Wanted: New maintainer for Windows builds of Geany

[eht16]

We are looking for a new maintainer for the Windows builds of Geany

You want to:

• continue using Geany (or start doing so)
• maintain the Windows builds of Geany
• support the Geany developers on creating releases
• have fun with Geany's codebase, MSYS2 and Microsoft Windows and all the problems these create

Your benefits:

• fame and glory
• happy users of Geany on Windows

More seriously, while Geany is developed mostly on Linux and probably most of the user base is using Linux as well, there are also some Windows users.
In the past, the Windows builds were maintained by me (eht16) but I cannot continue because I used a Windows 7 VM but Windows 7 is no longer supported by MSYS2 which the builds are based on.
I will not upgrade to or use any newer version of the operating system for various reasons, so we are looking for someone who wants to take over.

Feel free to ask questions and comment here in this issue.

[giuspen]

I may be able to help as I already build on msys2 for my hobby project https://github.com/giuspen/cherrytree via the script https://github.com/giuspen/cherrytree/blob/master/scripts/msys2_prepare_standalone.sh ( and package via inno setup script https://github.com/giuspen/cherrytree/blob/master/scripts/cherrytree.iss )

[eht16]

Hi @giuspen,

that would be great, thank you!

Some random thoughts about the setup and how to get you started:

• a good start could be to setup everything on your Windows machine, there is a how to at https://wiki.geany.org/howtos/win32/msys2, have a look and feel free to improve/rewrite it
• the CI setup is splitted in:
  • the Docker base image which contains Pacman, the MSYS2 environment for cross-compilation based on Debian packages and Wine for executing Windows binaries, the sources can be found at https://github.com/geany/infrastructure/tree/master/builders also with a little documentation
  • the Geany part: https://github.com/geany/geany/blob/master/scripts/ci_mingw64_geany.sh and https://github.com/geany/geany/blob/master/.github/workflows/build.yml
  • the Geany-Plugins part: https://github.com/geany/geany-plugins/blob/master/build/ci_mingw64_geany_plugins.sh and https://github.com/geany/geany-plugins/blob/master/.github/workflows/build.yml
• we use NSIS for generating installers (not INNO setup) but I think the idea is similar behind the installers (https://github.com/geany/geany/blob/master/geany.nsi.in and https://github.com/geany/geany-plugins/blob/master/build/geany-plugins.nsi)
• I just created PRs for creating the installers as 64bit binaries and so removing the Wine 32bit environment - these could be a good start to get more familiar with the CI setup
  • Builders: Remove wine32 environment infrastructure#14
  • Windows: Create 64bit installer and uninstaller #4194
  • Windows: Create 64bit installer and uninstaller geany-plugins#1402
• the current CI setup can be improved certainly, there is a a native MSYS2 Github action which could be used instead of cross-compilation and probably other things, feel free if you like
• in the past, I created Windows releases natively on Windows 7 (no cross-compilation). I should be possible to create them also from the CI, I started to prepare this but did not finish yet. We could either go this way or you create them also natively on Windows, as you like.

Please ask any questions as they arrive, here or via mail or Matrix chat.

[djhenderson]

I have been interested in building Geany in a non-docker MSYS2 environment to support debugging.

I am willing to test nightly releases or CI artifacts (such as I am using daily). I am interested in helping to solve some errors unique to the Windows environment. And possible working with some unsupported, or missing plugins.

I may not be able to commit significant time to the project due to stamina and health issue, but, since I use Geany so much, would like to contribute what I can

[giuspen]

Hallo @eht16 I have been using Geany for almost 20 years now on both Linux and Windows, I'm happy to give something back. I'll follow the links you posted and get back for questions in the next days. Maybe better I will follow up here so that others interested such as @djhenderson can follow too.

[giuspen]

So I followed https://wiki.geany.org/howtos/win32/msys2 and built successfully from the cloned git repos geany and then geany-plugins and installed both.
Note that I had a build error on geany-plugins complaining about missing files which were in fact present, that error was resolved with the following diff

diff --git a/geanygendoc/docs/Makefile.am b/geanygendoc/docs/Makefile.am
index f3975b69..bde0f83a 100644
--- a/geanygendoc/docs/Makefile.am
+++ b/geanygendoc/docs/Makefile.am
@@ -15,6 +15,6 @@ dist_pluginhtmldoc_DATA = \
 if BUILD_RST
 manual.html: manual.rst manual.css html4css1.css
        $(AM_V_GEN) $(RST2HTML) -d --strict \
-               --stylesheet-path $(abs_srcdir)/html4css1.css,$(abs_srcdir)/manual.css \
+               --stylesheet-path $(srcdir)/html4css1.css,$(srcdir)/manual.css \
                $(srcdir)/manual.rst $@
 endif BUILD_RST

After installing I did run successfully /c/geany/bin/geany but under Tools--Plugin Manager I got empty plugins.
I will continue with the wiki trying to create the installers and I will investigate further on why the plugins are not in the plugin manager even though installed.

[techee]

After installing I did run successfully /c/geany/bin/geany but under Tools--Plugin Manager I got empty plugins.
I will continue with the wiki trying to create the installers and I will investigate further on why the plugins are not in the plugin manager even though installed.

I remember having the same problem in #4082 (comment) but I also didn't find a way to manage to see them (but I didn't spend much time on it).