Stefan Dösinger wrote:
What if we created a standard for passing some sort of wine-specific metadata in an MSI file? Windows would ignore it, but application developers could use it to include some helpful Linux-specific Wine instructions like what windows version to use, a custom .desktop file, or even instructions to install into a completely independent Wine prefix.
Thoughts?
Hm. I sort of like and dislike the idea at the same time
Regarding desktop integration with win32 apps is concerned, I think those problems should be fixed in Wine. I think all the things we need to set up the shortcuts, filetypes, etc. properly are provided by the Windows app as-is.
A custom desktop file is necessarily a difference between a Linux and Windows system. Like, for instance, having the program under Start->Programs->Company Foo->Bar Program under windows but having it under Applications->Games-Bar under Linux.
Installing into a different wineprefix won't work, I think. By the time you have msi started up, a wineprefix decision is done already.
This is solvable though, if it matters.
What would be cool though, is if Wine's msi could install a completely Wine-independent native Linux application(or, install a Winelib app that brings its own Wine). That way one could build an universal package that contains a Win32 and native Linux app at the same time.
One nice advantage of msi-shipped apps over linux packages is that they easily install into a user's home directory on all distributions (or, indeed, even on OSX and BSD) without root access.
Thanks, Scott Ritchie