[Proposal] Alternative versions of manifest

[Ash258]

It would be nice to support different versions of manifest (beta, alpha, rc, eap, ...) (Types should be under discussion)

Proposed implementation:

bucket/
  ├── nightly/
  │    ├── ffmpeg.json
  │    └── wavebox.json
  ├── beta/
  │    ├── pwsh.json
  │    └── wavebox.json
  ├── alpha/
  │    ├── pwsh.json
  │    └── wavebox.json
  ├── rc/
  │    ├── pwsh.json
  │    └── wavebox.json
  ├── old/ # PHP,
  │    ├── pwsh@6.1.1.json
  │    └── wavebox@4.1.10.json
  ├── ffmpeg.json
  ├── pwsh.json
  └── wavebox.json

How could commands look like:

scoop install pwsh --beta
scoop install ffmpeg --nightly
scoop install ffmpeg --type nightly
scoop install pwsh --some-universal-pre-release-tag-which-load-other-type-of-manifest # Maybe the latest one if there are more = Higher version will have higher priority

It would require small changes:

• Find-BucketDirectory, which would accept new parameter Type with predefined ValidateSet and if this is specified then return nested folder
• Install.json New property "type": "nightly"
• List command should show type
• Auto-pr. something like gci $Dir -Directory |% { checkver * -dir $_ -u }; hub commit all

Old versions

This could be implementation even for #3023. But this would require new manifest property ("archive": true) and then would auto-pr automatically copy older version into old directory and commit.

Archive property because some vendors ship only latest version, change URL, have static url, ... (#3023 (comment))

Some cons:

• There would be much more commits (Is it even problem?? 🤔)
• More manifests to maintain (Should not be problem in community driven buckets)
• Pin out other cons

TODO:

Somehow list what versions are available (gci -file $bucketdir\old "$manifest@*.json" 🤔)

Note: This is just late night thought (when I cannot sleep 😀) and the most easiest implementation which came up on my mind at first. There is possible that it would generate some problems, Which I didn't take into account. I only considered it as Bucket maintainer, and user, not scoop developer

[niheaven]

Just some thought:

We have the versions bucket, and an unused nightly bucket, so alternative manifests could be put there.

For selected installation, maybe we should automatically select corresponding one, e.g., scoop install pwsh -> pwsh.json, scoop install pwsh --beta -> versions\pwsh-beta.json, scoop install python --alpha -> versions\python-alpha.json, etc.

And I think scoop install pwsh@beta is better then scoop install pwsh --beta, using --beta as argument is somehow strange 😅 There should be some reserved words after @ such as 'alpha', 'beta', 'rc', 'nightly'. (no app use these words as version number, right?) And looking up app-ver.json should be prior when scoop install app@ver, locked version manifest should be in versions bucket and never checkvered. (e.g. lynx-283.json, need to rename existing manifests)