Conda-based Installer Parent Issue

[mrclary]

This issue is intended to capture discussions related to the development of the conda-based standalone Spyder installers post release of Spyder 5.4.0.

This description will aim to capture the up-to-date status of the development strategy resulting from a consensus of comments. Bug fixes and explicit tasks should be reported in a separate issue and PR.

Outstanding Questions, Ideas, & Proposals

1. Update the Spyder conda installation as follows:
   • Make the root conda environment the Spyder runtime environment
   • Name the root conda environment directory spyder-X.X with major and minor version only
   • The root environment will support all bug fix releases within the minor release, and can be updated via conda-forge
   • New minor and major releases will require downloading a new installer.
2. Update the Spyder conda installation as follows:
   • Make the root conda environment the Spyder runtime environment
   • Name the root conda environment directory spyder-X with major version only
   • The root environment will support all bug fix and feature releases, and can be updated via conda-forge
   • New major releases will require downloading a new installer.
3. All updates, including those requiring new installer, can be managed by Spyder's update manager

To Implement

• Linux installer suggestions, see Suggestions from @ccordoba12 and PR: Improvements to Conda-based Linux installer #20319
  • Add command line alias to launch Spyder
  • Create uninstall script and alias for command line
  • Add message at the end of installation providing launch instructions
  • Update the application icon
• Add installer tests for Linux and Windows PR: Add installer tests for Linux and Windows #20601
• Remove options from Windows installer PR: Remove installer option to initialize the conda environment and misc improvements #20838 :
  • Add Spyder to my PATH environment variable
  • Register Spyder as my default Python 3.10
• Group taskbar icons on Windows Two Spyder icons on Windows taskbar #20791 Set app ID on Windows conda/menuinst#127
• Prevent showing a cmd window when launching Spyder from the installer shorcut Allow suppressing cmd.exe windows on launching applications conda/menuinst#128
• Installer should ensure that Spyder is closed. Cannot be done with constructor. Implemented with UpdateManager plugin (PR: Create UpdateManager plugin to handle updates for the conda-based installers #21483)
• Installer should provide option to uninstall existing conflicting installation. Cannot be done with constructor. Implemented with UpdateManager plugin (PR: Create UpdateManager plugin to handle updates for the conda-based installers #21483)
• Minor update to standalone, conda-based installation via conda breaks the application #21640
• PR: Update for new menuinst and friends and new Spyder feedstock (Installers) #21647
• PR: Fix release build issues #21782
• PR: Do not use version in artifact name (Installers) #21785
• PR: Only show UpdateManager statusbar widget while updating and when updates are available #21836
• PR: Fix issue where Spyder started automatically before conda-based installer exited #21871
• PR: Use conda-lock files to incrementally update conda-based installers #22059
• PR: Use Python 3.11 for our installers #22072
• Open files from Windows Explorer (maybe the new registry handling available from menuinst could help: Cross-platform support for URL and file type shortcut association (Windows) conda/menuinst#117 there is a TODO there about context menu entries). Also File types not associated when using file_extensions on Windows conda/menuinst#185 and Using CFBundleDocumentTypes breaks Spyder application conda/menuinst#179. Add file type association to Spyder shortcuts on all platforms. conda-forge/spyder-feedstock#171

[ccordoba12]

I have one comment about this: I think the strategy of using git shallow clones in our subrepo conda recipes doesn't work when developers sync the subrepos to a branch in their forks (I saw that in the CIs of PR #19992 yesterday although it's not visible anymore because of a rebase).

That's because developers usually don't care to push tags to their forks. So I'd suggest to remove shallow clones and clone subrepos in full instead.

[mrclary]

That's because developers usually don't care to push tags to their forks. So I'd suggest to remove shallow clones and clone subrepos in full instead.

Good point. I'll make the change.

[ccordoba12]

Another problem appeared: The Spyder-kernels patch applied to the recipe used for the installers no longer applies. This is due to conda-forge/spyder-kernels-feedstock#86.

[mrclary]

Another problem appeared: The Spyder-kernels patch applied to the recipe used for the installers no longer applies. This is due to conda-forge/spyder-kernels-feedstock#86.

Thanks for giving me the heads up. I'll update the patch for building spyder-kernels. Also, since it is now noarch, it can be built in parallel with the other noarch dependencies; I'll update the workflow to accommodate.

[ccordoba12]

Another suggestion: Could we only build the Intel app in PRs for Mac? That should be enough, given that it can run on M1/M2 chips, right?

The thing is we only have 5 Mac slots for the entire organization, and right now we're using more than that on every PR here, which slows down development in other projects.

[mrclary]

Another suggestion: Could we only build the Intel app in PRs for Mac? That should be enough, given that it can run on M1/M2 chips, right?

The thing is we only have 5 Mac slots for the entire organization, and right now we're using more than that on every PR here, which slows down development in other projects.

Sure thing. I'll remove arm64 from the build matrix.

