A Node wrapper for makensis, the compiler for NSIS installers. Supports both, native and Wine.

Make sure that NSIS is properly installed. If makensis isn't exposed to your PATH environment variable, you need to set pathToMakensis.

# Windows Package Manager
$ winget install NSIS.NSIS

# Scoop
$ scoop install nsis/nsis

# Debian
$ sudo apt-get install nsis

# Red Hat
$ sudo dnf install nsis

# Homebrew
$ brew install nsis

# MacPorts
$ port install nsis

npm install makensis

Example usage in script:

import * as NSIS from 'makensis';

const options = {
	verbose: 2,
	define: {
		SPECIAL_BUILD: true
	}
};

try {
	let output = await NSIS.compile('path/to/installer.nsi', options);
	console.log('Compiler output:', output);
} catch (error) {
	console.error(error);
}

Usage: commandHelp(command?, options?, spawnOptions?)

Returns usage information for a specific command, or a list of all commands. Equivalent of the -CMDHELP switch.

Usage: compile(script, options?, spawnOptions?)

Compiles specified script with MakeNSIS. The script can be omitted in favor of the preExecute / postExecute options.

Usage: headerInfo(options?, spawnOptions?)

Returns information about which options were used to compile MakeNSIS. Equivalent of the -HDRINFO switch.

Usage: license(options?, spawnOptions?)

Returns MakeNSIS software license. Equivalent of the -LICENSE switch.

Usage: nsisDir(options?, spawnOptions?)

Returns the path of ${NSISDIR}.

Usage: version(options?, spawnOptions?)

Returns version of MakeNSIS. Equivalent of the -VERSION switch.

⚠️ Some of these options are limited to NSIS v3 (see the changelog for details)

Type: Object

Defines symbols for the script [to value]. Equivalent of the -D switch.

define: {
	SPECIAL_BUILD: true,
	LANGUAGE: "English"
}

Type: boolean | string

Enables support for special environment variables, that will be passed on to the script as definitions. Can be a path containing .env files or a specific file.

# .env
NSIS_APP_ENVIRONMENT=development

# installer.nsi
!if ${NSIS_APP_ENVIRONMENT} == "development"
	DetailPrint "Valuable Debug Information"
!endif

Type: boolean

Allows dispatching the log events stdout, stderr and exit.

Type: string

Specifies the codepage for files without a BOM (ACP|OEM|CP#|UTF8|UTF16<LE|BE>). Equivalent of the -INPUTCHARSET switch.

Type: string

Specifies the codepage used by stdout when the output is redirected (ACP|OEM|CP#|UTF8[SIG]|UTF16<LE|BE>[BOM]). Equivalent of the -OUTPUTCHARSET switch.

⚠️ This option is only available on Windows

Type: boolean

Returns output from makensis as an object

Type: boolean

Disables the current directory change to that of the .nsi file. Equivalent of the -NOCD switch.

Type: boolean

Disables inclusion of <path to makensis.exe>/nsisconf.nsh. Equivalent of the -NOCONFIG switch.

Type: string

Specifies a custom path to makensis

Type: boolean

Pauses after execution. Equivalent of the -PAUSE switch.

Type: integer

Sets the compiler process priority, where the value 5=realtime, 4=high, 3=above normal, 2=normal, 1=below normal, 0=idle. Equivalent of the -P switch.

⚠️ This option is only available on Windows

Type: boolean

Treat warnings as errors. Equivalent of the -WX switch.

Type: boolean

Will only run the preprocessor and print the result to stdout. The safe version will not execute instructions like !appendfile or !system. !packhdr and !finalize are never executed. Equivalent of the -PPO / SAFEPPO switches.

Type: string | string[]

Prepends script-commands to the script, can be passed as array or multiline-string. Equivalent of the -X switch when used before passing a script.

preExecute: [
	'SetCompressor lzma',
	'SetCompressorDictSize 16'
];

Type: string | string[]

Appends commands to the script, can be passed as array or multiline-script. Equivalent of the -X switch when used after passing a script.

postExecute: [`!echo "That's all Folks!"`];

Type: string[]

Specifies raw arguments for makensis.

⚠️ These will be added to the compiler arguments last and will hence overwrite any of the NSIS options above!

Type: integer

Verbosity where the value 4=all, 3=no script,2=no info, 1=no warnings, 0=none. Equivalent of the -V switch.

Environmental variables allow for Wine to be configured by the user. These can be specified using the spawnOptions.env property. See the documentation for details.

On top of that, the following options for Wine are available.

Type: boolean

Runs makensis on Wine

Type: string

Specifies a custom path to wine, useful when working with wine32 or wine32on64.

This module emits three types of events you can hook into using the on() and once() methods:

Gives access to an object containing the current line, and whether it contains a warning of the path of the outfile.

Gives access to an object containing the current line.

Gives access to an object containing the exit code, the full stdout and stderr, and the number of warnings.

• atom-language-nsis - NSIS package for Atom
• vscode-nsis - NSIS package for Visual Studio Code

This work is licensed under The MIT License.