. I think I would check out for what can I find any kind of example or tutorial and give it a try.

Let my try cpack

I tried cpack on travis, but there is no way to debug this properly with the current delay.

While waiting for travis I tried a GitHub actions setup but it's also not trivial to convert to build to GitHub actions. There is a nice workaround to debug with SSH on the GitHub actions runner, which looked promising, but still the build would needed to be converted to GitHub actions, which is additional effort.

Is there anyone with a windows build environment who could try cpack locally?

I don't have Windows anymore, would need to buy it and install it somewhere first. @fnkabit is also a Linux user as far as I know.
I can try to get my hands on a digital windows version and set it up in a VM but won't probably have time for it today, best I could do is during the week.

Have you tried running the Windows script locally? The CI is also set up from scratch for every run, there should be everything you need. Thinking again about it, cmake, git and VS is probably preinstalled there.

Have you tried running the Windows script locally?

The funny part is that I am asking for MSI packages without having windows :) I am a Linux user myself, the MSI is for our colleagues. But I probably can get hold of a Windows machine or VM.

Still I think it needs quite some preinstalled tools, such as nmake, bash and so on..

Actually it is possible to get trial Windows VMs for (Browser) development here: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/

The travis build env is described here:

https://docs.travis-ci.com/user/reference/windows/#support

Maybe it's enough to install Chocolatey and Git bash plus the packages written there.

Funny indeed, two Linux users try setup MSI packages :)

nmake comes with Visual Studio I think, I can't remember installing it. For the bash I have used the bash that comes installed with Git. I think when you install Visual Studio Community version, Git and Cmake you should have all the tools.

Chocolatey might work if you can install VS via it.

Yep, looks like .. trying to setup a travis like environment now locally

Should I have a look at the PR and merge it into master or do you want to test further here?

@DamirPorobic you can review, thanks

Just did a quick check with the msi package you have provided:

1. I get this error:
   
2. It asks if you want to install a package from a unknown publisher, maybe we should look into that to become a known publisher

1. Looks like fixup_bundle does not include all files?
2. Probably you would need to purchase a code sign certificate ( let's encrypt does not work ).

Yes, looks like something is missing there.

Regarding the certificate, that's probably the right way to go. Any idea how much this would cost annually?
Need to check if we can cover it with our donations and sponsoring.

Something like this https://www.exemsi.com/documentation/sign-your-msi/?

Oh boy, just had a quick look, it looks like 269€/year, together with our other costs that would be more then we get in a year.

Maybe this is an option: http://www.anse.de/programming/code-signing-for-open-source-executable no clue if they mean this package or it needs additional hardware ... https://shop.certum.eu/open-source-code-signing-code.html

I wrote to those guys this morning, no feedback yet. I'll check with some others too regarding FOSS support.

Could it be that we are missing the this here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31920698/how-to-deploy-qwindowsintegrationplugin-with-cmake regarding the error message?

I think I didn't see a platform directory in the install dir.

This might also be a hint

Just had a test with the installed package, this is how it looked initially:

And it was not starting, after copying all missing files that are in the old zip I get this and ksnip starts without error message:

Still haven't had time to resolve this but I've been looking around for potential fixes, this might be a good starting point https://blog.nathanosman.com/2017/11/24/using-windeployqt-with-cpack.html

Okay, we are currently evaluating if we can install unsigned MSI files automatically. If they need to be signed for the unattended deployment, this would be annoying ;-(

Still I think it would be great if this can be easily installed within organizations and increase the user base :)

EDIT This does not look promissing: https://serverfault.com/questions/259635/need-to-allow-unsigned-msi-to-install

Oh boy, just had a quick look, it looks like 269€/year, together with our other costs that would be more then we get in a year.

There is one from comodo for 69$/yr .. still I would suggest writing to the different vendors to ask for sponsorship :)

I wrote to three of them, best was a 20% discount but one for the more expensive :/

I would definitely go for the signed one but that is probably the last step, still haven't had time to look into the MSI packaging but it's still high on my prio list.

@amenk have you seen this error before:

I believe it should not use NSIS but WiX... Maybe wrong generator somewhere specified?

@amenk I think I got it working. It installs all required plugins and can be started.
The only thing that is now missing are does ssl libs but they are only required when you upload something to imgur.

great, thanks. we will try to deploy it. I currently have some hope, that it does not need to be signed and we can sign it when importing to WSUS or whatever method we use to roll it out to our users.

Two issue that I have identified is the missing ssl files and the translations should be one directory deeper but both should fixable and non blocking.
I still want to go with the signing, we already pay 99$/year for MacOS signing with only a handful of users so we should also pay those 69€/year for our windows users where we have a lot more users.

I hope I can resolve everything within the next week.

Ok, this seems to be working now. Translations and ssl file are in correct place too. The only think that I'm still looking into is the signing. Getting the certificate seems to be a longer procedure that includes me taking selfies with my ID...

MSI Package is now signed. Need to add timestamp of signing and cleanup the CI script but in general seems to be working. Currently you only see my name there as publisher and windows still says it's an unknown app but with time that warning should go away if I understand correctly when more people install the application.