hsinstall
Synopsis
Install Haskell software
Description
OVERVIEW
hsinstall is a tool for deploying software projects into directory structures
suitable for installation on a system. It builds upon the stack install
command and adds more features. Those are:
- Copying the
LICENSE file into the deployment directory
- Copying the
resources directory into the deployment directory so these
files can be located using relative paths at runtime (more on this later in
RESOURCES)
- Building an AppDir directory structure for a project and producing an
AppImage
It will be necessary to have the Haskell stack tool on your PATH:
https://docs.haskellstack.org/en/stable/README/
If the AppImage features are desired, you must have these tools on your PATH:
linuxdeploy: https://github.com/linuxdeploy/linuxdeploy/releases
linuxdeploy-plugin-appimage: https://github.com/linuxdeploy/linuxdeploy-plugin-appimage/releases
MODES
hsinstall operates in two modes. The first is a plain deployment with no
AppImage creation. The PREFIX will default to AppDir/usr and all binaries in
the project will be deployed to AppDir/usr/bin.
The second mode is intended to set up for AppImage creation and is triggered by
specifying exactly one EXECUTABLE from the project in the arguments. This will
change the PREFIX to AppDir_EXECUTABLE/usr. And only that single executable
will be copied to the AppDir_EXECUTABLE/usr/bin directory.
The directory layout will be a standard FHS
shape, common in UNIX-like operating systems. Like this:
<PREFIX>/
bin/...
share/
<PROJECT>-<VERSION>/ <-- this is the share directory
doc/LICENSE
resources/...
Be aware that when the --delete switch is used the binaries in <PREFIX>/bin
WILL NOT be deleted, only the share directory:
<PREFIX>/share/<PROJECT>-<VERSION>
APPIMAGE CREATION
Even for a first-time AppImaging, this tool should produce a working AppImage.
If missing, it will create default .desktop and .svg files in
util/resources/appimage. Customize or replace these to fit your project, and
then check these two files into source control for future builds.
The default .desktop file Categories will be populated with 'Utility;'. We
recommend adjusting this using the XDG list of registered categories:
https://specifications.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/apa.html
If your application is a command-line program, append this line to the end of
the default .desktop file: 'Terminal=true'
If your application isn't a command-line tool, we recommend using a proper icon
instead of the hsinstall default, which is a command shell icon.
RESOURCES
If present, hsinstall will deploy a resources directory to
<PREFIX>/share/PROJECT-VERSION/resources. In order to locate these files at
runtime, the hsinstall project includes a library to build filesystem-portable
relative paths. See this source code for help on integrating this into your
app:
https://github.com/dino-/hsinstall/blob/master/src/lib/HSInstall/Resources.hs
Development
Browse the source
Get source with git and build
$ git clone https://github.com/dino-/hsinstall.git
$ cd hsinstall
$ stack build
If you have the abovementioned linuxdeploy-* programs on your path, we can do
something really cool. Use this freshly-built hsinstall to package itself
into an AppImage:
$ stack exec hsinstall -- --mk-appimage hsinstall
And you should see an hsinstall-x86_64.AppImage binary in .
Authors
Dino Morelli dino@ui3.info
