I realize that Win32::Packer is probably your creation: would you help me to see what I could do with it ?

I would need at least to have perl.exe and wperl.exe available and probably a lot of modules (with XS code in them). The must, at first glance, would be to have it installed directly in the Inkscape directory and to have everything (like perllibs, DLL, etc. relative to the path the executables are running, so no environment variables would be necessary as I cannot act from within Inkscape to do anything before calling the Perl executable wperl.exe...). There would be no perl script to install but just the running Perl environment...

One big problem that comes to my mind is that Inkscape installs itself within the 'Program File' directory which has a space character in its path...

Anyway, I'll setup a Windows VirtualBox (as I'm not a Windows user) and have a try on this soon...

Thanks again

There would be no perl script to install but just the running Perl environment...

The executable created by tools like Win32::Packer and PAR:Packer don't install anything.

BUT, the script you package with a tool like those CAN install what you need.

First, write a script - let's call it "setup_InkPerl.pl" - that copies your framework and customized Perl distribution to the places they need to be.

Then, run Win32::Packer or PAR:Packer (or other) to create "setup_InkPerl.exe"

When the end user runs setup_InkPerl.exe, setup_InkPerl.pl, your framework and your Perl mini-distribution will be extracted, then setup_InkPerl.pl will be run.

In setup_InkPerl.pl, you need to copy your framework to wherever it needs to be for Inkscape to run extension made for your framework. And you need to copy your Perl distribution to somewhere Inkscape can find it.

There are some scripts in the portable Strawberry Perl distribution that might be helpful, including one that can add entries to the registry.

I hope this helps

Thanks ! I'll have a look.

Thanks, Rob for your reply.

But, no, it is not what I'm looking for: I don't have any script to run a priori, I just need a minimal installed perl environment (with some extra modules) to run any perl script written as an Inkscape extension.

That's quite different: it smells like strawberry but without all the bells and whistles needed for perl development as docs, pods, gcc, c environment, cpan modules builder, etc. which, for the lambda end-user, is just a waste of disk space as he will not even know they exist and what they're made for.

But, no, it is not what I'm looking for

UPDATE: Corrected "vendor" to "perl/vendor" (below)

Ok ... back to thinking that you do want a perl installation of some sort.
Note that Strawberry Perl includes a couple of sizeable directories that are not part of a standard windows perl installation - namely "c" and "perl/vendor". (The "cpan", "licences" and "win32" directories are also absent on a standard build of Windows perl - but, between them, they take up less than 2 megabytes.)
My standard build of latest blead (version 5.29.7) on Windows 7 consumes 45 megabytes on my hard drive - which can be tarred and gzipped down to 12 megabytes.
The same figures would apply also to perl-5.28.0.

I'm thinking that shouldn't be considered to be "too large and unwieldy".
Even over a slow internet connection, a 12 megabyte download should be quite acceptable.
And 45 megabytes of space is hardly a consideration in the 21st century.

Cheers,
Rob

The two approaches already mentioned:

1. use PAR::Packer, Win32::Packer and then pp to create stand-alone perl executables (PEX) for a single perl script (like jars for java so to speak). These PEX carry all the modules you will ever need for that particular script you are distributing. So, duplicate modules exist in each PEX. In addition, it takes some time to run because of initial setup costs (unpacking). But that decreases by activating the cache switch. I consider this a good solution, the minus is the duplicate modules in each PEX.
2. Install some minimal perl distribution.

I will suggest add to the list a solution based on containers (e.g. docker): create such container to include perl and all your scripts. Right now I can not even make docker run on my Linux to try this approache and that reminds me why I never use them nor caught their band-wagon when first came to town. But I am sure it's child's play to sell that idea to any snake charmer, any day.

bw, bliako

This is not at all what I'm looking for: I don't have any script to run, but want to have a Perl runtime to be able to run any script written as an Inkscape extension, which calls directly wperl.exe with the name of the extension script which get its parameters from Inkscape through STDIN, including a temporary XML file name which is the current document, and output its messages , if any, to Inkscape through STDERR and finally returns the modified document through STDOUT). As I said earlier, it smells like Strawberry but without all the stuff needed for Perl development, like gcc, cpan, pods etc. Only a wperl.exe excecutable, some XS modules and the DLL needed to run them, nothing more.

The portable version of Strawberry Perl doesn't need to be installed and includes all the needed modules. It could be setup next to Python in the Inkscape\lib folder and added to the Inkscape configuration.

Write an install script to do these steps:

• Download the Portable Strawberry Perl zip file.
• Unzip it to the Inkscape\lib folder next to Python.
• Remove the C and CPAN folders and whatever else you don't want
• Configure the user's Inkscape preferences file to run the Perl Inkscape extensions by passing the Perl scripts to portableshell.bat.

Only one minor problem : there is no Inkscape preference file on Win32.

As I mentioned before the Windows install of Inkscape does have the preference file. Mine is located at C:\Users\xxUsernamexx\AppData\Roaming\inkscape\preferences.xml. I posted a link to the directions for how to find this location. There should be an easy way to find it in a Perl script.

Update: You can find that location in your script with $ENV{APPDATA} which equals C:\Users\xxUsernamexx\AppData\Roaming.