user-friendly installer for Mac -- for my Mom!

[zooko]

My Mom wants to see some home movies of my children playing in the back yard. Even though our README is very well written, it is still far beyond her ken to build Tahoe from source. How could she get Tahoe installed on her home computer, which is a PowerPC G5 running Mac OS 10.3.9?

One way is that I could upload a binary .egg and instruct her in how to install Python 2.5.1 and easy_install and then how to run "easy_install allmydata-tahoe". However, the dependent libraries like Nevow and Twisted and so forth wouldn't get automatically installed by easy_install so that wouldn't quite work.

Another way is that I could build binary .egg packages of all of our dependent libraries and host them somewhere or bundle them into the tahoe binary .egg.

Another way is that we could use the "py2app" feature to build an installer than works on Mac OS 10.

[zooko]

The py2app approach still requires that we bundle binaries of all of our dependent libraries.

[zooko]

So perhaps a next-step on this is to experiment with making a complete bundle of Tahoe and all dependencies. :-) I did that for Zfone and then used py2app to build a Mac .app of the result.

[warner]

The py2app approach would require those dependent libraries to be present on the package-builder's machine, but the resulting package would be completely standalone, right?

I've started playing with py2app and have run into some problems (it seems to refuse to include foolscap in the bundle, despite being explicitly imported by the main entry-point script, even though it includes zfec and twisted just fine). But overall I think it will work.

So my main question is: what exactly should this packaged application look like?

One possibility:

• the tahoe node is created by the install process (using one of those fancy Assistants)
• the node is *not* started at boot time
• when the user double-clicks on the tahoe icon, their node is started, and a small window is created
  • this window has a button which, when pressed, sends their web browser to the local start page
  • dropping a URI in the window sends the web browser to the corresponding /URI/NNN page
  • dropping a file in the window causes the file to be uploaded, and the URI is displayed in a way that allows it to be cut-and-pasted into another application

thoughts?

[zooko]

The py2app approach would require those dependent libraries to be present on the package-builder's machine, but the resulting package would be completely standalone, right?

Right.

the tahoe node is created by the install process (using one of those fancy Assistants)

A Mac OS X idiom which I love is that installing is merely dragging and dropping (i.e. copying or moving) the Thingie.app into your filesystem. This pattern abjures running an "installer" (I'm not sure if that's related to an "Assistant") at install-time. I hope we use this pattern!

That would imply that node-creation happens at runtime instead, for example "if there is not already a node in ~/.tahoe".

[terrell]

additionally, there should be a prominent place for picking which network to be a part of (friendnet, testgrid, allmydata public grid, etc). Is that a dropdown with the easy choices? A means to discover their friend's introducer.furl?

That would imply that node-creation happens at runtime instead, for example "if there is not already a node in ~/.tahoe".

yes, totally.

later, create some kind of manager/preferences for multiple nodes, but initially, just create the one if it doesn't exist. if it does already exist, have a suppressible popup that would allow an overwrite/cleanstart.

[geal]

Hi,

I can help a bit on this bug. I have already messed with py2app to generate .app packages and I have some code to automatically generate DMG images.

I first tried to add some basic options to py2app and ran it, to see if everything is ok. Unfortunately, it seems the latest version of modulegraph (necessary for py2app) is in conflict with the setuptools version that is used in the project (ImpLoader is part of pkg_resources).

running py2app
running build_py
copying src/allmydata/_version.py -> build/bdist.macosx-10.6-intel/lib/allmydata
creating /Users/geoffroycouprie/dev/python/tahoe-lafs/build/bdist.macosx-10.6-intel/python2.7-standalone/app
creating /Users/geoffroycouprie/dev/python/tahoe-lafs/build/bdist.macosx-10.6-intel/python2.7-standalone/app/collect
creating /Users/geoffroycouprie/dev/python/tahoe-lafs/build/bdist.macosx-10.6-intel/python2.7-standalone/app/temp
creating build/bdist.macosx-10.6-intel/python2.7-standalone/app/lib-dynload
creating build/bdist.macosx-10.6-intel/python2.7-standalone/app/Frameworks
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "setup.py", line 472, in <module>
    **setup_args
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/distutils/core.py", line 152, in setup
    dist.run_commands()
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/distutils/dist.py", line 953, in run_commands
    self.run_command(cmd)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/distutils/dist.py", line 972, in run_command
    cmd_obj.run()
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/py2app/build_app.py", line 553, in run
    self._run()
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/py2app/build_app.py", line 741, in _run
    self.run_normal()
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/py2app/build_app.py", line 812, in run_normal
    mf = self.get_modulefinder()
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/py2app/build_app.py", line 691, in get_modulefinder
    debug=debug,
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/modulegraph/find_modules.py", line 274, in find_modules
    find_needed_modules(mf, scripts, includes, packages)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/modulegraph/find_modules.py", line 182, in find_needed_modules
    mf.run_script(path)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 673, in run_script
    self.scan_code(co, m)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 1015, in scan_code
    imported_module = self._safe_import_hook(name, m, fromlist, level)[0]
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 917, in _safe_import_hook
    mods = self.import_hook(name, caller, level=level)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 684, in import_hook
    q, tail = self.find_head_package(parent, name, level)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 758, in find_head_package
    q = self.import_module(head, qname, parent)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 840, in import_module
    searchpath, parent)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 1119, in find_module
    fp, buf, stuff = find_module(name, path)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/modulegraph/modulegraph.py", line 248, in find_module
    if loader.path.endswith('.py') or loader.path.endswith('.pyw'):
AttributeError: ImpLoader instance has no attribute 'path'

I could try to patch modulegraph to get it working, but I don't want to mess too much my current environment. Can tahoe be built under virtualenv?