How-to: plugin tools and designers

Ibex owns the common installer.kdl spec. Each plugin owns type-specific extras and (optionally) a third-party compiler or designer. Ibex does not fill Inno/NSIS form fields; it emits a script or spec and opens that file.

Status

ibex plugins list
ibex plugins info inno
ibex plugins describe inno

describe prints JSON: id, targets, tool path, GUI path/URL, install playbook, and extrasSchema.

Type-specific extras

Put overlay fields under extras in installer.kdl. Unknown keys are ignored by other plugins.

installer {
    name "MyApp"
    plugin "inno"
    extras {
        compression "lzma"
        solid true
        outputBaseFilename "MyApp-setup"
    }
    files {
        file "*"
    }
}

Then ibex emit . or ibex build . applies them in the generated .iss / .nsi / MSI spec / AppDir.

Install builders (Scriptbook)

Third-party tools are installed by reusable CentrMark playbooks under playbooks/, executed by Scriptbook:

# Chicken-and-egg: does not need Scriptbook yet
ibex plugins install-scriptbook

ibex plugins install-tool inno
ibex plugins install-tool nsis
ibex plugins install-tool msi
ibex plugins install-tool appimage --dry-run

If Scriptbook is missing, install-tool runs scripts/install-scriptbook.ps1 (Windows) or scripts/install-scriptbook.sh first. Other apps can run those scripts and the same .cmk files with the scriptbook CLI.

ibex plugins install-gui <id> still only opens the vendor download page.

Open a designer

ibex plugins open-gui inno .

This emits sources into dist/ and launches Compil32 / NSIS / the default app on that file. Further edits in the third-party IDE are not round-tripped into installer.kdl; keep extras in KDL for shared fields and treat the emitted script as an overlay.

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