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Clowd.Squirrel

Squirrel is both a set of tools and a library, to completely manage both installation and updating your Desktop Windows application.

This project is a fork of the library Squirrel.Windows. The main focus here has been to update to more modern tooling, such as upgrading the main libraries to netstandard2.0, upgrading the tools to net6.0, and adding lots of fixes for dotnet core support.

This library will help you build a Setup.exe, integrated (or standalone Update.exe) application updater, and release updates to your users very quickly and easily. The Setup.exe and Update.exe produced by this library are completely dependency free, and can even help you bootstrap/install any number of runtimes your app needs (such as dotnet 5/6, .net 4.8 or others).

Feel free to join our discord for help or questions:

Migrating from Squirrel.Windows?

A couple of notes you should be aware of.

• The command line interface for Squirrel.exe is massively different. Check 'Squirrel.exe -h' for more info.
• The command line for Update.exe here is compatible with the old Squirrel.
• Update.exe here is bigger (total 12.5mb) and is included in your packages.
• Migrating to this library is fully compatible, except for the way we detect SquirrelAware binaries. More info below.
• There have been a great many other improvements here. To see some of them have a look at the feature matrix.
• Something detected as a virus? This was an issue at the old Squirrel, and also see issue #28

What Do We Want?

Windows apps should be as fast and as easy to install and update as apps like Google Chrome. From an app developer's side, it should be really straightforward to create an installer for my app, and publish updates to it, without having to jump through insane hoops.

• Integrating an app to use Squirrel should be extremely easy, provide a client API, and be developer friendly.
• Packaging is really easy, can be automated, and supports delta update packages.
• Distributing should be straightforward, use simple HTTP updates, and provide multiple "channels" (a-la Chrome Dev/Beta/Release).
• Installing is Wizard-Free™, with no UAC dialogs, does not require reboot, and is .NET Framework friendly.
• Updating is in the background, doesn't interrupt the user, and does not require a reboot.

Quick Start For .NET Apps

1. Install the Clowd.Squirrel Nuget Package

2. Add SquirrelAwareVersion to your assembly manifest to indicate that your exe supports Squirrel.

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <assembly manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
     <SquirrelAwareVersion xmlns="urn:schema-squirrel-com:asm.v1">1</SquirrelAwareVersion>
   </assembly>
   

3. Handle Squirrel events somewhere very early in your application startup (such as the beginning of main() or Application.OnStartup() for WPF).

   public static void Main(string[] args)
   {
       // run Squirrel first, as the app may exit after these run
       SquirrelAwareApp.HandleEvents(
           onInitialInstall: OnAppInstall,
           onAppUninstall: OnAppUninstall,
           onEveryRun: OnAppRun);
   
       // ... other app init code after ...
   }
   
   private static void OnAppInstall(SemanticVersion version, IAppTools tools)
   {
       tools.CreateShortcutForThisExe(ShortcutLocation.StartMenu | ShortcutLocation.Desktop);
   }
   
   private static void OnAppUninstall(SemanticVersion version, IAppTools tools)
   {
       tools.RemoveShortcutForThisExe(ShortcutLocation.StartMenu | ShortcutLocation.Desktop);
   }
   
   private static void OnAppRun(SemanticVersion version, IAppTools tools, bool firstRun)
   {
       tools.SetProcessAppUserModelId();
       // show a welcome message when the app is first installed
       if (firstRun) MessageBox.Show("Thanks for installing my application!");
   }
   

   When installed, uninstalled or updated, these methods will be executed, giving your app a chance to add or remove application shortcuts or perform other tasks.

4. Build/Publish your app (with msbuild, dotnet publish or similar)

5. Create a Squirrel release using the Squirrel.exe command line tool. The tool can be downloaded from GitHub Releases, and it is also bundled into the Clowd.Squirrel nuget package. If installed through NuGet, the tools can usually be found at:

   • %userprofile%\.nuget\packages\clowd.squirrel\2.8.30-pre\tools, or;
   • ..\packages\clowd.squirrel\2.8.30-pre\tools

   Once you have located the tools folder, create a release. Minimal example below with some useful options, but explore Squirrel.exe -h for a complete list.

   Squirrel.exe pack --packId "YourApp" --packVersion "1.0.0" --packDirectory "path-to/publish/folder"
   

   Important Notes:

   • The same --releaseDir (default .\Releases if not specified) should be used each time, so delta updates can be generated.
   • The package version must comply to strict 3-part SemVer syntax. (eg. 1.0.0, 1.0.1-pre)
   • A list of supported runtimes for the --framework argument is available here

6. Distribute your entire --releaseDir folder online. This folder can be hosted on any static web/file server, Amazon S3, BackBlaze B2, or even via GitHub Releases.

   If using CI to deploy releases, you can use the package syncing commands to download the currently live version, before creating a package. This means delta/patch updates can be generated. Complete powershell example:

   # build / publish your app
   dotnet publish -c Release -o ".\publish" 
   
   # find Squirrel.exe path and add an alias
   Set-Alias Squirrel ($env:USERPROFILE + "\.nuget\packages\clowd.squirrel\2.8.30-pre\tools\Squirrel.exe");
   
   # download currently live version
   Squirrel http-down --url "https://the.place/you-host/updates"
   
   # build new version and delta updates.
   Squirrel pack`
    --framework net6,vcredist143-x86`  # Install .NET 6.0 (x64) and vcredist143 (x86) during setup, if not installed
    --packId "YourApp"`                # Application / package name
    --packVersion "1.0.0"`             # Version to build. Should be supplied by your CI
    --packAuthors "YourCompany"`       # Your name, or your company name
    --packDirectory ".\publish"`       # The directory the application was published to
    --setupIcon "mySetupIcon.ico"`     # Icon for Setup.exe
    --splashImage "install.gif"        # The splash artwork (or animation) to be shown during install
   

7. Update your app on startup / periodically with UpdateManager.

   private static async Task UpdateMyApp()
   {
      using var mgr = new UpdateManager("https://the.place/you-host/updates");
      var newVersion = await mgr.UpdateApp();
      
      // optionally restart the app automatically, or ask the user if/when they want to restart
      if (newVersion != null) {
         UpdateManager.RestartApp();
      }
   }
   

Quick Start For Native / Other Apps

This quick start guide is coming soon. Refer to below for complete docs which contains native app instructions.

More Documentation

Note - most of the following documentation is now out of date and updates are also coming soon

See the documentation Table of Contents for an overview of the available documentation.

Feature Matrix

Building Squirrel

For the impatient:

git clone https://github.com/clowd/Clowd.Squirrel
cd clowd/Clowd.Squirrel
build.cmd

See Contributing for additional information on building and contributing to Squirrel.

License and Usage

See COPYING for details on copyright and usage.