Deployment on Windows - Revision history

Julian at 11:15, 29 October 2011

2011-10-29T11:15:01Z

IOOI: Category:Microsoft Windows added

2009-04-03T19:30:33Z

Category:Microsoft Windows added

Pingi: moved introductory paragraph out of section

2007-03-09T10:33:59Z

moved introductory paragraph out of section

Pingi: introduction, reference to README.MinGW

2007-03-09T10:30:36Z

introduction, reference to README.MinGW

Madleser: CVS -> SVN

2006-09-15T20:29:38Z

CVS -> SVN

Comrade: Language cleanup

2005-07-16T14:02:03Z

Language cleanup

IOOI: copied from Lloyds mail, slightly formatted

2005-07-16T00:23:05Z

copied from Lloyds mail, slightly formatted

New page

These directions seems to work but have been tested only on my development machine so far (I have yet to test it on a test machine without anything installed).

1st it is recommended you build GNUstep from CVS yourself by following these guidelines:

[http://wwwmain.gnustep.org/resources/documentation/User/GNUstep/README.MinGW README.MinGW]

or here:

[[Installation on Windows]]

it's a relatively long and painless process.
(Note: this installer "GNUstep-base-1.10.1-gui-0.9.4.exe" contains slightly bugged dlls: use CVS)

Okay, now you've got GNUstep build, all you need to deploy is 3 things:

1. all the dependency dll (step 11 & 14: libintl, libiconv, etc...),
installed in MinGW should be in your app's dir or in the PATH

2. all the DLL in <GNUstep>/System/Tools should be in your app's dir or in
the PATH

3. The content of <GNUstep>/System directory (with the exception of
<GNUstep>/System/Tools) should be in some path, pointed to by these
environment variables:

GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT
GNUSTEP_NETWORK_ROOT
GNUSTEP_LOCAL_ROOT

(have this 3 variables point to this unique directory to avoid all suprised)
(there is 3 variables for system install & fallback mechanism)
(you don't need System/Tools as you already copied the DLL)

If you don't want to mess with system environment variable (or want to have multiple, side by side, installation) you could set them (*) at startup time with:

[NSProcessInfo initializeWithArguments: __argv
count: __ argc
environment: (char**){
"GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT=C:\AppLocalGSPath",
"GNUSTEP_NETWORK_ROOT=C:\AppLocalGSPath",
"GNUSTEP_LOCAL_ROOT=C:\AppLocalGSPath",
NULL} ];

it's important to call this method early before other calls triggers other cache of (incorrect) environment variable.

(*) putenv might fail if, for some reason, the class NSProcessInfo has already been initialized, as it will cache the environment variables.

And voila!

You could ship your GNUstep based application without the user having to know about or install GNUstep!
(and used your tested version of GNUstep as well).

Happy GSCoding ;-)

''based on a mail from Lloyd Dupont''

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:15, 29 October 2011
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	Happy GSCoding ;-)		Happy GSCoding ;-)

		+	[[Category:Deployment]]
	[[Category:Microsoft Windows]]		[[Category:Microsoft Windows]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:30, 3 April 2009
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	Happy GSCoding ;-)		Happy GSCoding ;-)
		+
		+	[[Category:Microsoft Windows]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 These instructions are based on a mail from Lloyd Dupont. You find more recent instructions from Nicola Pero in the file <tt>core/make/Documentation/README.MinGW</tt>. Keep in mind that either ones are experimental. You may have to try out yourself which files you need to ship. The medium-term goal is to provide a separate runtime package that puts libs to a standard place so that it will suffice to zip&deploy the .app directory.
 ==Preparation of your MinGW GNUstep environment==
 First-off, it is recommended you build GNUstep from SVN yourself using [http://www.gnustep.org/resources/documentation/User/GNUstep/README.MinGW the MinGW README] or following the instructions for [[Installation on Windows]].

