Building Deskflow

To build Deskflow you will a minimum of:

• cmake 3.24+
• Qt 6.7.0+
• openssl 3.0+
• libportal 0.8+ (linux, bsd)
• libei 1.3+ (linux, bsd)
• google_test ^

^ Will be fetched if not found on the host system.

By default a build of Deskflow will:

• The GUI application deskflow
• The Core application deskflow-core
• Documentation if doxygen was found on your system
• Tests that will be run as part of the build process

Configuration

Deskflow supports the following CMake options:

Option	Description	Default Value	Additional requirements
BUILD_USER_DOCS	Build user documentation	DOXYGEN_FOUND	Doxygen
BUILD_DEV_DOCS	Build development documentation	OFF	Doxygen
BUILD_INSTALLER	Build installers/packages	ON
BUILD_TESTS	Build unit tests and legacy tests	ON	gtest
BUILD_X11_SUPPORT	Build X11 backend (Linux and BSD only)	ON	x11 libs
BUILD_OSX_BUNDLE	Build an app bundle (macOS only)	ON
ENABLE_COVERAGE	Enable test coverage	OFF	gcov
SKIP_BUILD_TESTS	Skip running of tests at build time	OFF
VCPKG_QT	Build Qt w/ vcpkg (Windows only)	OFF
CLEAN_TRS	Remove obsolete strings from tr files	OFF
APPLE_CODESIGN_DEV	Apple codesign cert ID for development	Not set

Example cmake configuration: cmake -S. -Bbuild -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<INSTALLPREFIX>

Windows Configuration

It is recommended to use vcpkg to install the dependencies. The first time you configure Deskflow, all dependencies other than Qt will be built. If you don't want to use vcpkg, you must manually setup the dependencies. However, that will not be covered by this document.

Windows and Qt

There are two ways you can install Qt on Windows (vcpkg or Qt online installer). The default configuration expects you to use the Qt online installer. You should not install Qt in both ways, as having both can cause some weird things to happen, like Qt getting libs from one install and plugins from the other. When switching between them, remove the previous install first.

System Qt

1. Download and install the Qt online installer from their website.
2. Add the path of Qt's cmake files to your system path (skipping this may require you provide this path to cmake via Qt6_DIR at configure time).
   • Often: C:\Qt\<version>\<msvcinfo>\lib\cmake
3. Add the path of Qt's binary tools to your system path.
   • Often: C:\Qt\<version>\<msvcinfo>\bin

vcpkg managed Qt

1. Add the option -DVCPKG_QT=ON to your cmake configuration command (i.e cmake -S. -Bbuild -DVCPKG_QT=ON ...) or if using an IDE, look for the option where you configure the project, have the IDE run cmake again.
2. Once the configuration starts, you should see a lot more packages vcpkg will build. Building Qt takes a long time (potentially hours), so go find something else to do for a while.
3. If you want to use the system Qt again, you must delete the vcpkg.json generated in the project root and the build folder and reconfigure the project from scratch.

macOS codesign

The code signing option APPLE_CODESIGN_DEV is only for local development and not intended for distributed bundles.

Signing for local development and signing for the distribution bundle must be different because of development entitlements which are unlikely to be safe for use in production. It is impractical (i.e. very slow and cumbersome) to use the distribution bundle for local development. When developing locally, the app bundle is partial and does not contain dependencies and uses external libs, e.g. installed with Homebrew; the entitlements allow those external libs to be loaded which is not allowed by default.

For development codesign:

1. Install Xcode
2. Go to Settings -> Accounts
3. Add your account (requires a free Apple Developer ID)
4. Manage certificates -> Add -> Apple Development
5. To get your ID, run: security find-identity -v -p codesigning login.keychain-db
6. Pass the ID to CMake, e.g. -DAPPLE_CODESIGN_DEV=Apple Development: bob@exmaple.com (KLGSJHLFXY)
7. Configure and build
8. To verify, run: codesign -d -r- build/bin/Deskflow.app

Build

After configuring you should be able to run make to build all targets.

cmake --build build

Install

To test installation run DESTDIR=<installDIR> cmake --install build to install into <installDir>/<CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX>

Running cmake --install build will install to the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX

Making Deskflow packages

Deskflow can generate several packages using cpack.

To generate packages build the package or package_source target.

Example: cmake --build build --target package package_source would generate both package and package source packages.

Deskflow can generate several package types depending on the system.

Archive-based packages should work on all platforms. On Linux deb and rpm info is set up, Flatpaks can be generated from the included file in deploy/linux and a PKGBUILD for Arch linux is generated in the build folder. On macos a dmg file will be created and signed. For windows WiX can be used to create an installer.