Menuinst, conda-standalone and constructor

menuinst_ecosystem.md

Conda, constructor and menuinst

menuinst is able to take $PREFIX/Menu/*.json files and create menu items on different OS. It is used by conda and constructor to that end, but it's also a separate library.

Conda & Menuinst

State

• menuinst is a conda dependency on Windows, but not on Linux/MacOS.
• menuinst needs to be present on the base env so conda can call menuinst.install(...) upon package linking if a menu JSON is found.

Needed actions

• Once support for Linux/MacOS is merged, menuinst needs to be part of the conda dependencies on all platforms.
• Remove special cases for Windows:
  • Case 1.
  • Case 2

Note that the function that handles menu creation on conda has this name and signature:

def make_menu(prefix, file_path, remove=False):
    ...

---

Constructor & Menuinst

State

• constructor ships a frozen conda called conda-standalone. This frozen package contains some vendored dependencies, like menuinst itself.
• constructor allows --conda-exe to specify a different "standalone conda" if needed. Conda Forge uses this flag to bundle micromamba instead.
• conda-standalone has an extra entry point conda constructor, which provides some commands to create and remove menus. This introduces a CLI API: --make-menus and --rm-menus.
  • This entry point is part of the recipe itself!
  • It should be part of the conda CLI, not just the standalone build.
• The entry point will import _nsis.py (part of constructor) and call menuinst.install(...). Note that _nsis.py is only valid for Windows.
• _nsis.py introduces a different API than conda!

def mk_menus(remove=False, prefix=None, pkg_names=None, root_prefix=None):
    ...

def rm_menus(prefix=None, root_prefix=None):
    ...

Needed actions

• Port conda constructor CLI API over to conda. Have micromamba implement it too.
• The CLI implementation should not call _nsis.py directly. It should use menuinst public API. This won't be a problem because menuinst should be a conda dependency at this point.
• _nsis.mk_menus and _nsis.rm_menus should be marked as deprecated and forward to the conda CLI implementation.