An executable file for windows to install Mylar and depencies?

[leaderdog]

Hi Evilhero,

I've been discussing mylar with some folks and they tried to install it only to be frustrated because it didn't work for them, so in typical human form, they just delete it and not bother and then have negative thoughts of Mylar.

Which is unfair to you and the great work you've done.

So with that said, is there or is it possible for you, or make BBQsauce do it, create an executable that will download the dependencies and get Mylar installed, so all the user has to do is setup the settings?

I know the first time I tried Mylar I did the same thing. Installed it, had nothing but troubles and said this is stupid, deleted it and just ignored it. A year later, or so, I tried again and managed to do it correctly.

or do you do it this way on purpose to restrict the level of user you have?

[evilhero]

You're honestly not far off from the mark in your assumption.

Making a windows executable is not something that is easy (I tried a long time ago and ran into far too many compilation errors to go any further with it), not to mention the support that would follow providing an .exe file. Plus I can't make BBQ do anything - he's a friend that has been nice enough to help out with various aspects of the program, and has been an important part of the python3 migration process.

Running a python program is not difficult to manage - the requirements and compilations sure, that can be. But once you have python installed, that's pretty much it - running a command from a command prompt (or even double-clicking on the Mylar.py file) is not really difficult to manage. Users that can't be bothered to take a little bit of time to understand how to run the program, would end up having numerous other problems in relation to the program (ie. SAB, torrents, what's an indexer? etc). We can handhold til the cows come home and walk users through every facet of the program, but that's a huge amount of effort to go through for us & for new users. Have you ever tried to walk one of your parents through something as relatively simple as cutting and pasting from a log file into an issue ticket (or even pastebin for that matter)? I mean we don't get paid by the number of users who use the program, in fact we don't even know the exact number that currently use Mylar. Making something more easily accessible also brings with it other factors that can outweigh the benefits of having new users, the biggest part being the inability to provide the amount of support required.

Now with the python-3, setup requires 2 things:
- python 3.8+ (3.7+ works too apparently)
- running pip install -r requirements.txt - which installs all the dependencies required automatically.
Then it's just running Mylar.py via python to start it up.

The python-2 version ran into problems usually when using ComicTagger and being able to extract rar files. Everything else has remained the same, so if people are having issues running the program outside of that main problem, making a windows executable isn't going to fix that from happening.

[leaderdog]

Hi Evilhero,

Sounds fair

what is the rough sketched eta on the python 3 version?

and will it just be a matter of keeping our existing database and it all being pretty turn key at that point?

[Nich]

I've just done a second install of the python3 Mylar devbuild for a friend. The first, a month or so back and for myself, was a bit of a learning experience.
This second time, knowing that for eg some dependencies for python 3.8 aren't in palce for Windows, has been a lot more streamlined.

I still need to do this for a couple of more friends, and verify and streamline this workflow a bit more, but perhaps you'll find it helpful?


For Win10:

Download/install Python 3.7.6 [AFAIK 3.8 still has a dependency not built for Windows, but exists for Linux]
Upgrade pip [maybe not necessary?]
Install notepad++ [git for windows wants a default editor, and this is a lot better to actually use than the default vim - but I don't know if it'd actually ever get used by a Mylar user?]
Install GitHub for windows
Git clone https://GitHub.com/mylar3/mylar3 -b python3-dev C:\programdata\mylar [change install location to wherever you prefer; this will grab the latest dev repo]
Pip install -r requirement.txt [May need to run twice to skip errors ? I got two the first time, but running it again to confirm and they didn't appear]
Install nssm to setup as service/daemon


References:
Htpcguides.com/install-mylar-windows-usenet-comics/
GitHub.com/mylar3/mylar3/tree/python3-dev



As far as I can tell, this gets Mylar up and running ok as a clean install. Then it's just following documentation on how to set it up to work for your given setup.

From memory, as an upgrade, after it's installed you can copy over the config and db files, maybe cached stuff too (cover images etc).