Develop Reference

cx_freeze shortcut doesn't work

Hello I'm a newbie in python.
I am trying to make an msi file.
It works fine when I run the exe file in the built directory.
But the shortcut that I made on the DesktopFolder won't work.
The reason seems like the shortcut file can't reference UI files.
When I copy & paste the UI files on the DesktopFolder, it does work.
Is there a way to execute shortcut file properly without moving UI files?
Here's my source code.
import sys
from cx_Freeze import setup, Executable
company_name = '####'
product_name = 'Robot Parser V1.0'
exebuildOptions = dict(packages=[],
excludes=[],
includes=['atexit'],
include_files=['qwed.ui', 'sub.ui'])
bdist_msi_options = { 'upgrade_code': '{parser-04291986}',
'add_to_path': False,
'initial_target_dir': r'[ProgramFilesFolder]\%s\%s' % (company_name, product_name)}
base = None
if sys.platform == 'win32':
base = 'Win32GUI'
executables = [Executable('__init__.py', base=base, shortcutName="Robot.ini Parser V1.0",
shortcutDir="DesktopFolder")]
setup(name='Roboparser',
version='0.1',
description='Sample cx_Freeze PyQt4 script',
options={'build_exe' : exebuildOptions, 'bdist_msi': bdist_msi_options},
executables=executables
)
Thank you for your help in advance.

cx_Freeze help: is there a way to NOT make console open?

I am trying to convert a python game (made with pygame) into a exe file for windows, and I did using cx_Freeze. No problems there.
The thing is that when I launch myGame.exe, it opens the normal Pygame window and a console window(which I do not want).
Is there a way to remove the console window? I read most of the documentation, but I saw nothing really (except base, but I don't get what that is).
BTW, here is my setup file:
import cx_Freeze
exe = [cx_Freeze.Executable("myGame.py")]
cx_Freeze.setup(
name = "GameName",
version = "1.0",
options = {"build_exe": {"packages": ["pygame", "random", "ConfigParser", "sys"], "include_files": [
"images", "settings.ini", "arialbd.ttf"]}},
executables = exe
)
Here's a screen shot of what happens when I launch the exe:

So what was wrong, was that the setup.py file was missing a parameter.
What you need to add is base = "Win32GUI" to declare that you do not need a console window upon launch of the application.
Here's the code:
import cx_Freeze
exe = [cx_Freeze.Executable("myGame.py", base = "Win32GUI")] # <-- HERE
cx_Freeze.setup(
name = "GameName",
version = "1.0",
options = {"build_exe": {"packages": ["pygame", "random", "ConfigParser", "sys"],
"include_files": ["images", "settings.ini", "arialbd.ttf"]}},
executables = exe
)

The parameter can be passed also by the shell if you are making a quick executable
like this:
cxfreeze my_program.py --base-name=WIN32GUI

cx_freeze & bundling files

At present I am using pyinstaller for bundling my python application. I am equally migrating to pyGObject (due to pygtk being depreciated).
Now pyinstaller does not support pyGObject and I have as of yet not figured out the required hooks... One of the other downsides of pyinstaller is how it bundles into a single executable - it causes the company installed virus scanner to check quite intensively every time the exe is run ==> quite slow startup.
Looking into using cx_freeze due to the pyGObject & py3 support I note it does not have a single-executable option. That in itself isn't an issue if the working directory can be cleaned up, be it via the pyd/dll being bundled into a second zip or into a subdirectory.
Searching around (stackoverflow and other sites), it is illuded to that it can be done, but I am not getting the expected results. Any idea#s?
setup.py is based around this one: http://wiki.wxpython.org/cx_freeze

ok solved:
1) setup.py
import sys
from cx_Freeze import setup, Executable
EXE1 = Executable(
# what to build
script = "foo.py",
initScript = None,
base = 'Win32GUI',
targetDir = "dist",
targetName = "foo.exe",
compress = True,
copyDependentFiles = True,
appendScriptToExe = True,
appendScriptToLibrary = False,
icon = 'foo.ico'
)
setup(
version = "9999",
description = "...",
author = "...",
name = "...",
options = {"build_exe": {"includes": includes,
"excludes": excludes,
"packages": packages,
"path": sys.path,
"append_script_to_exe":False,
"build_exe":"dist/bin",
"compressed":True,
"copy_dependent_files":True,
"create_shared_zip":True,
"include_in_shared_zip":True,
"optimize":2,
}
},
executables = [EXE1]
)
2) foo.py header:
import os
import sys
if getattr(sys,'frozen',False):
# if trap for frozen script wrapping
sys.path.append(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(sys.executable),'bin'))
sys.path.append(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(sys.executable),'bin\\library.zip'))
os.environ['TCL_LIBRARY'] = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(sys.executable),'bin\\tcl')
os.environ['TK_LIBRARY'] = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(sys.executable),'bin\\tk')
os.environ['MATPLOTLIBDATA'] = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(sys.executable),'bin\\mpl-data')

