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Detailed usage guide for box

Below are some detailed information on how to use box. Note that you can always get help by typing box -h on the command line, or by typing box COMMAND -h to obtain help for a specific command.

Initialization

After you have installed box, navigate to the folder of your project. Then, type

box init

This will start the initialization process of your project. The initialization will ask you questions, unless the -q/--quiet flag is set. If this flag is set, default values or user provided arguments will be used.

The following table shows a list of questions, their default values, their arguments to provide answers in quiet mode, and an explanation:

Question Default Argument Explanation
Choose a builder tool for the project rye -b
--builder		 Required: The builder to use to package your pyproject file. Valid tools are rye, hatch, pdm, build, and flit. Ensure that the builder is available in the environment in which you run box.
Provide any optional dependencies for the project. None --opt
--optional-deps		 Optional: Set any optional dependencies for the project. These are the dependencies that you would install in square brackets, e.g., via pip install package_name[optional]. If there are no optional dependencies, just hit enter.
Is this a GUI project? False --gui flag to toggle to True Packaging a GUI project and a CLI project take place slightly differently in PyApp. If you package a GUI project without setting this option, a console will be shown in Windows and macos along with your GUI.
Please type an app entry for the project or choose one from the list below First entry in pyproject.toml for [project.gui-scripts], if not available, then for [project.scripts]. If no entry points are given, the default value is set to package_name:run. -e
--entry		 Required: The entry point for the application. This is the command that will be used to start the application. If you have a pyproject.toml file, box will try and read potential entry points that you can select by passing it the digit of the list. You can also provide an entry point manually by typing it here.
Choose an entry type for the project. spec -et
--entry-type		 Required: This specifies the type of the entry point that PyApp will use. spec (default) is an object reference, module for a python module, script for a python script, and notebook for a jupyter notebook. Details can be found here.
Choose a python version to package the project with. 3.12 --py
--python-version		 Required: The python version to package with your project. You can choose any python version from the list. More details can be found on the PyApp website here.
Optional PyApp variables None --opt-pyapp-vars Optional: Set any optional environmental variables that you can use in PyApp here by giving a list of variable name followed by the value for that variable. Note that the total number of arguments must be even. See the PyApp documentation for more information. If there are no optional variables, just hit enter.

If you provided all the answers, your project should have been successfully initialized and print an according message.

Tip

While the recommended way to initialize a box project is simply to go through the questions that are asked during a box init, you can go through initialization in -q/--quiet mode. To still specify variables, just set them using the arguments discussed in the table above. And if you are happy with all the defaults, you should be good to do.

Note

If you re-initalize a project, box will use the already set values as proposed default values. If you re-initialize in quiet mode and just give one new option, all other options will stay the same.

Packaging

To package your project, simply run:

box package

For verbose packaging, add the flag -v or --verbose.

This will take a bit of time and no output from building / packaging will be printed in non-verbose mode. The following steps will be executed:

  1. The project will be built using the selected builder.
  2. The latest PyApp source will be downloaded and unpacked from GitHub.
  3. The project will be packaged with PyApp using cargo.
  4. The executable will be placed in the target/release directory and renamed to your package name.

Building the python project

The python project will be built using the following command:

rye build --out dist --sdist

hatch build -t sdist

pdm build --no-wheel -d dist

Linux / macos: 

python -m build --sdist --outdir dist

Windows: 

py -m build --sdist --outdir dist


flit build --format sdist

This will put tye .tar.gz file of your project, which will then be packaged with PyApp into the dist folder.

Specify PyApp version

If you would like to use a specific version of PyApp to package with, you can provide the version number with the -pv/--pyapp-version argument. Make sure that the version number corresponds to the correct tag on the GitHub release page of PyApp.

Note

If you have a newer version of PyApp already downloaded, make sure to clean the project first with box clean.

Local PyApp source

If you would like to provide a local PyApp source, you can do so by providing either the path to the local .tar.gz source or to a local folder using the -p/--pyapp-source argument. The local source will then be used instead of the latest release from GitHub. It will be copied into the build folder before packaging in the pyapp-local folder. Running only box package when a local folder is present will always use this local folder and not download any releases. An information about this will be printed.

To re-copy the local source into the build folder, the box project needs to be cleaned first. Then run box package -p LOCAL_SOURCE again, where LOCAL_SOURCE is the path to the local source as described above.

