Packing with custom icons and resources about packer

[a7ul]

Looks really neat!

[m4heshd]

Thank you. So I'll keep in touch with NodeGUI and try to do some contributions myself in the future. This project definitely is going places. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[a7ul]

You can give this a try: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2435816/how-do-i-poke-the-flag-in-a-win32-pe-that-controls-console-window-display.
I havent tried it yet though.

[blncd]

Thanks, it works with patched PE header. (used the python script)

Alternative for Microsoft VisualStudio users: editbin.exe /subsystem:windows qode.exe

[bolte-io]

The thing is if you pack all the Qt dll's into a single executable that doesnt allow modification of qt libs then you are not compliant with Qt's LGPL license. This would mean you would need to buy a commericial license. That is the reason Nodegui packer doesnt pack them into a single executable file.

But maybe we could use an installer framework in windows do build out a single msi file (although this needs work)

Can this not be specified via cmd line argument in the built passed into qode.exe?
This is because during development its much easier if we dont mention the start file at all and qode.exe behaves just like the node.exe (this allows debugging, testing, etc)

Oh sorry, that's not what I meant.
I mean the dist folder and the config file mainly packed into the qode.exe, so its just qode.exe (or whatever you name it to be) along with the DLLs in a folder. This would be cleaner imo.

[a7ul]

After you run the init command.
using npx nodegui-packer --init MyApp

you get a standard native os package. So for mac you will have a info.plist ,etc This you can edit and make it suite your needs.

Then whenever you need to build you would always run the second command
npx nodegui-packer --pack

this should pack the dist files and required libraries and create an image.

[m4heshd]

Thanks for the response @master-atul.
I've tried this and got a successful result but how to have a custom icon and a custom name for the executable without using any third party script as mentioned in the documentation? The output is always qode.exe with the NodeGUI icon. (Trying only on Windows for the moment)

I only get the following files inside deploy directory after running init

[a7ul]

qode.exe can be renamed to anything you need once the build happens.
and you might need to use https://www.npmjs.com/package/rcedit
to add a custom icon to it.
We can later on add this functionality to packer itself. But it suffers from this limitation for windows. :/

[m4heshd]

That's exactly what i currently do on my project at m4heshd/whatsapp-desktop-dark/build.js so i guess i have to stick with my current setup right? Either way, your responses are much appreciated.

rcedit is actually not functional at the moment.

[blncd]

I currently do it as follows:

Binaries:
The qode.exe is not copied again with every "npx nodegui-packer --pack" command, so you have to replace the icon for the binary only once in a while. I use http://angusj.com/resourcehacker/ for this.

Application windows:
Icons for newly created windows can be set like this:

const myWindow = new QMainWindow ();
myWindow.setWindowTitle ('myWindow');
const icon = new QIcon ('dist/assets/myIcon.png');
myWindow.setWindowIcon (settingsIcon);

Repeat this step for all windows that are created.

The only thing that currently bothers me is the console window that appears briefly when a Windows application starts, everything else works very well.

[m4heshd]

@blncd yup. That's exactly my current setup. Unfortunately the license for reshacker prohibits third party distribution so i had to use a postinstall script/module for the reshacker installation since i can't include in the repo.

[a7ul]

I currently do it as follows:

Binaries:
The qode.exe is not copied again with every "npx nodegui-packer --pack" command, so you have to replace the icon for the binary only once in a while. I use http://angusj.com/resourcehacker/ for this.

Application windows:
Icons for newly created windows can be set like this:

const myWindow = new QMainWindow ();
myWindow.setWindowTitle ('myWindow');
const icon = new QIcon ('dist/assets/myIcon.png');
myWindow.setWindowIcon (settingsIcon);

Repeat this step for all windows that are created.

The only thing that currently bothers me is the console window that appears briefly when a Windows application starts, everything else works very well.

The console window that appears briefly can be fixed using resource hacker i think. You ll need to just set a flag on the executable that converts it from a console app to a gui app. I dont remember exactly. But I can get back to you on this.

[a7ul]

Amazing!! 🚀🤘

[bolte-io]

qode.exe can be renamed to anything you need once the build happens.
and you might need to use https://www.npmjs.com/package/rcedit
to add a custom icon to it.
We can later on add this functionality to packer itself. But it suffers from this limitation for windows. :/

I have just built an exe and the DLLs on windows, and it will not open the exe if qode.exe is renamed. It will also not launch if qode.json is removed or renamed. Is this intended behaviour?

[a7ul]

Yes qode.json needs to be present since it tells qode.exe which file to launch.
renaming qode.exe shouldnt ideally cause issues. But if it does, for now you could create a shortcut of it and rename that as your starting point of the app.

I ll check why renaming qode.exe causes an issue.

[a7ul]

Thanks, it works with patched PE header. (used the python script)

Alternative for Microsoft VisualStudio users: editbin.exe /subsystem:windows qode.exe

Latest version of packer should do this automatically :)

[bolte-io]

Yes qode.json needs to be present since it tells qode.exe which file to launch.
renaming qode.exe shouldnt ideally cause issues. But if it does, for now you could create a shortcut of it and rename that as your starting point of the app.

I ll check why renaming qode.exe causes an issue.

Can this not be specified via cmd line argument in the built passed into qode.exe? So that the name then does not matter. The inability to rename isn't massively an issue, as I can create a simple wrapper to launch qode.exe.

Alternatively, is there any further way to pack the files into one exe? With or without the DLLs needing to be in the same folder.

[a7ul]

The thing is if you pack all the Qt dll's into a single executable that doesnt allow modification of qt libs then you are not compliant with Qt's LGPL license. This would mean you would need to buy a commericial license. That is the reason Nodegui packer doesnt pack them into a single executable file.

But maybe we could use an installer framework in windows do build out a single msi file (although this needs work)

Can this not be specified via cmd line argument in the built passed into qode.exe?
This is because during development its much easier if we dont mention the start file at all and qode.exe behaves just like the node.exe (this allows debugging, testing, etc)