Setup Guide

Please make sure your application is a working Gradle project. There shouldn’t be any compilation errors, the app should build and run.

The minimal setup doesn’t need any additional configuration. The essentials are inferred from the Java and Application plugin.

Applying the plugin

In build.gradle.kts or build.gradle apply the plugin using the plugins DSL. A minimal build script should contain these critical parts (adjusted according to your app):

Kotlin

build.gradle.kts

plugins {
    application
    id("de.infolektuell.jpackage") version "x.y.z"
}

application {
  applicationName = "SampleApp"
  mainClass = "org.example.App"
}

Groovy

build.gradle

plugins {
    id application
    id 'de.infolektuell.jpackage' version 'x.y.z'
}

application {
  applicationName = 'SampleApp'
  mainClass = 'org.example.App'
}

Note

The plugin auto-detects whether the app is modular and reads the main module’s name from the module-info.java file. So the main module doesn’t need to but can be explicitly set in the build script.

Creating an executable

To turn your app into a self-contained executable, run this task:

Windows

Creating a self-contained executable

gradlew.bat appImage

Linux

Creating a self-contained executable

./gradlew appImage

After running successfully, the results can be found in the build directory:

• Directoryapp The project directory

  • Directorybuild The build directory

    • …
    • Directoryjpackage

      • Directoryimage/ Contains the self-contained executable

        • …
    • …
  • build.gradle.kts
• settings.gradle.kts

The build/jpackage/image directory contains a directory named by the application name. This directory contains the executable and required files, it can be copied anywhere and opened. Its structure depends on the build OS. On macOS, the folder structure follows the mac-specific application format,, its name has an .app suffix. It is immediately recognized as an application and can be opened like usual macOS apps.

Going further

Now you should have a minimal working setup. The rest of this documentation describes how app customization can be achieved with this plugin.