How can I package a Qt program built with CMake on Windows? - windows

Question

I'm writing a cross-platform program which I'd like to package on Windows. I got it to run by putting three DLLs (Qt5Core, Qt5Widgets, Qt5Gui) in the build directory, then made a tarball and gave it to someone else with a Windows box, but it would not run on his Windows box. I searched for a way to get whatever else it needed and found Nathan Osman's post about windeployqt, so I copied windeployqt.cmake to the cmake/Modules directory, but couldn't figure out how to use it. Is there a way to use CPack to make a package (even if it's just a tarball) that has everything needed to run the program on a Windows box that doesn't have the compiler or Qt installed?
Here's the CMakeLists.txt file with some (hopefully irrelevant) stuff removed:
project(perfecttin)
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.8.0)
set(CMAKE_INCLUDE_CURRENT_DIR ON)
set(CMAKE_AUTOMOC ON)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17) # appeared in CMake 3.8
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)
set(CMAKE_CXX_EXTENSIONS ON)
set(SHARE_DIR ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/share/perfecttin)
add_definitions(-DBOOST_ALL_NO_LIB)
if ("${CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_ID}" STREQUAL "MSVC")
set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS ON)
else ()
set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS OFF)
endif ()
set(CMAKE_MODULE_PATH ${CMAKE_MODULE_PATH} "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/cmake/Modules/")
find_package(LibPLYXX)
find_package(Qt5 COMPONENTS Core Widgets Gui LinguistTools REQUIRED)
find_package(Boost COMPONENTS program_options)
find_package(Threads)
qt5_add_resources(lib_resources perfecttin.qrc)
qt5_add_translation(qm_files perfecttin_en.ts perfecttin_es.ts)
# To update translations, run "lupdate *.cpp -ts *.ts" in the source directory.
add_executable(perfecttin-gui adjelev.cpp angle.cpp binio.cpp
<snip lots of source files>
unitbutton.cpp ${lib_resources} ${qm_files})
target_link_libraries(perfecttin-gui ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT} Qt5::Widgets Qt5::Core)
target_link_libraries(fuzzptin ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
target_compile_definitions(fuzzptin PUBLIC _USE_MATH_DEFINES)
target_compile_definitions(perfecttin-gui PUBLIC _USE_MATH_DEFINES)
set_target_properties(perfecttin-gui PROPERTIES WIN32_EXECUTABLE TRUE)
install(TARGETS perfecttin-gui DESTINATION bin)
install(FILES ${qm_files} DESTINATION share/perfecttin)
include_directories(${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR})
configure_file (config.h.in config.h)
set(CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_MAJOR ${PERFECTTIN_MAJOR_VERSION})
set(CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_MINOR ${PERFECTTIN_MINOR_VERSION})
set(CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_PATCH ${PERFECTTIN_PATCH_VERSION})
set(CPACK_RESOURCE_FILE_LICENSE ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/COPYING)
set(CPACK_SOURCE_IGNORE_FILES /\\\\.git;.*~)
include(CPack)
include(CTest)

Answer 1

If you already have in your ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/cmake/Modules/ directory the file Windeployqt.cmake, you may use it like this:
install(TARGETS perfecttin-gui
DESTINATION "${INSTALL_BIN_PATH}"
)
if(WIN32)
include(Windeployqt)
windeployqt(nitroshare-cli ${INSTALL_BIN_PATH})
endif()
Here is the full example.

Answer 2

I did borrow a lot from this answer, however it was missing the necessary environmental setup which leads to Warning: Cannot find GCC installation directory. g++.exe must be in the path..
Qt has the following documentation on using windeployqt.exe
The tool can be found in QTDIR/bin/windeployqt. It needs to be run within the build environment in order to function correctly.
When using Qt Installer, the script QTDIR/bin/qtenv2.bat should be used to set it up.
Basically you need to run windeployqt.exe as a custom command within the correct environment.
# Retrieve the absolute path to qmake and then use that path to find
# the windeployqt executable
get_target_property(QMAKE_EXE Qt6::qmake IMPORTED_LOCATION)
get_filename_component(QT_BIN_DIR"${QMAKE_EXE }" DIRECTORY)
find_program(WINDEPLOYQT_ENV_SETUP qtenv2.bat HINTS "${QT_BIN_DIR}")
find_program(WINDEPLOYQT_EXECUTABLE windeployqt HINTS "${QT_BIN_DIR}")
# Run windeployqt immediately after build
add_custom_command(TARGET perfecttin-gui
POST_BUILD
COMMAND "${WINDEPLOYQT_ENV_SETUP}" && "${WINDEPLOYQT_EXECUTABLE}" \"$<TARGET_FILE:perfectin-gui>\"
)

Answer 3

"Since version 6.3, Qt offers a way to define additional deployment steps that are executed on installation."
- https://www.qt.io/blog/cmake-deployment-api
Among other things there is now a *deploy utility script generator already included.
install(TARGETS perfecttin-gui DESTINATION bin)
qt_generate_deploy_app_script(
TARGET perfecttin-gui
FILENAME_VARIABLE deploy_script
NO_UNSUPPORTED_PLATFORM_ERROR
)
install(SCRIPT ${deploy_script})
Documentation is at: generate-deploy-app-script
According to the docs so far this doesn't work on Linux
For some more options (and apparently Linux support?) one could use the function which the above convenience version actually invokes: qt-deploy-runtime-dependencies
For example qt_generate_deploy_app_script() puts the Qt plugins outside of the destination 'bin' directory, each in their own folder, which I don't like (I want them all under 'bin'). So I had to use the full version (this is all basically from the Qt docs linked above):
set(MY_APP perfecttin-gui)
if(APPLE)
set(executable_path "$<TARGET_FILE_NAME:${MY_APP}>.app")
else()
set(executable_path "\${QT_DEPLOY_BIN_DIR}/$<TARGET_FILE_NAME:${MY_APP}>")
endif()
set(deploy_script "${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/deploy_${MY_APP}.cmake")
file(GENERATE OUTPUT ${deploy_script} CONTENT "
include(\"${QT_DEPLOY_SUPPORT}\")
qt_deploy_runtime_dependencies(
EXECUTABLE \"${executable_path}\"
PLUGINS_DIR bin
)"
)
install(TARGETS ${MY_APP} DESTINATION bin)
install(SCRIPT ${deploy_script})
See https://www.qt.io/blog/cmake-deployment-api for more details about deployment in general
ADDED:
Found the source for qt_deploy_runtime_dependencies().
Looks like the next version adds a NO_TRANSLATIONS option, but it's not in my 6.4.1.
But I did find a hack to pass additional options to the deploy tool...
If you search that code for __qt_deploy_tool_extra_options you'll see the warning about how it may go away. But as a workaround...
My file(GENERATE OUTPUT) now looks like this (likely needs adjusting per platform):
file(GENERATE OUTPUT ${deploy_script} CONTENT "
include(\"${QT_DEPLOY_SUPPORT}\")
set(__qt_deploy_tool_extra_options --no-compiler-runtime --no-translations)
qt_deploy_runtime_dependencies(
EXECUTABLE \"${executable_path}\"
PLUGINS_DIR bin
# NO_TRANSLATIONS
)
")
Also the qt_generate_deploy_app_script() source if anyone is interested.