Provide precompiled binaries instead of compiling at install time

[sedwards2009]

This is a tracking issue.

Problem

When NodeGui is installed with npm, it will run cmake and friends to build the C++ module which connects qode to Qt's libraries. This process requires a suitable C++ compiler to be available, plus a fair bit of time, and for some people, a lot of luck. The target developers of NodeGui (people using JS/TS) are unlikely to have a C++ compiler installed and ready to go. On some platforms like Windows, installed Visual Studio Express C++ compiler is a multi-gigabyte drama.

When building projects or modules which depend on NodeGui or are plugins for NodeGui, the situation is much worse. Qode and NodeGui both perform actions in their npm packages' install and/or postinstall scripts, and NodeGui expects qode to be completely installed before it can safely build. But npm has a long history and bug tracker full of issues where install and postinstall scripts are run in a buggy and non-deterministic way, often in parallel with the package's very own dependencies. i.e. NodeGui's build step is often started before qode is finished. The situation is even worse for plugins which require qode and NodeGui to be finished before they can do any compiling of their own.

Our issue tracker here is also filling up with problems related to installation:

• npm installation fails with npm i @nodegui/nodegui (Windows 10) #900
• NodeGUI Installation fails - Input file node.lib can't be opened #896
• nodegui installation: missing file "@nodegui\qode\binaries\node.lib" #888
• @nodegui/nodegui fails postinstall if the path has certain punctuation in it #827
• Can't install on Windows 10 #826
• Error installing nodegui on Windows 10 #790
• Can't install on Mac OS big sur #773
• Error installing on windows 10 #772
• Cmake Generate step Failed #601
• The specified module could not be found #664

Proposal

Precompile the C++ module and have NodeGui download the correct binaries at install time. Pulling down extra binary files at install time is a fairly common approach, and the one which node-pre-gyp uses. qode had been doing this for a while too. This still uses npm's install script hooks, but it no longer requires dependencies to be fully installed when NodeGui's install runs. This should result in faster and a more stable installation process, while also lowering the barrier (i.e. C++ compiler needed) to just get started with NodeGui.

[sedwards2009]

done and released in 0.45.4.