Python-based
Hierarchical
ENvironment
for
Integrated
Xtallography
Once you are satisfied that your Windows build of PHENIX passes all tests you may want to bundle it into an executable setup program to make installation easy for users. Currently the lightweight tool Makensis from Nullsoft Scriptable Install System is used for creating the installer.
Download and install it on your PC and modify the PATH environment variable to make makensis.exe accesible from a command prompt. Although not necessary it is useful to install the syntax highlightening editor "HM NIS Edit" for editing .nsi script.
Nullsoft Scriptable Install System comes with detailed help on composing .nsi scripts.
Creating the installer starts with
build\bin\libtbx.create_installer.bat
as in the last line of example build script, Phenixbuild.cmd. It calls
cctbx_project\libtbx\command_line\create_installer.py
which calls
cctbx_project\libtbx\auto_build\create_installer.py
which calls
cctbx_project\libtbx\auto_build\create_windows_installer.py
which creates a short preamble of definitions such as version of Phenix and location of directories and then calls
Makensis.exe /OMakeWindowsInstaller.log /NOCD /V4 tmp\tmpinstscript.nsi
The file, tmpinstscript.nsi, is the script specifying which files to include and where to place them on the users PC. It is composed of the preamble prepended to the file
cctbx_project\libtbx\auto_build\mainphenixinstaller.nsi
which contains the bulk of information for creating the setup program. Once Makensis has finished running the setup program is available as a file with the name:
dist\<version>\Phenix-<version>-<platform>-Setup.exe
which can then be deployed to users.
The mainphenixinstaller.nsi script has been written to allow the user to install Phenix as a standard user as well as an administrator. In the latter case the produced setup program should be invoked with administrative privileges. Phenix will then default to be installed in the directory pointed to by the %ProgramFiles(x86)% or %ProgramFiles% environment variables. It will also allow the user to install the C/C++ source code used for the build. It will create a Startup group named Phenix\<version> which contains links to
- documentation,
- the main GUI,
- a Phenix.python prompt,
- a command prompt where the Phenix environment variables have been defined,
- the uninstaller program.
The setup program will also create a registry entry of type string in:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Phenix\<version>\InstallPath
or, if invoked with administrative privileges:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Phenix\<version>\InstallPath
which points to the full path of the top level directory where Phenix has been installed. This is useful for 3rd party programs that may want to test for the presence of Phenix on the PC.
During the installation a command prompt window will appear that compiles all the python sources.
The uninstaller is also defined in mainphenixinstaller.nsi. Uninstalling Phenix is done in 5 steps of which the one lasting the longest is removing all the installed files As a side effect, during uninstallation the progress bar will hang until this step has been completed.