Installation

Installation

There is an Install.bat script included within the zip which will set up the configuration Alteryx needs. It does this by asking for UAC permission to run Scripts\Install.ps1 which will install all the individual components of the OmniBus. This should work whether you have an Admin or User install of Alteryx. If you only have a User install and cannot run under UAC, then you can just run the Install.ps1 within the Scripts folder directly. This should install without needing UAC permission to the User install location. You may also need to approve the script within Window Defender Smart Screen.

For uninstalling, there is an equivalent Uninstall.bat which calls Scripts\Uninstall.ps1 to do the uninstall. Again the batch file will ask for UAC permission and then run the Uninstall.ps1 script.

After install you can verify the install by checking for Omnibus tool group (in versions 10.5 and 10.6 the tools will appear in Laboratory) within the toolbar and the Omnibus Regex tool within the Parse group (this tool will not work in versions prior to 11.0).

In addition, if you download the unit tests associated with the release (or the whole source tree) you can use these to check the add-ins. If you have the CReW macros installed then you can use the RunUnitTest.yxmd file to run them all:

When developing these functions, there will be an Install.bat and Uninstall.bat copied into the output folder of the builds automatically. These do the same as the ones for the relase but configure Alteryx to use the output of the build process. If you use the Omnibus.Framework.GUI nuget package then these scripts will automatically be added into your project.

Details of the installation process are given below.

Overview of the Install scripts (for the release version)

• Install.bat
  • This file requests administrator permission and runs Scripts\Install.ps1
• Scripts\Install.ps1
  • This file contains a list of SDK tools to install and then a list of HTML ones to install
  • It runs either Scripts\Installer.ps1 or Scripts\InstallerHTML.ps1
  • It also includes commands to remove legacy versions of the plug ins (e.g. JDTools) (via Scripts\Uninstaller.ps1)
• Scripts\Installer.ps1
  • This is an installer for C# of C++ tools
  • It creates the appropriate ini file and copies to any locatin of Alteryx it can find
• Scripts\InstallerHTML.ps1
  • This will create a symbolic link for the HTML add in
• Uninstall.bat
  • This file requests adminstrator permission and runs Scripts\Uninstall.ps1
• Scripts\Uninstall.ps1
  • This file contains a list of all plugins that might have been installed (including previous versions)
  • It will run either Scripts\Uninstaller.ps1 or Scripts\UninstallerHTML.ps1
• Scripts\Uninstaller.ps1
  • This will remove the specified ini file effectively uninstalling the tool from Alteryx
• Scripts\UninstallerHTML.ps1
  • This will remove the specified symbolic link from the installed directory

Developer Version

• This is vaguely the same process as the release tool
• Install.bat will request administrator permission and run Scripts\Installer.ps1
• Scripts\Installer.ps1 is modified from the release version to just use the folder one directory above
• The Uninstall.bat and Scripts\Uninstaller.ps1 work similarly.
• These scripts will automatically be installed by the Nuget pacakge Omnibus.Framework.GUI

Locating Alteryx

• The location of Alteryx is found by accessing the registry:
  • Admin: HKLM:\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\SRC\Alteryx.InstallDir64
  • User: HKCU:\SOFTWARE\SRC\Alteryx.InstallDir64

C# or C++ Based Custom Tools

The GUI uses ini files within Settings\AdditionalPlugins inside the Alteryx install directory (one directory above the bin folder containing AlteryxGui.exe). The ini file should look like:

[Settings]
x64Path=D:\Repos\AlteryxAddIns\Release\OmniBus.Roslyn
x86Path=D:\Repos\AlteryxAddIns\Release\OmniBus.Roslyn
ToolGroup=OmniBus

Alteryx will search the specified folder for all DLLs within them. In theory it should search within bin\Debug and bin\Release but I have found this be delicate and prefer to set up a file to open the specific folder. The ToolGroup specifies where the tools will be found. Please note there was a bug in 10.5 and 10.6 which meant it would appear within Laboratory, this is fixed in 11.0.

If you have an Admin install of Alteryx then the folder will probably be protected by UAC and need administrator permission to access it.

HTML Plug In Install

For HTML based plug ins the system looks for a directory within bin\HtmlPlugIns. The installation creates a symbolic from here to the directory containing the plugin. The uninstaller removes this folder.