Feature Request - Portable Version

[raspyweather]

It would be a very useful feature to use this application in a portable version without installation, as it is not possible to use this software in many companies as admin rights are required to run the installer.

[neuhausneuhaus]

By a portable version do you mean a web app, or being able to run Swell from something like npx?

[raspyweather]

I meant something that doesn't require installation with admin rights as thats a problem for many developers in companies.
But yes a web app, electron app or something with npx would totally do it.

[8D-k]

Adding a Dockerfile to Swell's repo may be a workaround to assist many who otherwise may not have admin rights. Admin rights over a container image or virtual machine are generally easier to obtain in many situations rather than than admin rights over a full machine in a controlled IT environment.

A fuller direct addressing of this Issue will be to have a full portable package installation generated much like Deno's packages. Make a single swell.exe executable file packaged by this project which can simply start without external dependencies on the target system. This would address the issue raised in a completely portable manner.

Portable in this context means to have non-admin rights on the system running Swell and requiring no dependency installation after downloading project packages. Potentially a *.zip file with a *.exe inside of the *.zip file, and no need to download anything further aside from what is included. Potentially a *.zip file with *.exe and several configuration files, plugins folder, and so forth. Correct handling here if there are resources including libraries which routinely need updated.

[8D-k]

@cgefx or others active in recent development to speak up.
What scope is currently under consideration for a fix to this issue? Thank you for any insight

[8D-k]

@raspyweather Do you know which direction the project is hoping to take on this?

[raspyweather]

Sadly no :(

[cgefx]

Adding a Dockerfile to Swell's repo may be a workaround to assist many who otherwise may not have admin rights. Admin rights over a container image or virtual machine are generally easier to obtain in many situations rather than than admin rights over a full machine in a controlled IT environment.

A fuller direct addressing of this Issue will be to have a full portable package installation generated much like Deno's packages. Make a single swell.exe executable file packaged by this project which can simply start without external dependencies on the target system. This would address the issue raised in a completely portable manner.

Portable in this context means to have non-admin rights on the system running Swell and requiring no dependency installation after downloading project packages. Potentially a *.zip file with a *.exe inside of the *.zip file, and no need to download anything further aside from what is included. Potentially a *.zip file with *.exe and several configuration files, plugins folder, and so forth. Correct handling here if there are resources including libraries which routinely need updated.

there was talk about containerizing Swell in the last planning meeting, though in the context of development workflow. We'll look into this at the next one and see if there's anything there in terms of portability for production releases.