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:30, 9 March 2007
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	These instructions are based on a mail from Lloyd Dupont.	+	These instructions are based on a mail from Lloyd Dupont. You find more recent instructions from Nicola Pero in the file <tt>core/make/Documentation/README.MinGW</tt>. Keep in mind that either ones are experimental. You may have to try out yourself which files you need to ship. The medium-term goal is to provide a separate runtime package that puts libs to a standard place so that it will suffice to zip&deploy the .app directory.

	==Preparation of your MinGW GNUstep environment==		==Preparation of your MinGW GNUstep environment==

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ==Preparation of your MinGW GNUstep environment==
 These directions seem to work but have been tested only on Lloyd Dupont's development machine so far - this has yet to be tested on a test machine without anything installed. (Please update this once someone's tested this!)
-First-off, it is recommended you build GNUstep from CVS yourself using [http://www.gnustep.org/resources/documentation/User/GNUstep/README.MinGW the MinGW README] or following the instructions for [[Installation on Windows]].
+First-off, it is recommended you build GNUstep from SVN yourself using [http://www.gnustep.org/resources/documentation/User/GNUstep/README.MinGW the MinGW README] or following the instructions for [[Installation on Windows]].
 It's a relatively long but painless process.
 ==Making sure that DLLs are available to your application==
@@ Line 44: / Line 44: @@
 Happy GSCoding ;-)

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-These directions seems to work but have been tested only on my development machine so far (I have yet to test it on a test machine without anything installed).
+==Preparation of your MinGW GNUstep environment==
-st it is recommended you build GNUstep from CVS yourself by following these guidelines:
+These directions seem to work but have been tested only on Lloyd Dupont's development machine so far - this has yet to be tested on a test machine without anything installed. (Please update this once someone's tested this!)
-[http://wwwmain.gnustep.org/resources/documentation/User/GNUstep/README.MinGW README.MinGW]
+First-off, it is recommended you build GNUstep from CVS yourself using [http://www.gnustep.org/resources/documentation/User/GNUstep/README.MinGW the MinGW README] or following the instructions for [[Installation on Windows]].
-or here:
+It's a relatively long but painless process.
-[[Installation on Windows]]
+Note: the installer "GNUstep-base-1.10.1-gui-0.9.4.exe" contains slightly buggy DLLs - please use a current CVS version!
-it's a relatively long and painless process.
+==Making sure that DLLs are available to your application==
-Okay, now you've got GNUstep build, all you need to deploy is 3 things:
+. Make sure that all the dependency DLLs that are installed in the MinGW GNUstep environment are in your application's directory or in the PATH (see [[Installation on Windows]] step 11 and 14: libintl, libiconv, etc)
-. all the dependency dll (step 11 & 14: libintl, libiconv, etc...),
+. Make sure that all the DLLs in <GNUstep>/System/Tools are in your application's directory or in the PATH
-. all the DLL in <GNUstep>/System/Tools should be in your app's dir or in
+. The content of <GNUstep>/System directory (with the exception of <GNUstep>/System/Tools) should be pointed to by one of the following environment variables:
    GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT
@@ Line 29: / Line 23: @@
    GNUSTEP_LOCAL_ROOT
-(have this 3 variables point to this unique directory to avoid all suprised)
+Hint: make all three variables point to the same directory to avoid all suprises. You don't need System/Tools in these as you have already copied the DLLs.
-If you don't want to mess with system environment variable (or want to have multiple, side by side, installation) you could set them (*) at startup time with:
+The three variables are intended to support a more complex GNUstep environment than you may need for a single application deployement.
    [NSProcessInfo initializeWithArguments: __argv
@@ Line 43: / Line 37: @@
      NULL} ];
-it's important to call this method early before other calls triggers other cache of (incorrect) environment variable.
+It is important to call this method early before any other part of the application triggers caching of incorrect GNUstep environment variables.
-And voila!
+Warning: simply using putenv might fail if, for some reason, the class NSProcessInfo has already been initialized - it will have cached the environment variables.
-You could ship your GNUstep based application without the user having to know about or install GNUstep!
+Voila! Your GNUstep-based application can now be shipped without the user having to know about or install GNUstep - and you don't have the risk of an untested version of GNUstep being loaded by your application either.
 Happy GSCoding ;-)