How package and publish my application?

**jiveaxe** · 18th October 2007, 09:51

I have completed my application but I don't know how package and redistribute it to my friends. Until now every application I made was only for me so I didn't worry of the installation process.

I have used kate for writing source files and 'qmake -project' and 'qmake' for generating the project file and the Makefile.

What the application do? Essentially it reads data from a sqlite3 database and shows them. For the application I have used only QT classes (and custom classes, obviously), nothing else.

Maybe it is useful report the hierarchy of the project:

(main folder)
|
+--mainwindow{.h,.cpp},app.pro,app.qrc,main.cpp
|
+--(centralwidget folder)
| |
| +--custom class designing the centralwidget of QMainWindow
|
+--(gameviewer folder)
| |
| +--a modeless dialog
|
+--(icons folder)
|
+--(images folder)
|
+--(database folder)
|
+--contains the sqlite3 file "gmcdb"

Note #1:
The application simply reads from the database and cannot be used for editing it so the database file can be installed system wide.

Note #2:
Some of the images are used in html code passed to QPainter objects so the executable 'must know' constantly where they are installed.

How I accomplish this task? Is there, somewhere, a tutorial that responds to my questions? I have read the official KDevelop tutorial but it lacks in these matters.

Hoping someone can help me,
best regards

P.S.
I have posted in the wrong section, sorry. If some administrator can move it in Qt Programming, Thanks

**kernel_panic** · 18th October 2007, 14:52

NSIS is a fine install tool. you write script like installer files and compile them with an own coompiler. NSIS can be found at sourceforge.net.
or, if you dont want to add the dynamic librarys (dll or so) you can use my little installer.
Maybe, if you know how you cold add lzma packing. i didn't had time for that yet...

**jiveaxe** · 19th October 2007, 14:37

Thanks kernel_panic,
probably I have not explained well the problem. What I need is create the source tarball to install with configure/make/make install on a linux system. Searching over the net I read that are necessary 2 starting files: configure.in and Makefile.am; I have trouble creating this two files.

After further searching I found cmake and with little editing I have created my first source tarball of a very simple qt4 application (not that of the discussion).

Now I am trying to manage new stuffs, like images not compiled in the executable (used on runtime): in which folder of the filesystem I have to put them? in /usr/share/myapplication? Which changes I have to make to my code so that the executable (in /usr/bin, for example) finds the images (in /usr/share/myapplication, for example)?

If needed I'll post new questions.

Bye

**Brandybuck** · 19th October 2007, 18:18

Don't go the autoconf route. That way leads to madness! Qmake can handle installation, so use it. You just need to define some install targets in your .pro file.

If you install to the standard locations under a hierarchy, then it will be easy to find stuff. The executable will be under /usr/local/bin, data files and icons under /usr/local/share/appname, and documentation under /usr/local/share/docs/appname. And so on. The tricky part is that the software might have been installed somewhere other than the default /usr/local, but when you know where your executable is, then you know where everything else is. Use QApplication::applicationDirPath() to find out.