[wix-devs] Getting WiX v4

[Rob Mensching]

(Changing title since this topic forked from the original question)

There are two ways I'm "pretty confident" you will be able to get WiX Toolset v4:

1. MSBuild SDK - .wixproj files will reference the WiX Toolset using an SDK style MSBuild and MSBuild (via NuGet) will automagically download the toolset as needed. This is the expected experience for VS/MSBuild based situations.

2. dotnet tool - the WiX Toolset v4 will also be available as a "dotnet tool" and can be installed via the dotnet tool command-line. This is the expected experience for command-line based situations (basically, everything not .wixproj based).

This is the direction Visual Studio is pushing tools developers. I'm tired of fighting them so we're going to embrace their guidance.


From: Blair Murri <osito at live.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 9:50 PM
To: Rob Mensching <rob at firegiant.com>; WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List <wix-devs at lists.wixtoolset.org>; Christopher Painter <chrpai at iswix.com>
Subject: Re: [wix-devs] Improving the Wix4 enlistment process, participating in online meetings and helping with the burn user interface accessibility

I referred to building the toolset in my previous message.
You make a good argument that there's still a good use case for non-VS mediated "installs". Maybe the installer becomes a "NuGet client" that pulls everything down from NuGet into something similar to the structure of the old WiX installation, so non-MSFT toolsets can access it command-line style.
Or, maybe something else entirely.
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________________________________
From: Blair Murri <osito at live.com<mailto:osito at live.com>>
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 9:43:59 PM
To: 'Rob Mensching'; WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List; Christopher Painter
Subject: Re: [wix-devs] Improving the Wix4 enlistment process, participating in online meetings and helping with the burn user interface accessibility

Run msbuild on the solution file I described above
Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/ghei36>

________________________________
From: Christopher Painter <chrpai at iswix.com<mailto:chrpai at iswix.com>>
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 3:42:11 PM
To: 'Rob Mensching'; WiX Toolset Developer Mailing List
Cc: Blair Murri
Subject: Re: [wix-devs] Improving the Wix4 enlistment process, participating in online meetings and helping with the burn user interface accessibility


Help me understand how this would work for people who don't use Visual Studio at all?   I totally love Visual Studio / Votive / WiX and so on but I've worked with customers / employers over the years that didn't use VS at all.   How would they use WiX?



It seems very strange to me the product that creates MSIs won't actually have an MSI.  That just feels wrong to me.


How would the VS story work?   Would you just isntall VS and Votive and the projects do a nuget restore to bring everything in?    That seems less strange to me but  I'm still more of a fan for using Votive to install dependencies not tools.  New world I guess.