View source for PreNIS

{{PageAuthor|Joe Cincotta}}

== PreNIS PreProcessor for NSIS ==

[http://www.pixolut.com/prenis PreNIS Project Page]

At Pixolüt we have been developing apps using .Net for a while. We generally use NSIS for packaging every kind of release. We found that we can reliably deploy server-based applications using NSIS too which can be a real time saver over silly and unreliable ftp deployment. 


The real problem with server based deployments (and some normal apps too) is that the application contains hundreds of dependant files in many subdirectories and tracking which files are active and which are no longer in the project is a massive waste of time duplicating what is essentially already in the .Net project file.


Another thing which can be annoying when developing applications is updating version numbers between the assembly.cs and the NSIS script.


Wouldn't it be great to be able to use the .Net project files to dynamically create the NSI file whilst having all the power and features of NSIS? Well, with PreNIS you can. PreNIS provides a simple set of macro tags which will expand out and repeat for all folders or files specified and create a new NSI file which contains all correct files in the project. There are also commands for inserting version information and other things in the final NSIS script.


Read the docs on the home page for more info. The latest version (1.1) supports Visual Studio 2003 project files and Visual Studio 2005 project files with C# or VB.Net.


Update: PreNIS is now on SourceForge with all source code in SVN. See link below.

Update: PreNIS now has its own [http://www.pixolut.com/kb.aspx Knowledge Base]. Contributions from use in the field is always welcome.

Update: Version 1.1 Released on 10/19/2007 at [http://www.sf.net/projects/prenis PreNIS project on SourceForge]. The latest release includes more powerful control over how scripts operate with including DLL files and also allow more freedom when writing scripts (not so fussy).

Update: Version 1.2 Released on 11/27/2007 at [http://www.sf.net/projects/prenis PreNIS project on SourceForge]. Supports Visual Studio 2008. 

Update: There is now a set of [http://sourceforge.net/projects/nant nAnt] includes for using PreNIS in the build pipeline from Pixolut which can be found [http://blog.pixolut.com/2007/11/28/essential-nant-utilities-from-pixolut/ here]...

== See also ==
* [http://www.pixolut.com Pixolüt Industries Website]
* [http://www.pixolut.com/prenis PreNIS Project Page]
* [http://sourceforge.net/projects/prenis PreNIS Source Forge Project]

[[Category:Development Environments]]
[[Category:Related Software]]