Use Nuitka to pack flet desktop app

[ningzichun]

I have successfully used Nuitka to pack flet desktop app (tested on flet-0.5.2, Nuitka-1.5.6 and Python-3.11). I think it is absolutely faster than the pyinstaller on MacOS cause it is onedir mode. And I found pyinstaller might have trouble collecting some libraries on Linux, so I looked back and try Nuitka again, seeking for better speed and compatibility.

Minimal Testcase

Here is the minimal command I used to test the code:

MacOS:

python3 -m nuitka --standalone --macos-create-app-bundle --macos-app-mode="ui-element" --include-package-data=flet main.py

Linux:

python3 -m nuitka --standalone  --assume-yes-for-downloads --include-package-data=flet --onefile main.py

Windows:

A bit tricky because Nuitka will ignore the *.dll, *.so in the module data directory when using --include-package-data, so to avoid downloading flet.exe on startup and to include needed dlls and app.so, we will create a Nuitka Package Configurarion such as scripts/nuitka_flet.yml with:

- module-name: 'flet'
  data-files:
     dirs:
       - 'bin'
  dlls:
    - from_filenames:
        relative_path: 'bin/flet'
        prefixes:
          - '*'
        suffixes:
          - 'dll'
        dest_path: 'flet/bin/flet'
    - from_filenames:
        relative_path: 'bin/flet/data'
        prefixes:
          - '*'
        suffixes:
          - 'so'
        dest_path: 'flet/bin/flet/data'
      

Then we run the command to compile:

python -m nuitka --standalone  --assume-yes-for-downloads --onefile  --user-package-configuration-file=scripts/nuitka_flet.yml main.py

For Production

Also, I would like to share the full command I used to build my project in the buildbot:

MacOS:

python3 -m nuitka --standalone --macos-create-app-bundle --macos-app-icon=scripts/icon.png --output-dir=dist --follow-imports --assume-yes-for-downloads --include-data-dir=resources=resources  "Desktop.py"  --macos-app-mode="ui-element" --macos-signed-app-name="com.example.desktop" --include-package-data=flet --nofollow-import-to=torch 
cd dist/
tar -cvf "app.tar" "Desktop.app"/

Linux:

python3 -m nuitka --standalone  --linux-icon=scripts/icon.png --output-dir=dist --include-data-dir=resources=resources  --nofollow-import-to=torch --assume-yes-for-downloads --include-package-data=flet --onefile "Desktop.py"
mv dist/Desktop.bin dist/Desktop

Windows:

python -m nuitka --standalone --disable-console --windows-icon-from-ico=scripts/icon.png --assume-yes-for-downloads --output-dir=dist --follow-imports --nofollow-import-to=torch --onefile --include-data-dir=resources=resources --file-description="Desktop Client" --copyright="copyright" --product-version="1.0" --user-package-configuration-file=scripts/nuitka_flet.yml "Desktop.py"

To be updated with more tests, like trimming the included data...

[FeodorFitsner]

Thanks for your efforts!

Is there any way for Nuitka to include additional files/resources (like Flet viewer app) to the produced package?

[ningzichun]

Thanks. Yes, I had tried to include site-packages\flet\bin\* with --include-package-data=flet or --user-package-configuration-file=.
Also, users can use --include-data-dir to add their data, just like --add-data in the PyInstaller.

[wschume]

I myself prefer building applications/libraries with Nuitka. AFAIK, all major options from pyinstaller are available in Nuitka as well. Especially the feature of linking to compiled (python) libraries is a major benefit of Nuitka. This makes building wheels etc a breeze.

[rangwea]

Hi ningzichun, I have a question, how to set the app icon, I has packed a app success by nuitka, but the app icon is flet's icon. I know, this is a flet.app, my app is a ui-element. I reviewed the flet code and found the 'update_flet_view_icon' function in pack.py, is it to set the flet.app's icon?

