Making a Mathematica package manager?

Question

I'd like to get a serious discussion started about a package manager. This has come up elsewhere, and many people have implemented their own solutions. It would be nice to have a standardized way to deploy and distribute Mathematica code to anyone.

I also imagine we could distribute other content this way. For example, one thing I think would be nice, if there were interest, would be to collate information from this site and serve it as a package that includes tools and supplemental documentation.

Please share your ideas on how we can achieve this.

Answer 1

I've prototyped a package downloading system (Mapt) that supports multiple versions, and will show its basic functionality below. Does it work? would you use it? what needs to change? what else would you want it to do? what packages do you want? do you want to work on this project together? do you have an alternative way of doing this?

Load Mapt:

Get[ "http://mfvonh.me/mapt" ] ;
??Mapt

It is not yet installed locally:

Mapt[ Path ]

None

It can be installed anywhere in $Path.

Mapt[ Install ]

True

Then it can be loaded with Needs[ "Mapt`" ] if it is not in an Autoload folder:

FindFile[ "Mapt`" ]

D:\Program Files\Wolfram Research\Mathematica\9.0\AddOns\Autoload\Mapt\init.m

These are the available packages:

Mapt[ List ]

{"HelloWorld", "LevelScheme"}

And basic installation:

Mapt[ Get , "HelloWorld" ]

True

Packages can then be loaded like this:

Needs["HelloWorld`Current`"]
??HelloWorld

All available versions of a package can be listed:

Mapt[ VersionNumber , "HelloWorld" , All ]

{1.0, 1.1}

A specific version can be installed:

Mapt[ Get , "HelloWorld" , "1.0" ]

True

Multiple versions can be on the disk:

Needs[ "HelloWorld`Version1$0`" ]
??HelloWorld

A more complex package:

Mapt[ Get , "LevelScheme" ]

Fetching LevelScheme...

Extracting...

Initializing...

Done

Needs[ "LevelScheme`Current`" ]

Figure[{
  SetOptions[Lev, Thickness -> 3, Color -> Red], 
  SetOptions[Trans, ArrowType -> ShapeArrow, FillColor -> LightGray], 
  Lev[lev1, 0, 2, 0],
  Lev[lev2, 1, 2, 100],
  Lev[lev3, 0, 2, 200],
  Trans[lev2, 0.5, lev1, 0.9, Width -> 10], 
  Trans[lev3, 0.5, lev1, 0.5, Width -> 20]},
 PlotRange -> {{0, 2}, {-10, 210}},
 ImageSize -> 72*{3, 3}]

To install the package Mapt creates a temporary directory, sets it, and then just pulls a small script:

Import[Mapt[Path,"Mapt-Packages"]<>"LevelScheme/install-LevelScheme-3.53.m","Text"]

=

Module[
  { progress , update } ,
  Print[ "Fetching LevelScheme... " ] ;
  progress = 0 ;
  update[ _ , "progress" , { now_ , total_ , __ } ] :=
      progress = now / total // Quiet ;
  URLSaveAsynchronous[
    "http://scidraw.nd.edu/levelscheme/versions/LevelScheme-3.53.zip" ,
    "ls.zip" ,
    update ,
    "Progress" -> True ] ;
  While[ progress < 1 , Pause[ .1 ] ] ;
  Print[ "Extracting..." ] ;
  ExtractArchive[ "ls.zip", Directory[ ] ] ;
  SetDirectory[ "LevelScheme" ] ;
  URLSave[
    Mapt[ Path , "Mapt-Packages" ] <> "LevelScheme/3.53/init.m" ,
    "init.m" ] ;
  Print[ "Initializing..." ] ;
  Mapt[ Initialization , "LevelScheme" , "3.53" ] ;
  Print[ "Done." ] ] ;

I would like to get a project going on GitHub, so if you are interested in working on it please chime in.