I have a Tkinter app that uses images included in the same folder as the .py file. pyinstaller script.py produces an executable that runs but does not open any windows. This is because it is looking for images that don't exist in the same subdirectory. When I copy the important images to the dist folder Pyinstaller creates, the application runs correctly.
However, I would like to have a single executable that I can share with other users that doesn't also require them to have the images stored. The images should be bundled with the software somehow, like how commercial software (usually) doesn't require you to download assets separately from the program itself.
Is there a way to bundle Python programs and the assets they use into single-click applications?
Note that I am using Python 3 on Linux Mint. I am also something of a novice, so don't be surprised if I'm missing something obvious here.
It appears I've solved my own problem.
Instead of having the images included in the same folder as main.py and using the resulting short relative filepath to reach them, install the images in an appropriate space in the system directory tree (I used /home/$USER$/.$PROGRAMNAME$/) and have the program access the files using the absolute path to that directory. This will allow you to copy the program anywhere on your computer you want and have it run without a problem.
However, if you want to share it with someone else, you'll need to also include an installation script that places the assets in the correct directory on their computer.
Related
I don't know if my question is ambiguous or not but, I noticed that in Scripts folder inside the python installation folder there are executable files. Each file about a 100kb in size.
FYI: when I open it (or them) using 7Zip I often find a init.py file inside.
Thanks
I have tried researching but can't seem to find the answer.
The setuptools package builder is able to
Automatically generate wrapper scripts or Windows (console and GUI) .exe files for any number of “main” functions in your project. (Note: this is not a py2exe replacement; the .exe files rely on the local Python installation.)
(ref. from setuptools documentation)
Unfortunately the way it is actually done is considered an implementation detail and is not documented.
I developed my code using PyCharm and am using PyInstaller to create a desktop .exe application. I am able to create the application, however, my current method requires navigating multiple directories, and to copy/paste some file dependencies. The whole reason to use PyInstaller was to make it more user-friendly, and easy to access the file dependencies. My question is, how should my code be organized so that a general user can easily access the file dependencies, and developer not need to copy/paste the dependency?
Below is my generalized current approach and the result.
To develop using PyCharm, edit:
/projectFolder/main.py,
/projectFolder/helper.py,
/projectFolder/data.xlsx
To create application using PyInstaller:
in command prompt, /projectFolder/venv/Scripts, execute pyinstaller ../../main.py
This creates projectFolder/venv/Scripts/dist/main/main.exe, among many more files (generated by PyInstaller) that the user shouldn't interact with or even see.
At this point, I need to copy/paste /projectFolder/data.xlsx into /projectFolder/venv/Scripts/dist/main for the .exe application to function.
The executable is now ready to be used.
I am looking for a better approach, where the user will see only the relevant files, main.exe and data.xlsx (since this will be modified, periodically). Also, I'd like data.xlsx need not be copy/pasted.
Again, how should I organize my code / package the distribution in order to simplify things for the user?
You can add files or even a folder to install with PyInstaller by using the command --add-data. The documentation explains the format for the file / folder to add but in your case it should be:
pyinstaller --add-data "data.xlsx;." main.py
Now your 'data.xlsx' will automatically copied and pasted into the folder with your .exe file.
PyInstaller also has a feature to compress all your files into one single .exe (including added data) and then when you run your program, it creates a temporary folder in your OS temp folder, usually C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\ that starts with _MEIxxxxx where the xxxx is a randomly generated number so your exe programs wont interfer with each other if more than one is running at a time. The folder is automatically deleted upon successful exit of the program.
The code to have only one file instead of a folder:
pyinstaller --onefile --add-data "data.xlsx;." main.py
There are 2 issues with having one file instead of a folder. The first isn't too big of a problem, but everytime your program crashes or doesn't close properly, the temp folder _MEIxxxxx where all your program was unloaded to wont get deleted, potentially clogging up their system. A simple fix would be to add some extra code into your program that checks if there is already a _MEIxxxxx folder with an older date/time in their temp folder and delete it.