Installer

Your packaged project is simply a file. However, you might want to distribute an installer to your users. Installers can be created simply in box by typing:

box installer

Optionally, you can run the installer with the -v/--verbose flag. This will provide you with more information on the process, if available.

This will create an installer based on the platform and type of project for you in the target/release folder.

Note

A packaged binary must already be present in the target/release folder. If it isn't, you will be prompted to package the project first.

CLIs

The created installer is an executable bash script that contains bash installation instructions as well as the binary. It can be run - like any other bash script - as following:

./projectname-v1.2.3-linux.sh

The installer will ask the user for the target directory (defaults to /usr/local/bin) and copy the CLI binary there under the name projectname. It will also make the copied binary executable.

The installer script has a few checks to ensure that the installation is successful:

  • It checks if the target directory exists, if not throws an error.
  • It checks if the target directory is writable, if not, tells the user to run the installer with sudo.
  • It checks if the binary already exists in the target directory, if so asks the user if it should overwrite it or not and proceeds accordingly.
  • It checks if the install directory is on the PATH and if not, tells the user to add it.

The binary itself is included in the installer script below the line marked with #__PROGRAM_BINARY__.

Windows installers are created using NSIS. You must ensure that NSIS is installed and available on the system path. The installer is an executable in target/release/projectname-v1.2.3-win.exe that can be run by double-clicking it.

The installer will ask the user for the target directory. It will then copy the binary to the target directory and create an uninstaller.

When using the uninstaller that is created with NSIS, all PyApp data from this project will be removed as well in order to provide the user with a clean uninstallation.

Warning

The installer will not add the install directory to the PATH variable. You or the user must do this manually. This is also stated on the last page of the installer.

CLI installers on macOS are currently not supported.

GUIs

In order to package a GUI, you should have an icon file in the assets folder in your project. For Linux, the icon file should be a svg, png, jpg, or jpeg file. For Windows, the icon file should be a ico file. In either case, the icon file(s) must be named icon.<ext>, where <ext> is the file extension. If multiple icons are available, order of preference is svg, png, jpg, jpeg.

Note

Creating an installer will associate the GUI with the PyApp executable, not with the actual Python process. Please read up on what you need to do in order to have the icon show up in the taskbar or dock. For PyQt, some information can, e.g., be found here.

The created installer is an executable bash script that contains bash installation instructions, the binary program, and the program icon. It can be run - like any other bash script - as following:

./projectname-v1.2.3-linux.sh

The installer will ask the user for the target directory (defaults to $HOME/.local/share/projectname) and the path to copy the .desktop file to (defaults to $HOME/.local/share/applications).

The installer will copy the binary and the icon to the target directory, will create an uninstaller bash script in the target directory, and create a .desktop file in the specified path. It will also make the copied binary, desktop file, and uninstaller executable.

The installer script has a few checks to ensure that the installation is successful:

  • It checks if the target directory exists. If it exists, the script will check with the user if it should continue, otherwise it will create the folder.
  • It checks if the target and desktop file directories are ritable, if not, tells the user to run the installer with sudo.
  • It checks if the files already exists in the target directory, if so asks the user if it should overwrite it or not and proceeds accordingly.

The binary itself is included in the installer script below the line marked with #__PROGRAM_BINARY__ and before the line marked with #__ICON_BINARY__. The icon itself is included in the installer script below the line marked with #__ICON_BINARY__. The uninstaller is created from within the bash script itself.

Windows installers are created using NSIS. You must ensure that NSIS is installed and available on the system path. The installer is an executable in target/release/projectname-v1.2.3-win.exe that can be run by double-clicking it.

The installer will ask the user for the target directory and if a startmenu entry should be created. It will then create the startmenu entry and copy the binary to the target directory. An uninstaller is created as well.

When using the uninstaller that is created with NSIS, all PyApp data from this project will be removed as well in order to provide the user with a clean uninstallation.

GUI installers on macOS are currently not supported.

Cleaning your project

If you want to clean the project, run:

box clean

By default, this will delete the dist, build, and release folder. See the CLI documentation for more information on the clean command, e.g., if you only want to clean a specific subfolder.

Remove the initialization

If you want to uninitialize the project, type:

box uninit

This will remove the [tool.box] section from your pyproject.toml file. If you provide the -c/--clean flag as well, the dist, build, and release folders will be deleted prior to uninitializing.