Build release packages for Chocolatey

[RAYs3T]

As currently no (secure) auto update for windows is possible, adding support for https://chocolatey.org/ would be awesome.

Quick information on what Chocolatey is

It's a package manager for windows. You can compare it to apt on Ubuntu.

You can basically install a package with a powershell command for example: choco install electronmail
And if you want to update a package you can just run choco upgrade pkgname.

Benefits

• Upgrading is more secure, as choco is verifying the Hash after download.
• More comfortable (as the user has just to run a command, instead of downloading a new .exe)
• And this might even attract new users who just search in the packages of choco for something like this.

[vladimiry]

The electronmail name is already taken by someone and the package is not being updated. So I've pushed https://community.chocolatey.org/packages/electron-mail package which is currently being validated by the chocolatey platform. They say that validation takes 1-3 days.

[RAYs3T]

Awesome!
I'll set me a reminder and test once the package is available.

[RAYs3T]

It's still in pending review, but installing it with a specified version works so far.

[vladimiry]

works so far

There is no fancy stuff by the way. Just a run of the "exe" package from https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/releases with /S flag (silent installing mode).

tools\chocolateyinstall.ps1:

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'

if ((Get-OSArchitectureWidth 32) -or $env:ChocolateyForceX86) {
  throw ("This application currently only supports 64-bit Windows systems.")
}

$packageArgs = @{
  url64         = 'https://github.com/vladimiry/ElectronMail/releases/download/v4.13.2/electron-mail-4.13.2-windows-x64-nsis-installer.exe'
  checksum64    = '5c6c6bce6967a4e43ac1ffaa5692a5cdb3b85fe5f616654b978d115147399d29'
  checksumType  = 'sha256'
  softwareName  = 'ElectronMail*'
  fileType      = 'exe'
  silentArgs    = "/S"
  validExitCodes= @(0)
  packageName   = $env:ChocolateyPackageName
}

Install-ChocolateyPackage @packageArgs

It also installs vcredist140 from chocolatey so the respective installing process defined in ./scripts/electron-builder/installer.nsh doesn't get triggered during installing process as the process will be stuck then. See dependency section in electron-mail.nuspec from electron-mail.4.13.2.nupkg (this file needs to be unpacked as a zip archive). Thanks @TheCakeIsNaOH for revealing this shortcoming in chocolatey/choco#2520.

[vladimiry]

I just contacted the site admins as an author of the app via https://community.chocolatey.org/packages/electron-mail/4.13.2/ContactAdmins Hope this will speed up the approval process.

[dhbtfs]

Fair enough, didnt know it was requested before. Thanks for the update.

[vladimiry]

I just contacted the site admins as an author of the app via https://community.chocolatey.org/packages/electron-mail/4.13.2/ContactAdmins Hope this will speed up the approval process.

Based on the received response from moderators it looks like the package is going to get a "trusted" status not earlier than a few couples of versions get published. My understanding is that right now, without a "trusted" status, the Choco repo is sort of pointless since approving takes forever and can potentially take longer than a new/next version gets published.

[RAYs3T]

Even then I think it should be kept so that in a few version in might acquire this state as it is really useful.

[vladimiry]

It's now approved, thanks @TheCakeIsNaOH. So the issue got closed.