The second is that if your program requires to read / write to a file, the code will check in the current directory of the exe, not the temp folder that is created. A workaround to this would be to write some extra code that looks for the a folder that starts with _MEI in their temp and uses that as the path. If it finds more than one folder with _MEI it should take the most recent (and hopefully delete the older ones)
Another cool feature is adding the --runtime-tmpdir command to your pyinstaller which allows you to specify the where you want your _MEIxxxxx to unload, potentially making it easier to check where the data and files you need to run the program.
pyinstaller --onefile --runtime-tmpdir "C:\TemporaryFolder" --add-data "data.xlsx;." main.py
Unfortunately, if you specify a folder or a path that doesn't exit your program wont work at all, so I would recommend creating a separate setup.exe that creates that folder for them and that should be run before running the main.exe file. Afterwards they can delete the setup file and their program should be running.
I would like to be able to run a Python script from any folder. However, this Python script, named statistics.py calls upon two other files, colorbar.py and language_bytes.py. It also reads data from a folder that is located beneath it, in data/languages.yml.
Because it has these dependencies, along with the .yml file, I have been unable to have it be executable from anywhere. Even if I add #!/usr/bin/env python3 to the first line of statistics.py and drag it, along with the other two files and the data folder into usr/local/bin, this doesn't work.
With a little bit of digging I found out that this was because the data folder was being deleted as soon as it went into usr/local/bin. This means that the Python script is unable to access the data that it needs, and so cannot be run.
Is there any other way to run a Python script globally?
Edit: Because this script is made to by modifiable by users and will be open-source, it would be optimal if it could be run without having to be bundled into a PyPI package. As well as this, it doesn't make sense that every time one would want to make a globally runnable script with resources they'd have to upload it to PyPI, even if it was just for personal use.
Recently I was experimenting with pyinstaller to create an executable file from my Python script. Everything works as expected.
I tested two options: --onefile, which takes quite a long time (like 20-30sec) to start because it depacks everything into a temporary directory.
The --onedir option is much faster (4sec) to start but it's not very comfortable to use. When I move exe file outside this directory program no longer works.
My question is: is there a possibility to make the exe file point to this directory location? I want to keep all the pyinstaller files in one place and allow users to have the exe file in any location they want.
Thanks for help.
Let's just see a real-life production case. Whenever you download say a pirated game, or and original copy of software, generally they are compressed together. When you unzip them, a new folder is extracted and inside that folder there are a lot of other folders. What you do to run the software is you simply double click the .exe file.
Your situation is the same. If you move the exe file outside the original extracted folder then it simply doesn't work. So, the work around way is to create a shortcut to the exe file.
Hope this clarifies your doubt :)
Shortcut. Create .exe shortcut. This way original .exe will be still in parent directory but shortcut can be placed anywhere
Most of the answers are about creating shortcuts, but its not the true solution. What we want is a clean folder having one dir and the exe outside that dir.
Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment. This issue is there since 2010 and was not fixed till date. Here is the link to that issue:
https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/issues/1048
All they say is to create your own bootloader.
Nobody was able to give the PR for that.
I also found a blog on separating the exe from onedir with a hook file. I tried this but was unsuccessful with the latest version of Pyinstaller.
At last you have to do something hacky.
I found a way to do this:
Make a folder Modules in the same directory where executable is present.
Copy and paste all the heavy modules inside that folder.
Add the search path for that module folder inside your program:
# add this code in the top (before imports)
if getattr(sys, 'frozen', False):
app_path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(sys.executable),"Modules")
sys.path.append(app_path) # search this path for modules
Under pyinstaller option --exclude-module, write the names of all those modules you excluded.
Use the one-file option but don't pack any other assets like images. Add all those external assets/folders outside.