Creating a Python .exe file: py2exe invalid image error

I want to create a .exe file. I'm using Python 2.7.3 with wxPython for the GUI. I've installed py2exe for Python 2.7 and tried to create a .exe file following the tutorial at http://www.py2exe.org/index.cgi/Tutorial
When I try to run my created .exe file, I get following error:
File "wx\_gdi.pyc",line823, in BitmapFromImage wx._core.PyAssertionError:
C++ assertion "image.OK()" failed at ..\..\src\msw\bitmap.cpp(802) in
wxBitmap::CreateFromImage(): invalid image
So I looked into my code and the following line is causing the problem:
self.bmpSun = wx.StaticBitmap(self, wx.ID_ANY, wx.BitmapFromImage(wx.Image('images/sun.gif', wx.BITMAP_TYPE_ANY)), pos = (0,0))
When I browse to the source folder and run the main.py file myself, my app runs fine. I haven't found any help online so far. Can anybody solve this problem/suggest reliable alternatives for py2exe? Thank you.

The line that errors out is looking for an image in the Images folder. That's a path relative to the .exe file created by py2exe. So you need to be sure that that folder exists in correct position relative to the exe, and that it is populated with the images you are going to use. You can do this 2 ways. Either copy the folder to where the exe will reside, or use the data_files keyword arg in the script that makes the .exe. Here's the pertinent part of one of my setup scripts, showing a data_files list of tuples and use of the data_files keyword arg later:
data_files = [('Images', glob('Images/*.*')),
]
includes = ['win32com.decimal_23', 'datetime']
excludes = ['_gtkagg', '_tkagg', 'bsddb', 'curses', 'pywin.debugger',
'pywin.debugger.dbgcon', 'pywin.dialogs', 'tcl',
'Tkconstants', 'Tkinter', 'unittest']
packages = []
dll_excludes = ['libgdk-win32-2.0-0.dll', 'libgobject-2.0-0.dll', 'tcl84.dll',
'tk84.dll','MSVCP90.dll']
setup(
data_files = data_files,
options = {"py2exe": {"compressed": 2,
"optimize": 2,
"includes": includes,
"excludes": excludes,
"packages": packages,
"dll_excludes": dll_excludes,
"bundle_files": 1,
"dist_dir": "dist",
"xref": False,
"skip_archive": False,
"ascii": False,
"custom_boot_script": '',
}
},
zipfile = None,
windows = [filename]
)

How do I use cx_freeze?

I've created my setup.py file as instructed but I don't actually.. understand what to do next. Typing "python setup.py build" into the command line just gets a syntax error.
So, what do I do?
setup.py:
from cx_Freeze import setup, Executable
setup(
name = "On Dijkstra's Algorithm",
version = "3.1",
description = "A Dijkstra's Algorithm help tool.",
exectuables = [Executable(script = "Main.py", base = "Win32GUI")])

Add import sys as the new topline
You misspelled "executables" on the last line.
Remove script = on last line.
The code should now look like:
import sys
from cx_Freeze import setup, Executable
setup(
name = "On Dijkstra's Algorithm",
version = "3.1",
description = "A Dijkstra's Algorithm help tool.",
executables = [Executable("Main.py", base = "Win32GUI")])
Use the command prompt (cmd) to run python setup.py build. (Run this command from the folder containing setup.py.) Notice the build parameter we added at the end of the script call.

I'm really not sure what you're doing to get that error, it looks like you're trying to run cx_Freeze on its own, without arguments. So here is a short step-by-step guide on how to do it in windows (Your screenshot looks rather like the windows command line, so I'm assuming that's your platform)
Write your setup.py file. Your script above looks correct so it should work, assuming that your script exists.
Open the command line (Start -> Run -> "cmd")
Go to the location of your setup.py file and run python setup.py build
Notes:
There may be a problem with the name of your script. "Main.py" contains upper case letters, which might cause confusion since windows' file names are not case sensitive, but python is. My approach is to always use lower case for scripts to avoid any conflicts.
Make sure that python is on your PATH (read http://docs.python.org/using/windows.html)1
Make sure are are looking at the new cx_Freeze documentation. Google often seems to bring up the old docs.

