possibly task: something like the nvda's optional components repository

[aleksey_s]

as nvda goes much power many optional components might be added. for now we have only brltty and the newfon synth, further anything which will comes on. so i think we need to make some exact way for users to manage nvda components. it might be implemented with help of nsis or a standalone program. from user's side this will be a list of optional components which he can install or remove. currently, these might be followed components:

• espeak russian additional data
• espeak chinese additional data
• liblouis library and tables (one might want not have it, becouse he/she haven't braille display)
• brltty package
• newfon synthesizer
• stress dictionary for newfon synthesizer
• sapi 4 and 5 runtimes

from developers side, it must be easy manageable list of packages. so, one database accessible from the website with some fields and packages theirselves. based on program with which to implement this feature, packages might to be in different formats. i don't know nsis features, but it may be script to run for optain package. it might just download and run executable (sapi runtime installation), or download, unzip and copy some files into nvda folder. each package might have different license agreement, which user must to accept.

[jteh]

• Is this really necessary? Why not just self-extracting archives or installers?
  • These are pretty simple, although they do require some knowledge of where NVDA is installed.
  • I still don't think the BRLTTY installer should ever be integrated as an NVDA component. It is too complex and is very much a separate package.
  • The Newfon synth is probably a good candidate for this.
• Putting this into the installer means that the user has to reinstall NVDA to install these components. Also, some users may not use the installer. I think this would be better done as a stand alone program.
• I don't see the need for a client side downloader or package database.
  • Why not just a simple web page from which users can download packages? The web is already a very familiar environment.
    • This also makes maintenance very simple.
    • Other community members can potentially create their own packages.
  • The NVDA portion can be a simple package installer which basically just extracts the package.
    • Do we need an uninstaller? This requires tracking of package data, but this probably isn't too hard.
      • How will the NSIS installer deal with this? It will leave package files behind. How do we indicate that these must be uninstalled?