Application Deployment - PyGObject

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# Application Deployment

There is currently no nice deployment story, but it’s not impossible. This is a list of random notes and examples.

## Linux

On Linux there is no single strategy. Quod Libet uses distutils, MyPaint uses SCons. Gramps uses distutils.

## macOS

On OSX you can use gtk-osx which is based on jhbuild and then gtk-mac-bundler for packaging things up and making libraries relocatable. With macOS bundles you generally have a startup shell script which sets all the various env vars relative to the bundle, similar to jhbuild.

## Windows

On Windows things are usually build to be relocatable by default, so no env vars are needed. You can build/install through MSYS2, copy the bits you need and you are done. For GUI application you’ll also need an exe launcher that links against the python dll.

## Example Deployments

- Quod Libet provides a Windows installer based on MSYS2 and NSIS3. On macOS, jhbuild is used for building, gtk.mac-bundler for packing things up and dmgbuild for creating a dmg. distutis is used for building/installing the application into the final environment. Most of this is automated and scripts can be found in the git repo.

- MyPaint provides a Windows installer based on MSYS2 and Inno Setup. It uses SCons for building/installing the application.

- Passphraser uses the Hello World GTK template build system (see below).

## Other options

- PyInstaller is a program that freezes (packages) Python programs into stand-alone executables, under Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and more. PyInstaller’s packager has built-in support for automatically including PyGObject dependencies with your application without requiring additional configuration.

- Hello World GTK is a template build system for distributing Python-based GTK applications on Windows, macOS, and Linux. First, an application directory is assembled using PyInstaller. Then, a different program is used to package the resulting directory. For Windows, NSIS3 is used. For macOS, the built-in hdiutil is used. For Linux, AppImageKit is used.