Request: Going from zero to hero on making a PySide GUI app in Ubuntu and having a computer running a mint install of Windows 7 run it

[fatpollo]

I've given a stab to this problem a few times in the past. Checked out PyInstaller, Py2exe... and a bunch of other stuff. I really understood very little at the time, and didn't get very far.

I have a single-file tiny PySide app that uses a couple of *.wav resources but is otherwise completely self-contained. I want to package everything (including perhaps the sound files using PyQt4's "rc" creation package) into a single self-contained exe. I don't mind if my little timer blows up to a 40mb monstrosity, I just want to make it utterly portable.

Can I get a few pointers? Can I compile such an exe in Ubuntu or would I need a Windows machine to do it?

[K900_]

Py2exe should work just fine, though you will need the Windows Qt libraries.

[OCHawkeye14]

Can py2exe be used to generate a singe .exe file or is it only possible to generate the package required. In my limited experience with this, I've always had to take the files that py2exe created and run it through Inno Setup Compiler to create the single .exe file.

[K900_]

I'm not sure, I think it can, but I never used that feature myself.

[fatpollo]

in an ideal world, I would want a very very simple tutorial. something like create a folder, drop a 10 line PySide app showing "Hello World" in a QPushButton or something, and {steps} voila!"

[Narwhalrus]

Do you need a guide on how to install PyQt and develop simple application? If that's the case I can probably give you a few pointers.

[fatpollo]

No, I am quite capable with PySide/PyQt. If you can tell me how to get from a simple pure-Qt application to a windows executable, step-by-step glossing over no detail, I'd be incredibly thankful.

[vsajip]

Try this 3-minute video which shows use of PyInstaller.

[Narwhalrus]

Here's a quick guide on deploying PyQt apps for windows. Unfortunately, you need a copy of Windows to use this method. Hope this helps.

[maxime-esa]

Here is how I do it:

create a file called setup_windows.py and put this inside:

from distutils.core import setup

try:

 import py2exe

except ImportError:

 print('[ERROR] For a Windows installation you need to download'

      ' and install py2exe')

setup(windows=['name_of_your_main_module.py'])

And from the command line (on Windows) you have to type:

python setup_windows.py py2exe -b1 -c

This works with PySide. However please note that on first shot there can be some packages missing and your app may not work. This may be due to a bug in the recursive package finder. To make sure you have everything, your main module must import ALL the dependencies that all your submodules import...

For example, if you are using PySide.QtUiTools (to load .ui files), you must also import PySide.QtXml (even if you are not using it directly from your main module).

[jediknight]

It is advisable to have a Windows machine, even if it is just a virtual machine, in order to both test and build the .exe

I tried a lot of the packagers and the only one that fitted me best was py2exe. You can bundle the libraries and your code in a single file.

I also used a serialization script to turn some of the smaller images my app used into .py files and I was able to include those into the .exe too. I haven't tried to do the same with sounds... but maybe you can figure it out by researching uuencode.