packr

Packages your JAR, assets and a JVM for distribution on Windows (ZIP), Linux (ZIP) and Mac OS X (.app), adding a native executable file to make it appear like the app is a native app. Packr is most suitable for GUI applications.

Download Packr (jar-with-dependencies)

Usage

You point packr at your JAR file (containing all your code and assets), a JSON config file (specifying parameters to the JVM and the main class) and a URL or local file location to an OpenJDK build for the platform you want to build. Invoking packr from the command line looks like this:

java -jar packr.jar -windows -jdk /path/to/the/jdk -executable name-of-executable -jar my-own-app.jar -config config.json

The first parameter indicates for which platform to build the distribution, valid parameters are -windows, -linuxand -mac.

The parameter -jdk specifies the location of an OpenJDK ZIP file, a directory containing OpenJDK, or an URL to an OpenJDK ZIP file. You can find prebuild binaries at https://github.com/alexkasko/openjdk-unofficial-builds. Just download one for each platform you want to create a distribution for, then let this parameter point at the respective ZIP file. You can also directly specify an URL (redirects are not supported though!).

The parameter -executable specifies the name of the native executable to be put into the distribution, e.g. mygame, would become mygame.exe on Windows and mygame on Linux/Mac.

The parameter -jar specifies the location of the jar to be packaged. This must contain both your code and your assets.

The parameter -config specifies the JSON configuration file that specifies flags for the bundled JRE. Here's an example (using cuboc.jar):

{
   "jar": “cuboc.jar",
   "mainClass": "com/badlogic/cuboc/CubocyDesktop”,
   "vmArgs": [
      "-Xmx1G"
   ]
}

This file will be packaged with the distribution and read by the native executable to start the embedded JVM.

Output

When packing for Windows, the following folder structure will be generated

outdir/
   executable.exe
   yourjar.jar
   config.json
   jre/

Linux (64-bit!)

outdir/
   executable
   yourjar.jar
   config.json
   jre/

Mac OS X

outdir/
   Contents/
      Info.plist
      MacOS/
         executable
         yourjar.jar
         config.json
         jre/
      Resources/

You can futher modify the Info.plist to your liking, e.g. add icons, a bundle identifier etc. If your outdir has the .app extension it will be treated as an application bundle by Mac OS X.

Building

If you only modify the Java code, it's sufficient to invoke Maven

mvn clean package

This will create a packr-VERSION.jar file in target which you can invoke as described in the Usage section above.

If you want to compile the exe files used by packr, install premake, Visual Studio 2010 Express on Windows, Xcode on Mac OS X and GCC on Linux, then invoke the build-xxx scripts in the natives/ folder. Each script will create an executable file for the specific platform and place it under src/main/resources.

Limitations

• Icons aren't set yet on any platform, need to do that manually.
• Windows is 32-bit only, Linux is 64-bit only, Mac OS X is 64-bit only
• If you want a smaller JDK you have to currently clean up jre/rt.jar yourself. I'll try implementing tree shaking asap.