webman

README

A cross-platform package manager for the web!

---

Add, remove, and manage different versions of web-distributed software binaries. No elevated permissions required!

Warning: This repo is still under development and has not stabilized. There may be frequent breaking changes until a 1.x release.

Package recipes are located in the webman-pkgs repo. Recipes are simple YAML files that make it easy to submit a new package. Webman locates version numbers online and installs packages from the web, so you'll always have the most up-to-date software available!

Windows (Powershell), Linux, and MacOS are supported!

Installation

MacOS, Linux, Git Bash, WSL, etc.

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/candrewlee14/webman/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

Windows Powershell

Webman requires the ability to create symlinks! Make sure to enable developer mode so that admin privileges aren't required.

Invoke-Expression (New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/candrewlee14/webman/main/scripts/install.ps1')

NOTE: Never blindly run a shell script from the internet. Please check the source shell or powershell file. Alternatively, download the latest release manually.

Philosophy

I wanted a cross-platform package manager like webi with no dependencies, a nice CLI, and a simple package configuration format. I wanted a generalized version of nvm, nvm-windows, and gvm for easily switching between package versions. I wanted an easy way to install groups of packages, like the tools in modern-unix.

That's why I built webman.

All of webman's resources are located in ~/.webman. The only directory that needs to go on your system PATH is ~/.webman/bin. Simply remove the ~/.webman directory and all of webman's packages and resources will be removed.

Security is an important priority to me here. Package recipes cannot specify commands to be run, only endpoints to access. Everything is implemented in Go.

Examples

Below are examples of adding, removing, and switching with webman.

Add Software

webman add go will install the latest version of Go.

webman add zig@0.9.1 will install a specific version (0.9.1) of Zig.

webman add rg lsd zig node go rg@12.0.0 will install each of the package versions listed.

webman group add modern-unix will allow checkbox selections for adding packages in the modern-unix group.

Run Software

webman run go will run the in-use version of Go (if installed).

webman run zig@0.9.1 --version will run a specific version (0.9.1) of Zig with the argument --version.

webman run node:npm --version will run npm --version using the in-use version of node.

Remove Software

webman remove go will allow you to select an installed version of the Go package to uninstall/

webman group remove modern-unix will allow checkbox selections for removing packages in the modern-unix group.

Switch to Other Versions of Software

webman switch go will allow you to select an installed version of the go package to switch to use. If rg --version previously showed 13.0.0, try running webman switch rg and selecting version 12.0.0 (after it has been installed). Running rg --version again will say 12.0.0.

Webman does version management.

Check Packages & Test Locally

You can create new package recipes by adding a simple recipe file in a cloned webman-pkgs directory. Check if it is in a valid format with webman dev check [WEBMAN-PKGS-DIR].

Next, webman dev bintest [NEW-PKG] -l [WEBMAN-PKGs-DIR] will do a cross-platform installation test on a package.

The package recipe format was built around making it easy to contribute new packages to webman, so if you're missing a package, go ahead and create it!

Disable output color and ANSI escape codes

Set NO_COLOR environment variable to hava a raw console output.

Setup

Run the script above or download the binary for your OS and architecture here.

Alternatively, if you have Go installed, run:

go install https://github.com/candrewlee14/webman@latest

Next, add ~/.webman/bin to your system PATH. If you are on Windows, use %USERPROFILE% instead of ~.

Now you're ready to use webman! Hope you enjoy :)

Updating

You can update webman at any time using webman add webman --switch.

Documentation

Overview

Copyright © 2022 Andrew Lee candrewlee14@gmail.com

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.