lyx_mirror/development/Win32/packaging

Packaging LyX for Windows
===============================
Angus Leeming, 07 March 2006
===============================

Preparing the way
=================

The very first thing to do on the way to creating a LyX/Win package is
to build the sources and install them somewhere accessible. I've written
a script, build_lyxwin.sh, that performs all the necessary steps. Please
read the preamble and (un)comment those steps that are necessary at the
end of the script.

The (eventual --- mingw is a *very* slow compiler) result is a lyx
package that's almost ready to go in $LYX_SRCS/build/installprefix.

Thereafter, the contents of this tree must be manipulated a
little. I've written a little script, package_lyxwin.sh, to automate
the process:

* Copy the DLLs qt-mt3.dll, libiconv-2.dll, mingwm10.dll to the
  $PREFIX/bin/ directory. These are needed by the LyX executable.

* Strip the binaries in $PREFIX/bin/ of all debugging info.

* Copy dt2dv.exe and dv2dt.exe to $PREFIX/bin/. These are needed to enable
  dvips, yap et al. to cope with "file names with spaces".

* Remove all stuff generated by running configure. It makes sense on
  your machine only, not for whoever is installing LyX. Specifically

  xfonts/fonts.dir, xfonts/fonts.scale, doc/LaTeXConfig.lyx,
  lyxrc.defaults, packages.lst and textclass.lst

  should all be removed.

Creating the LyX icons
======================

All icons are to be found in sub-directory icons/.

The LyX icons, lyx_32x32.ico and lyx_doc_32x32.ico, are based on .svg
files written and realease into the public domain by Andy Fitzsimon:

http://openclipart.org/clipart/computer/icons/etiquette-theme/aps/LyX.svg
http://openclipart.org/clipart/computer/icons/etiquette-theme/mimetype.svg

lyx.svg is Andy's original.
lyx_doc.svg is a merger of LyX.svg with mimetype.svg

Working on a linux box, I used sodipodi (http://www.sodipodi.com/) to
create the .svg file and to export these vector graphics images to
32x32 pixel bitmaps (.png format). Thereafter I used gimp
(http://www.gimp.org/) to generate reduced color depth versions (16,
256 colors).

Finally, on a WindowsXP machine, I used IconXP
(http://www.aha-soft.com/iconxp/) to build the .ico files from these
.png files at differing resolutions.

Adding the LyX icons to lyx.exe
===============================

********************************************************************
NOTE: Run 'strip' on lyx.exe before adding any images to it. 'strip'
will not work after images have been added.

$ strip lyx.exe
j:\mingw\bin\strip.exe: lyx.exe: File in wrong format
********************************************************************

Windows executables can store various "resources", including images. I
used ResourceHacker (http://rpi.net.au/~ajohnson/resourcehacker) to
add the LyX icons to the .exe file.

Fire up ResHacker.exe and load lyx.exe
File>Open... lyx.exe

Action>Add a new Resource...
Open file with resource ... lyx_32x32.ico
   Resource Type will be set to "ICONGROUP"
Set Resource Name to "1". (No inverted commas.)
Add Resource

The icon will be shown in the main Resource Hacker window under
Icon Group>1>0 and as Icon>5[0-3].

Repeat for lyx_doc_32x32.ico, setting the Resource Name to "2".

Save the modified lyx.exe. Resource Hacker will copy the original to
lyx_original.exe. Remove it.

Building the LyX installer
==========================

At this point my build/installprefix tree now contains everything that is
to be released as a LyX/Win package. All that remains to do is to
generate a Windows installer for it. I've written a script for NSIS
(http://nsis.sourceforge.net/) to compile into an installer.

You'll need to compile and install lyx_path_prefix.dll. From the
comments in lyx_path_prefix.C:

/* Compile the code with
 *
 * g++ -I/c/Program\ Files/NSIS/Contrib -Wall -shared \
 *    lyx_path_prefix.c -o lyx_path_prefix.dll
 *
 * Move resulting .dll to /c/Program\ Files/NSIS/Plugins
 */

Thereafter, you'll be able to build the installer itself:

$ <PATH to>/makensis lyx_installer.nsi

creating lyx_setup_136.exe ready to ship.

END README