Creating a standalone executable

Prerequisites

There exists several tools for freezing a Python application into a standalone executable. Here we describe how to create a standalone executable of a ViSiAnnoT script with PyInstaller.

PyInstaller uses hooks in order to put the needed packages into the standalone executable. The problem is that it may also add hooks that are not needed, leading to a very big file. For this reason, it is advised to work with virtual environment when generating a standalone executable. One possibility is to follow these steps:

  • Install a basic Python with only the core packages,

  • Create a virtual environment dedicated to ViSiAnnoT and switch to this virtual environment,

  • Install ViSiAnnoT package and all depedencies,

  • Install PyInstaller,

  • Check if ViSiAnnoT runs wihtout error: python3 -m visiannot (see Run ViSiAnnoT),

  • Generate the standalone executable.

Generation

In a console:

  • Two options for the first step

    • If you have cloned the repository, go to the directory “exe_generation”

    • Otherwise

      • Download the specification file visiannot.spec and copy it to the directory where you want to generate the standalone executable

      • In visiannot.spec, set the variable pkg_dir to the path to the directory containing the package visiannot

  • (optional) Activate python virtual environment

  • Run the following command: python3 -m PyInstaller visiannot.spec

  • A directory named dist is automatically created and contains the standalone executable

Specify options

As seen in Run ViSiAnnoT, it is possible to specify different options when launching ViSiAnnoT. Once the standalone executable is generated, you may create a shortcut with a specific target for the options.