fmasa / conveyor

Gradle plugin, user guide and discussion forums for Conveyor

Conveyor

Conveyor makes distributing desktop and command line apps as easy as shipping a web app. It's a tool not a service, it generates self-upgrading packages for Windows, macOS and Linux using each platform's native package formats without requiring you to have those operating systems.

➡️ Try installing an app that uses it

➡️ Get started!

➡️ Say hello via chat

➡️ Say hello using GitHub Discussions

This repository

This repo contains the parts of the product that are open source:

• The user guide.
• The Gradle plugin.

and you can find the code + package config for the Eton Notes sample app in a separate repository.

Features

• Create packages for every OS on any OS. Conveyor implements everything itself so doesn't rely on platform native tooling.
  • Build Windows applications that use the built-in Windows 10 MSIX/AppInstaller system.
    • Windows keeps them up to date in the background automatically.
    • Updates use delta downloads and data is shared between apps, even from different vendors.
    • Has everything IT departments need to easily deploy to managed networks.
  • Build Mac applications that use the popular Sparkle 2 update framework.
    • Sparkle is automatically used, without needing any code changes in your apps.
  • Build apt repositories for Debian/Ubuntu, tarballs for other distros. Integrates with systemd for servers and cron jobs.
• Generate a static download site.
  • Detects the user's operating system and CPU architecture.
  • Release via GitHub releases.
• Brainless code signing.
  • Sign your apps with Apple/Windows certificates for a better download UX, or ignore it and get self-signed packages with a curl | bash style install.
  • You can sign/notarize apps on any OS.
  • You can backup your single root key by writing it down as words on paper.
• Pre-made template projects.
  • CMake + OpenGL to demonstrate building and packaging C++ native apps that use third party dependencies.
  • Jetpack Compose Desktop and JavaFX for cross-platform GUI apps.
• Deep integration for JVM applications.
  • Uses JLink and jdeps to minimize the JDK size.
  • Import configuration from Maven and Gradle build systems.
  • Pre-canned template apps. Publish your first app in five minutes.
• Pierce the abstraction! Cross platform tooling doesn't mean giving up platform-specific features. Over 120 different settings let you precisely configure your packages, including your:
  • Mac Info.plist files.
  • Windows XML app manifests.
  • Linux .desktop files and package install/uninstall scripts.

Helping out

If you'd like to:

• Contribute improvements to the documentation or Gradle plugin, just open up a pull request.
• Get help privately, email us.
• Ask questions, or get help publicly, use GitHub discussions or the chat room.