I ran into a similar issue. I solved it by setting the Executable options in a variable and then simply calling the variable. Below is a sample setup.py that I use:
from cx_Freeze import setup, Executable
import sys
productName = "ProductName"
if 'bdist_msi' in sys.argv:
sys.argv += ['--initial-target-dir', 'C:\InstallDir\\' + productName]
sys.argv += ['--install-script', 'install.py']
exe = Executable(
script="main.py",
base="Win32GUI",
targetName="Product.exe"
)
setup(
name="Product.exe",
version="1.0",
author="Me",
description="Copyright 2012",
executables=[exe],
scripts=[
'install.py'
]
)

You can change the setup.py code to this:
from cx_freeze import setup, Executable
setup( name = "foo",
version = "1.1",
description = "Description of the app here.",
executables = [Executable("foo.py")]
)
I am sure it will work. I have tried it on both windows 7 as well as ubuntu 12.04

find the cxfreeze script and run it. It will be in the same path as your other python helper scripts, such as pip.
cxfreeze Main.py --target-dir dist
read more at:
http://cx-freeze.readthedocs.org/en/latest/script.html#script

I usually put the calling setup.py command into .bat file to easy recall.
Here is simple code in COMPILE.BAT file:
python setup.py build
#ECHO:
#ECHO . : ` . * F I N I S H E D * . ` : .
#ECHO:
#Pause
And the setup.py is organized to easy customizable parameters that let you set icon, add importe module library:
APP_NAME = "Meme Studio"; ## < Your App's name
Python_File = "app.py"; ## < Main Python file to run
Icon_Path = "./res/iconApp48.ico"; ## < Icon
UseFile = ["LANGUAGE.TXT","THEME.TXT"];
UseAllFolder = True; ## Auto scan folder which is same level with Python_File and append to UseFile.
Import = ["infi","time","webbrowser", "cv2","numpy","PIL","tkinter","math","random","datetime","threading","pathlib","os","sys"]; ## < Your Imported modules (cv2,numpy,PIL,...)
Import+=["pkg_resources","xml","email","urllib","ctypes", "json","logging"]
################################### CX_FREEZE IGNITER ###################################
from os import walk
def dirFolder(folderPath="./"): return next(walk(folderPath), (None, None, []))[1]; # [ Folder ]
def dirFile(folderPath="./"): return next(walk(folderPath), (None, None, []))[2]; # [ File ]
if UseAllFolder: UseFile += dirFolder();
import sys, pkgutil;
from cx_Freeze import setup, Executable;
BasicPackages=["collections","encodings","importlib"] + Import;
def AllPackage(): return [i.name for i in list(pkgutil.iter_modules()) if i.ispkg]; # Return name of all package
#Z=AllPackage();Z.sort();print(Z);
#while True:pass;
def notFound(A,v): # Check if v outside A
try: A.index(v); return False;
except: return True;
build_msi_options = {
'add_to_path': False,
"upgrade_code": "{22a35bac-14af-4159-7e77-3afcc7e2ad2c}",
"target_name": APP_NAME,
"install_icon": Icon_Path,
'initial_target_dir': r'[ProgramFilesFolder]\%s\%s' % ("Picox", APP_NAME)
}
build_exe_options = {
"includes": BasicPackages,
"excludes": [i for i in AllPackage() if notFound(BasicPackages,i)],
"include_files":UseFile,
"zip_include_packages": ["encodings"] ##
}
setup( name = APP_NAME,
options = {"build_exe": build_exe_options},#"bdist_msi": build_msi_options},#,
executables = [Executable(
Python_File,
base='Win32GUI',#Win64GUI
icon=Icon_Path,
targetName=APP_NAME,
copyright="Copyright (C) 2900AD Muc",
)]
);
The modules library list in the code above is minimum for workable opencv + pillow + win32 application.
Example of my project file organize:
========== U P D A T E ==========
Although cx_Freeze is a good way to create setup file. It's really consume disk space if you build multiple different software project that use large library module like opencv, torch, ai... Sometimes, users download installer, and receive false positive virus alert about your .exe file after install.
Thus, you should consider use SFX archive (.exe) your app package and SFX python package separate to share between app project instead.
You can create .bat that launch .py file and then convert .bat file to .exe with microsoft IExpress.exe.
Next, you can change .exe icon to your own icon with Resource Hacker: http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/
And then, create SFX archive of your package with PeaZip: https://peazip.github.io/
Finally change the icon.
The Python Package can be pack to .exe and the PATH register can made with .bat that also convertable to .exe.
If you learn more about command in .bat file and make experiments with Resource Hacker & self extract ARC in PeaZip & IExpress, you can group both your app project, python package into one .exe file only. It'll auto install what it need on user machine. Although this way more complex and harder, but then you can custom many install experiences included create desktop shorcut, and install UI, and add to app & feature list, and uninstall ability, and portable app, and serial key require, and custom license agreement, and fast window run box, and many more,..... but the important features you get is non virus false positive block, reduce 200MB to many GB when user install many your python graphic applications.