how do cleanly move Notepad ++ to win32 and win64 arch?

[TheBigBear]

Notepad++ originally was only ever a 32bit executable.

So the original naming of "npp.sls" made a lot of sense at the time.

But they have now had a whole major version of a 64 bit executable as well.

Our problem is, how do we move this package over for major version 8 onwards at least ( or maybe even in retrospect for major ver 7 as well ? ) to be allowing users to installing the 32bit or 64bit executables?

In theory these new packages should be named "npp_x86.sls" or "npp_x64.sls" respectively, but the current existing 32bit pkg definition would clash with the 'new' "npp_x86.sls"

Seems to me that whatever we do for version 8 and onwards, we are going to break things for some users.

There are not too many packages like Notepad++ that actually allow the user to install the 32bit package even when on a 64bit OS. Most of the time, it is a question of checking OS 'bitness' and installing the package accordingly, but in the case of Notepad++ the users have a choice and might choose to install 32bit because of an add-in they use, or 'just because they can'.

Suggestions?

[TheBigBear]

@twangboy @dafyddj any suggestions on how to take this popular pkg into the present and future? Major version 8 has been out since June 2021, version 8.x is already in its 7th release with version 8.1.5 https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/

[dafyddj]

We could either leave the original package as it is, and add a npp_x64 package (filename itself is not relevant, they could be in the same file as far as Salt is concerned.)
Or make an assumption that someone would not want to install the two different architectures at the same time and use a Salt configuration parameter (or grain/pillar) to determine required architecture like I introduced for language for Firefox.

[xzenor]

I have a pull request waiting for some attention with that exact change.
Nobody looked at it yet though.

[TheBigBear]

@xzenor thanks, so sorry I missed your PR. I quite like @dafyddj's suggestion to add "a Salt configuration parameter (or grain/pillar) to determine required architecture like I introduced for language for Firefox." So installing 64-bit could be made the new default on 64 bit OSes and ONLY IF users specify a flag requesting 32-bit installs on 64-bit OS would it switch to using that. What I have not done any testing on, is the effect or logic required to 'upgrade' the current older 32-bit installs on 64-bit platforms to the new 64-bit version. But this idea or plan might be slightly controversial and we might want to wait for feedback from @twangboy and or @dafyddj > but this would ten make npp behave as expected. as new installs of npp on 64-bit OS dop now install the 64-bit version by default. The tricky bit is going to be to find the right cut off point for doing this on 64-bit OSes ( maybe only start this 'new' behaviour with v8 and higher?

[xzenor]

@TheBigBear Switching from 32 to 64 might be tricky, especially since you can have them both installed side by side so there's no upgrade functionality in the setup either.
I'll have a look at it..

[TheBigBear]

@xzenor ok, could be a gotcha indeed, I did say I had not done the testing yet, in a nutshell I just wanted to somehow cleanly combine the past where we only had npp and 32 bit and now where we have 64 bit by default on 64 bit os ... and trying to have it work for most people in most places by now using 64-bit on 64 bit os by default and 'forcing' only the 32-bit users that really need their npp to be 32-bit only on a 64-bit OS to have to do anything special. So in my scenario I would leave npp.sls be and have it install the 64 bit version and create a new npp_x86: inside of it instead that does 32-bit on 32 bit OS by default or if required by the new salt configuration parameter pillar/grain.