On Thu, 30 Jun 2016 00:14:00 +0200 Roderich Schupp <roderich.sch...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 11:49 PM, Johan Vromans <jvrom...@squirrel.nl> > wrote: > > > pp executables are not as stand-alone as the ones from Cava and > > PerlApp. > > > > Care to elaborate? Sure. I've been working with PerlApp for many years (up to 2013) to deliver commercial, wxPerl based Windows applications. From 2008 I (also) used Cava Packager in combination with Citrus Perl to deliver cross-platform (Linux, Windows, OSX) wxPerl based applications. The main goal was, and still is, to deliver something to the user that just works without hassle. Currentday users do not know, nor care, about operating systems, Perl, wxWidgets and so on. They click to install, and click to run. PerlApp produces a single, stand-alone binary that runs on every (Windows) system. The end user does not need to install anything, just click on the application icon and it runs. The binary contains everything, including Perl and XS dlls, wxWidget ddls, database dlls, and so on. Cava Packager (as I used it) produces an installer binary for Windows (using InnoSetup) and Linux (custom installer), and a ready-to-use image (dmg) for OSX. In either case, everything is packaged just as with PerlApp. Cava Packager uses prebuilt sets of rules to decide what libraries to include. PAR Packager on the other hand produces a Perl-agnostic binary. All Perl stuff (libperl, modules, XS libs) is packaged. Everything else needs to be present on the end user system. This leaves the burden of installing wxWidgets and such to the end user, something she may not be able to do. What exactly needs to be packaged? Processing the dependency tree to the bottom leads to over 100 libraries for a typical Linux wxPerl application. Fortunately, many of these may be considered to be present in the average Linux environment. I'm currently investigating what libraries can be relied on, to compile a list of libraries to be added. Personally, I consider Cava Packager a superior packaging tool. It is non-free but free to use. I have been in touch with its creator, Mark Dootson, well known for his work on wxPerl and he incorporated several suggestions of mine. Mark promised to release a free version, Citrus Packager, but then he unexpectedly stopped responding. This is one of the reasons I'm investigating PAR Packager -- I really need a good packaging tool to deliver applications to users. -- Johan
