Feature request: Ways to install something extra with app installer.

[tomasjablonskis]

⚠️ Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe

Some apps require a 3rd party tools to be pre-installed for app to work properly. As far as I am aware, currently there is no out-of-the-box solution to bundle these 3rd party tools together with the app in the same installer and you have to write custom .nsi scripts for it.

💡 Describe the solution you'd like

It would be nice to have some Kotlin DSL parameter in Gradle configuration under nativeDistributions where we could define a list of paths to 3rd party tools that we have installers for so our installer could install those 3rd party tools together with the app during installation process.

Imagine we have "some_3rd_party_tool.msi" installer file that we want to be installed during our app installation.

An example configuration could look like:

nucleus.application {
    mainClass = ...
    
    nativeDistributions {
        windows {
            nsis {
                includeInstallers = listOf("./some_3rd_party_tool.msi", ...)
            }
        }
    }
}

---

I am not using NSIS for packaging and using WiX instead, if it helps this type of configuration in WiX would looks something like this:

<Chain>
    <MsiPackage Id="some_3rd_party_tool"
                SourceFile="./some_3rd_party_tool.msi"
                DisplayName="some_3rd_party_tool"
                Vital="yes"
                Permanent="yes">

    <Payload SourceFile="./some_3rd_party_tool.mst" />

    <MsiProperty Name="TRANSFORMS" Value="some_3rd_party_tool.mst" />
    </MsiPackage>
     
    ... our app installation  configuration ...

</Chain>

🤚 Do you want to develop this feature yourself?

• Yes
• No

[kdroidFilter]

Thanks for the suggestion — the need is completely legitimate and I understand it. It's a recurring gap in the desktop packaging ecosystem.

However, this is out of scope for Nucleus at the moment. The plugin relies on electron-builder to handle Windows packaging, and this kind of feature (chaining third-party installers, whether through WiX Burn <Chain> or custom NSIS scripts) should really be implemented at the underlying packager level, not above it. I don't want to reimplement this logic myself in Nucleus: it would mean maintaining in parallel the detection of already-installed dependencies, return code handling, rollback, bundle signing, etc. — all of which are precisely the packager's job.

I'd suggest opening the issue directly upstream on electron-builder, where it has a better chance of moving forward,

I'll leave the issue open in case others want to chime in, but I don't plan to implement it in the near future. Thanks again for the detailed proposal