Add this option: --runtime-tmpdir "Temp". With this, the executable will unpack the required files in the same directory under a new folder "Temp".
That's all, now you will get a very small sized exe file with mainly two required folders "modules" and the "temp". The booting time will also increase, and it will look a lot cleaner.
I think you should have some other files which is being required by that exe file & hence when you move exe file outside of directory it's giving you error. One of the example can be that the exe program require chrome driver & you have placed it within that directory. If you move exe program outside then you need to place the chrom driver also in the new position. I hope it will help you to detect , otherwise we can use exe program anywhere if it does not require any dependency of other files.
A workaround allowing a clean folder structure for the user that only contains the main exe and the libs folder is to create a second Python program containing only one instruction : call the executable of the main Python program within the over-crowed folder with libs. The main program being distributed without the --onefile option, the execution remains faster.
The principle is simple : create a new Python project with a single script your_program_launcher.py with this content :
import os
if __name__ == '__main__':
os.chdir(".{0}your_program_folder".format(os.sep))
os.system("your_program.exe")
The script is very simple and limit itself to move on the main program folder (to avoid resource access problems) and call the main program executable.
You just have to distribute this launch program with --onefile and possibly an icon (pyinstaller -i icon.png --onefile your_program_launcher.py) but this script doesn't use any libs (except os) so this executable will be very light and its execution immediate. Then you will have to put this program in the parent folder so you get a clean folder with this launch executable and the folder containing libraries and main program exe, without using a .bat file which is less natural.
dist
| your_program_launcher.exe
|
|____your_program_folder
| |_____lib1
| |_____lib2
| |_____libn
| | your_program.exe
Since the file is still an executable that needs the files in the subfolder, the user won't be able to move this executable anywhere he wants, but at least the user won't be lost in the folder containing all the libraries.
Alright, so I managed to use PyInstaller to build a homework assignment I made with Pygame. Cool. The executable works fine and everything.
Problem is, alongside the executable, there is so much clutter. So many files, like pyds and dlls accompany the exe in the same directory, making it look so ugly.
Now, I know that these files are important; the modules I used, such as Pygame, need them to work. Still, how do I make PyInstaller build my game, so that it puts the clutter into its own folder? I could just manually make a folder and move the files in there, but it stops the exe from working.
If this info would help any, I used Python 3.4.3 and am on Windows.
Apparently this is an open request for pyinstaller, but hasn't happened in the past two years.
My workaround for this one was to create a shortcut one folder higher than the .exe folder with all the files.
The difficult part here is to set up the shortcut to work in all PCs. I did two things in the shortcut properties.
Delete the "Starts in:" path
Set as the "Target": "%windir%\system32\cmd.exe" /c start "" "%CD%\YourFolder\YourEXE.exe"
The second one calls a command line and launches your exe with a relative path. I have only tested it with windows 7. The downside is that this becomes a shortcut to the command line and you get a console window.
A different option is to create a batch file in the one folder higher than the .exe and call it. This shows only briefly the console window, but won't allow you to set your own icon. A sample code that launches your code:
#echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion enableextensions
set CDir=%~dp0
set EXEF=%CDir%MyEXEFolder\
cd %EXEF%
start "MyCode" "MyCode.exe"
exit
Just open a notepad, add the code and save it as a .bat file.
This answer also describes a workaround with py2exe, but a similar approach can be used in pyinstaller. However, I find this quite "ugly" and I am not sure if it's that easy to collect all dependencies in one folder.
There is also Relative, but I didn't want to use another program.
Not trying to dig up this old question, but this was at the top of my Google search so it may be for others as well.
If you intend to distribute the program in some kind of folder, you can always just mark everything unnecessary as hidden in Windows, and it will remain hidden even if you compress or extract it.
For a program that I designed to be very user friendly, I just selected each file and folder that was not necessary to the user and hid them. If the user has show hidden files on (rarely default), they aren't likely to be intimidated by the mess of files that pyinstaller creates.