##ProjectInstaller

ProjectInstaller is a simple web installer for Mathematica projects. The projects can be stored on the web or on the local machine, in .zip or .tar.gz formats. It attempts to download and install a given project into a specified project directory.

There are only a few requirements for the directory structure of the project being installed. If it is stored in a .zip archive, there must be exactly one top-level project directory in the archive, and nothing else. If it is stored in a .tar.gz format,the .gz archive should contain exactly one .tar file and nothing else, and the .tar file should contain exactly one project's folder, plus it may contain some files, which will be ignored by the installer.

The project's folder itself should contain at least one package (.m) file, plus possibly other files and /or folders. If there is only one package file, it should be the same as the name of the project.

The project may optionally contain a project descriptor file project.m, which determines the properties of the project. Here is the contents of a sample project.m file:

{
    "author" ->
       {
           "name" -> "Leonid Shifrin",
           "email" -> "[email protected]",
           "url" -> "http://www.mathprogramming-intro.org"
       },           
    "name" -> "Test1",
    "version" -> "1.0",
    "mathematica_version" -> "8.0+",
    "dependencies" -> {},
    "description"-> "Simple test project for the installer",
    "url" -> "https://gist.github.com/gists/4143517/download",
    "license" ->  "MIT"
}

The data here must be a list of rules, and in the rules one can use strings and numbers. Basically, the content of the project.m should be exportable to JSON via ExportString[#,"JSON"]&.

Not all fields are mandatory. At present, only the name field is effectively used by the installer, but in the future more fields will be utilized.

If there is more than one package in the top-level project's folder, then the project must contain a valid project descriptor file, with the name field set to the name of one of the top-level packages.

Note that the installer (at least in the current version) will always create a Kernel folder and place there the init.m file for the project. If the init.m file exists in the top-level directory of the archived project, it will be simply copied. If it does not exist, it will be auto-generated from the project's name and the name of the main package in the project (which, at least currently, are required to be the same).

###Installation

For an automated installation, execute this line of code:

Import["https://raw.github.com/lshifr/ProjectInstaller/master/BootstrapInstall.m"]

The manual installation procedure is standard, as for any Mathematica package (alas, the installer can not install itself, not for the first time at least):

• Download the [.zip archive with the project] (https://github.com/lshifr/ProjectInstaller/blob/master/Release/ProjectInstaller.zip) and extract it to some folder.
• Copy it into one of the directories where Mathematica can find it, for example into a directory returned by evaluating FileNameJoin[{$UserBaseDirectory,"Applications"}]
• Call Needs["ProjectInstaller`"]

###How to use

To install the project from the web, use

ProjectInstall[URL[string-url-of-the-project]]

To install the project from a local file, use

ProjectInstall[path]

where path must be a string pointing to an existing .zip or .tar.gz archive on your local file system.

Note that the project won't be installed if a project with the same name does already exist in your project repository.

To remove (uninstall) the project, use

ProjectUninstall[name_String]

where name is the name of the project (not the full path to it). This will result into the project being removed from your project repository.

The default project repository location is at

$UserBaseDirectory/Applications

You can specify different location for it, using the DestinationDirectory option, which is accepted by both ProjectInstall and ProjectUninstall. Note however that it is up to you to make Mathematica recognize the non - default repository (by adding it to $Path, e.g.).

###Examples

The following

ProjectInstall[URL["https://github.com/lshifr/CodeFormatter/archive/master.zip"]]

should install the code formatter project to your repository. You can start using it, e.g. by calling

Needs["CodeFormatter`"]

and then try on some function's code, e.g.

CellPrint[Cell[#, "Input"]] &@FullCodeFormat[
   MakeBoxes[
     ClearAll[ReverseIfFails];
     SetAttributes[ReverseIfFails, HoldFirst];
     ReverseIfFails[initCode_, mainFunc_, reverseFunc_] := 
       Module[{init, result}, 
        If[(init = initCode) === $Failed, Return[$Failed]];
         CleanUp[result = mainFunc[init], 
          If[result === $Failed, reverseFunc[init]]]];
   ]]

The following will uninstall the formatter:

ProjectUninstall["CodeFormatter"]

###License

This package is released under MIT Open Source license. The copy of the license can be found in the project