[rangwea]

Wow, I did it! I modified the icon, name, and other information of flet.app through the below code, and then packaged it using Nuitka. I'm wondering if I can submit a pull request to implement a like-"packn" command to achieve this function. PS: The app packaged by Nuitka starts up much faster than the one packaged by PyInstaller.

if sys.platform == "darwin":
    app_name = 'fletx'
    icon_path = './icon.png'

    from flet.__pyinstaller.macos_utils import (
        assemble_app_bundle,
        unpack_app_bundle,
        update_flet_view_icon,
        update_flet_view_version_info,
    )

    # bin path
    bin_path = get_flet_bin_path()
    try:
        # copy "bin"
        hook_config.temp_bin_dir = copy_flet_bin()
        print(f'temp dir:{hook_config.temp_bin_dir}')

        # modify flet icon and info
        tar_path = os.path.join(
            get_flet_bin_path(), "flet-macos-amd64.tar.gz"
        )
        # unpack
        app_path = unpack_app_bundle(tar_path)

        # icon
        if not Path(icon_path).is_absolute():
            icon_path = str(Path(os.getcwd()).joinpath(icon_path))
        update_flet_view_icon(app_path, icon_path)

        # version info
        app_path = update_flet_view_version_info(
            app_path=app_path,
            bundle_id=None,
            product_name=app_name,
            product_version=None,
            copyright=None,
        )

        # assemble
        assemble_app_bundle(app_path, tar_path)

        # package, use modified flet app
        cmd = f'''
        python -m nuitka --follow-imports --standalone --macos-create-app-bundle --output-dir=dist \
            --enable-plugin=numpy \
            --macos-app-icon={icon_path} \
            --product-name={app_name} \
            --include-data-dir=poppler=poppler \
            --macos-app-mode=ui-element \
            --include-package-data=flet \
            main.py
        '''
        print(cmd)
        os.system(cmd)

        # remove flet temp bin
        Path.home().joinpath(".flet", "bin", f"flet-{version.version}")
    except Exception as e:
        print(e)
    finally:
        # recover flet bin
        shutil.copy(Path(hook_config.temp_bin_dir) / 'flet-macos-amd64.tar.gz', Path(bin_path) / 'flet-macos-amd64.tar.gz')

        # cleanup
        if hook_config.temp_bin_dir is not None and os.path.exists(
                hook_config.temp_bin_dir
        ):
            print("Deleting temp directory:", hook_config.temp_bin_dir)
            shutil.rmtree(hook_config.temp_bin_dir, ignore_errors=True)

[ningzichun]

Great! That's also what I had been looking for. Thank you!

[rangwea]

I optimized the packaging logic by using temporary flet/bin instead of modifying the information of the original package.

if sys.platform == "darwin":
    app_name = 'fletx'
    icon_path = './icon.png'

    from flet.__pyinstaller.macos_utils import (
        assemble_app_bundle,
        unpack_app_bundle,
        update_flet_view_icon,
        update_flet_view_version_info,
    )

    temp_path = str(Path(os.getcwd()).joinpath('.flet'))

    try:
        # temp bin path
        temp_bin_path = os.path.join(temp_path, 'bin')
        # copy "bin" to temp
        shutil.copytree(get_flet_bin_path(), temp_bin_path)

        # modify flet icon and info
        tar_path = os.path.join(
            temp_bin_path, "flet-macos-amd64.tar.gz"
        )
        # unpack
        app_path = unpack_app_bundle(tar_path)

        # icon
        if not Path(icon_path).is_absolute():
            icon_path = str(Path(os.getcwd()).joinpath(icon_path))
        update_flet_view_icon(app_path, icon_path)

        # version info
        app_path = update_flet_view_version_info(
            app_path=app_path,
            bundle_id=None,
            product_name=app_name,
            product_version=None,
            copyright=None,
        )

        # assemble
        assemble_app_bundle(app_path, tar_path)

        # package, use temp flet app
        cmd = f'''
        python -m nuitka --follow-imports --standalone --macos-create-app-bundle --output-dir=dist \
            --enable-plugin=numpy \
            --macos-app-icon={icon_path} \
            --product-name={app_name} \
            --macos-app-mode=ui-element \
            --include-data-dir={temp_path}=flet \
            main.py
        '''
        print(cmd)
        os.system(cmd)

        # remove flet temp bin
        Path.home().joinpath(".flet", "bin", f"flet-{version}")
    except Exception as e:
        print(e)
    finally:
        # cleanup temp path
        if temp_path is not None and os.path.exists(temp_path):
            print("Deleting temp directory:", temp_path)
            shutil.rmtree(temp_path, ignore_errors=True)

[SINOPW]

hello, I used the nuitka_flet.yml you provided, but i find some .dll files will be packed twice in executable file root directorey and flet.exe directory such as flutter_windows.dll and vcruntime.dll, is there any optimization?

[ndonkoHenri]

flet build is finally available! See docs.