[dalthviz]

Some notes regarding missing things or behaviors after reviewing the conda-based installer (for Windows) generated by #20368 that probably we will need to check:

• Add a way to open files from the Windows Explorer:

• Prevent showing a cmd window when launching Spyder from the installer shorcut:

• Add a way to prompt for an uninstall if the installer is run and Spyder is detected as installed (currently it shows a warning but only if the installer selected installation path is the same as the old installation):

• Not totally sure if some of the options the installer shows should be available (like adding Spyder to the PATH):

• Add a way to run Spyder after the installation finishes:

• Seems like there is an issue to correctly show the Python version of the default interpreter in the status bar (it shows custom () sometimes):

• The installer messages and the installer name suggest the installer comes with Python 3.10, but checking the about dialog inside Spyder seems like is Python 3.9:

Also, probably we need to check the way the installation method is marked so the conda-based standalone installers are not marked as conda but conda-based or standalone conda.

Maybe most of these things can be done with pre/post install/uninstall scripts and/or menuinst @mrclary ? Also, is there maybe is there a way to pass to constructor a template for NSIS to be able to reuse the logic of the old installer?

[mrclary]

@dalthviz, thanks for all the observations. I don't see any issues implementing your suggestions.
Regarding the old installer logic, I'm not sure what that is. Perhaps we can review it at the developer meeting and I can see if it can be incorporated into the constructor; most likely it would be handled by pre/post-install scripts.

[dalthviz]

Regarding the old installer logic, I'm not sure what that is

Is the logic to detect if Spyder is already installed and if it is running, prompt the user to close Spyder, or run the uninstaller and so on (which was done inside a NSIS template with the package that the old installer for Windows used to be build - pynsist).

Anyhow, I guess the way constructor customization works is by the pre/post scripts in general so we will need to figure out how that behavior can be ported to the Windows conda-based installer or even if is worthy to keep those validations or not.

[mrclary]

@dalthviz @ccordoba12, these have been great suggestions/observations. I've tried to capture them all in the OP.

[mrclary]

@dalthviz, I'm pretty sure that we can use an nsis template. If you can provide one, I'll try to implement it.

[ccordoba12]

@mrclary, some feedback about the Linux installer after testing the 5.4.3 one:

• I think it shouldn't offer the option to activate the installer environment in the console (that's the default right now).
• The spyder and uninstall-spyder aliases are not working for me in the console after installation (I don't know if that has to do with the fact that I selected the option to activate the env I mentioned above).

[ccordoba12]

Also, I'd like to ask you to take care of porting the update mechanism that @jsbautista and @dalthviz developed last year to the new installers. We need to make sure that that works as it is now before releasing Spyder 6 and @dalthviz is quite busy migrating the Editor to the new API.

[mrclary]

• The spyder and uninstall-spyder aliases are not working for me in the console after installation (I don't know if that has to do with the fact that I selected the option to activate the env I mentioned above).

If you open a new terminal tab do the aliases work? Or quit and reopen the terminal application?

[mrclary]

@mrclary, some feedback about the Linux installer after testing the 5.4.3 one:

• I think it shouldn't offer the option to activate the installer environment in the console (that's the default right now).
• The spyder and uninstall-spyder aliases are not working for me in the console after installation (I don't know if that has to do with the fact that I selected the option to activate the env I mentioned above).

I'll see if I can fix these in #20827

[ccordoba12]

If you open a new terminal tab do the aliases work? Or quit and reopen the terminal application?

Nop, they don't.

[joooeey]

Is there supposed to be a start menu icon on Linux Mint? According to #20176 it seems this should be the case. I installed into a fresh mamba installation on Linux Mint 20.1. But there's no start menu icon and no spyder-related file in ~/.local/share/applications/.

[mrclary]

I installed into a fresh mamba installation

@joooeey, can you clarify what you mean here? This new conda-based installer should be downloaded and run

$ sh ~/Downloads/EXPERIMENTAL-Spyder-5.4.3-Linux-x86_64.sh

You should find a conda environment installed at ~/.local/Spyder-5.4.3. Creating your own environment and installing Spyder via $ mamba install spyder will not produce application shortcuts.

[joooeey]

I used $ mamba install spyder

I'm not interested in downloading experimental versions and I would generally like to use my package manager (mamba because of its dependency resolution speed) for everything. If that doesn't produce a start menu shortcut, so be it, but it's a shame.

[ccordoba12]

@joooeey, these improvements are only available for our own Linux installer, not for the Spyder conda package, sorry.

[mrclary]

I used $ mamba install spyder

I'm not interested in downloading experimental versions and I would generally like to use my package manager (mamba because of its dependency resolution speed) for everything. If that doesn't produce a start menu shortcut, so be it, but it's a shame.

@joooeey, just to clarify what our "experimental" installer does:

• It is not an experimental version of Spyder, just the installer is experimental.
• The installer creates an independent conda (with mamba) environment with Spyder installed. This does not replace any existing conda or mamba installation you may have on your system.
• An application shortcut is created; ~/.local/share/applications/spyder-spyder.desktop for Linux, ~/Applications/Spyder.app for macOS.
• Any Python environment, including other conda environments, can still be used for Console environments, just like your traditionally installed Spyder.

[ccordoba12]

@mrclary, a couple of comments after seeing the results of the alpha1 release:

• We should use Python 3.10 for the installers because it's more performant than 3.9.
• The arm64 Mac installer was not created by the release workflow.

[mrclary]

Closing per 6.0.0 release