This document explains how RHVoice SAPI5 installer executables share MSI Packages for Core, Language and Voice, and how to create a consistent and maintainable series of SAPI5 installs for your voice.
The exe contains your voice data files, wrapped inside an MSI package.
It must also contain whatever version of the RHVoice language files that your voice needs. That set of language files is also wrapped in its own MSI package.
And finally, both a 32- and 64-bit versions of the RHVoice Core TTS, each in its own MSI package.
The four components mentioned above (voice data, language files, and two versions of the core), all have their own RHVoice versions, and they all have to be compatible with each other. But, in addition to taking care of that version control system, you need to be aware of MSI package version effects. This is in order for you to upgrade your users, or to supply users who have other voices in the same language as yours, and who obtained their language files elsewhere than from you.
When the Microsoft Installer opens a new package, it checks if it already has the contents of this package installed. Here is where problems could arise.
Every MSI package is assigned a unique package code at build time. If the package is removed and then rebuilt without any other changes being introduced, with exactly the same contents as before, the newly built package file will still have a different package code.
And two packages containing the same version of the same component, but having different package codes, will cause an installation error.
For example, you are distributing an upgrade of your voice from your version 4.0 to 4.1. You need to include in the exe the other three components. Those - the core and the language pack - have not changed. But we must make sure that we do not create new MSI packages for them. We do not want the installation to fail because, say, the installer opens up what looks like a new MSI package for the language, only to find that it contains the same version of the language files already installed. And thus the whole install fails. You will learn below how our exe build script takes care of this.
When you build RHVoice on Windows by executing the scons command,
voice installer executables will be created for all the voices as part
of the overall build process.
The MSI packages containing the latest stable version of the core are published in this repository. They will be used by default.
This is how the build script will select an appropriate MSI package for each voice or language. The paths are relative to the root directory of the main RHVoice repository.
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Read the version number from the corresponding voice.info or language.info file.
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Look for an MSI package with this version number in the bin/msi/local directory. Here the build script expects to find your locally saved packages from previous builds. Put here your voice packages for reuse, as well as your language packages while the language is in development and not considered stable.
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If no package has been found at step 2, the build script looks in the bin/msi/shared directory. Here are the public MSI packages shared in this repository: the core and the stable versions of the languages.
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If no package has been found at step 3, the script builds a new one and saves it in the build/windows/packages/sapi/msi directory. You should copy any new packages you or other developers may need in the future from this directory right away, as they may be overwritten by a future build.
As a result, one situation where you must take responsibility is when you want to give your voice users upgrades to the core or to the language, and when the voice itself has not changed. You are the one who must supply the MSI package for the voice. You must not supply a brand new MSI package for the voice. You must re-use the same MSI package you last used to deliver the existing voice version to users. Thus, it is imperative that you save each voice MSI Package that you distribute. If you do not, and you want to distribute a core or language update, you will need to ask your users to first uninstall the voice.
Language developers, please share your stable language MSI packages by making a pull request here, so other developers of voices for your language can create compatible voice installers. We need your language MSI packages, not just the language files. If you have given a voice in your language to a SAPI user, and another developer wants to distribute a different voice, that developer must include the same MSI package of your language, and not just the same version of your language files, with their voice, they will need one of your language MSI packages.