Helper app to manage slicer installations

pieper · March 21, 2024, 3:00pm

Here’s an idea people may want to comment on:

"slicerizer" app to install and manage Slicer application versions

opened 02:57PM - 21 Mar 24 UTC

Priority: Medium make-simple-things-simple

## Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. As discusse…d in a recent dev meeting, a utility to manage downloads could be useful. The current methods to install Slicer binaries require multiple user-actions and vary across platforms. There is a lot of repetitive effort required, for example, to compare the behavior of an extension in, say, the stable and preview versions of Slicer on multiple platforms. Here's a common current workflow on a fresh VM: * install a browser * go to download.slicer.org and click the correct button for your os / version choice * open downloaded archive, (windows: run installer) * launch slicer, go to extensions manager, seach and install each extension * restart slicer * repeat for each platform you want to test ## Describe the solution you'd like A simple command that would download and install Slicer consistently across platforms. Inspired by [this package that installs platform-specific executables via PyPi](https://pypi.org/project/s5cmd/), we could leverage pypi to distribute a program that performs the installation and manages executable paths. Here's are some sample uses for bash (the exact command name is open for discussion). ### Install Slicerizer ``` pip install slicerizer ``` ### install and run the latest stable ``` slicerizer install Slicer ``` ### install and run the latest preview ``` preview=$(slicerizer install --preview) ${preview} ``` ### install and run the latest preview ``` preview=$(slicerizer install --preview) ${preview} ``` ### install and run a specific version with extensions installed ``` slicer561=$(slicerizer install --version 5.6.1 --extensions SlicerDMRI,SlicerRT) ${slicer561} ``` ### query the installed Slicer versions and their extensions ``` slicerizer query --format json [ {"Version": "5.6.1", "InstallData": "2024-03-21", "Extensions": ["SlicerMorph", "MONAILabel"], "ExecPath": "/Users/pieper/app/Slicer-5.6.1.app/Contents/MacOS/Slicer" } ] ``` ## Describe alternatives you've considered We don't need to use pypi, but it seems convenient. Instead we could provide a shell script for linux/mac and a .bat or powershell script for windows, but maintaining multiple versions would be a hassle. Also this feature could be included in Slicer itself, so that once you've installed one version it helps you manage your isntallations of other versions. But that wouldn't for installing a Slicer version on fresh VMs. Depending on user feedback, we might also consider adding a GUI to select which Slicer to launch. There are also lots of potentially useful command line options to consider adding: * a command to update the preview or release if one is available * an option to auto-launch when download and installation are complete' * an option for windows to automate running the installer * options to specify the installation directory * options to save or not save the installer archive * options to delete older versions * options to query and list versions available for installation, and what extensions are available for them Other name ideas: * SlicerBuddy * SlicerConfigurationManager * slicer-apputil * slicertool * slicervalet ## Additional context Use cases: * Easy cross-platform cut-and-paste command to install a specific version of slicer * for recreating a debugging scenario * for quickly testing a feature of a preview build on multiple machines * for getting access to an older version where an extension is known to work * for using a specific version as part of an ongoing experiment * A graphical interface to pick among installed versions * An easy way to get the latest preview with bookmarked extensions auto-installed * A way for batch processing scripts to specify the required slicer and extensions without user interaction

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Helper app to manage slicer installations

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