Music Blocks Launcher

Electron 13 desktop app for Music Blocks (https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks) for Linux, Windows, and MacOS.

Get Started

Users

Download the latest release

On Linux (AppImage), make sure you give the x bit for execution permission.

chmod +x MusicBlocks*.AppImage

On Windows, double click the .exe to run a portable version of Music Blocks.

On MacOS, double click the .dmg file and follow the on screen instructions. When opening the app for the first time, open from the Applications folder by right-clicking and pressing "Open" (you may need to do this twice). This is because the .dmg binaries are unsigned.

Developers

If you are interested in distributing this Electron package in some other format, you may like to use ./src/patch.sh. Please reference the origin of the source to ./src/patch.sh as it would be helpful for other developers to get an updated copy.

The following are instructions to build AppImages (Linux), Flatpak (Linux), EXE (Windows), and DMG (MacOS) binaries.

AppImages

AppImages are a portable executable binaries built on the oldest distribution for wider compatability. AppImages work out of the box without configuration or any package manager.

git clone https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks-launcher  # clone this repository
cd musicblocks-launcher
cd src
yarn install
git clone https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks [--depth=1]
sh ./patch.sh # patches the app so that it is compatible with electron
npx electron-builder --linux appimage --publish never # defaults to current arch, use a flag for other archs

This will create a Music Blocks AppImage in ./dist/.

Flatpak

To build the Flatpak app for Music Blocks, you must have the Flatpak manifest ./data/org.sugarlabs.MusicBlocks.yaml in your current working directory.

Install flatpak-builder, the freedesktop runtime and SDK, and the electron baseapp:

$ flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
$ flatpak install flathub org.flatpak.Builder
$ flatpak install flathub org.freedesktop.Platform//19.08 org.freedesktop.Sdk//19.08
$ flatpak install flathub org.electronjs.Electron2.BaseApp

Build and install the application:

$ flatpak-builder --force-clean --repo=repo build org.sugarlabs.MusicBlocks.yaml
$ flatpak build-bundle repo musicblocks.flatpak org.sugarlabs.MusicBlocks stable
$ flatpak install musicblocks.flatpak

Run the application: You can either launch Music Blocks from the applications menu or run it directly from the command line:

$ flatpak run org.sugarlabs.MusicBlocks

Updating the Flatpak app on Flathub

When Music Blocks releases a new update the Flatpak app on Flathub should be updated accordingly.

Add the new release to the <releases> tag in the the appdata file data/org.sugarlabs.MusicBlocks.appdata.xml.
Bump the Music Blocks version number in src/package.json.
Bump the launcher version number in setup.py.
Build the AppImages for arm64, armv7l, and x86_64 or download them from the CI release.
Update the AppImage sources in the Flatpak manifest data/org.sugarlabs.MusicBlocks.yaml with their sha256 checksums and sizes, and bumb the launcher version number in the url.
Add a new release of the launcher with the three AppImages. The last commit should be the one updating the Flatpak manifest.
Update the Flatpak manifest in the Flathub repo (https://github.com/flathub/org.sugarlabs.MusicBlocks). The manifest should be the same as the one here except the git source with the launcher should have the updated tag and commit hash.
Flathub will automatically run test builds on pull requests and official builds when the master branch is updated.

Adding to the Launcher

To add screenshots:

Screenshots must be generally 16x9 and no larger than 1600px by 900px.
Add the screenshot to org.sugarlabs.MusicBlocks.appdata.xml.
Screenshots should follow AppStream specifications.

Windows Executables

To build Music Blocks binaries on Windows, you need a CYGWIN / MSYS2 / WSL2 interface which provides the latest GNU sed. Make sure sed is executable from the terminal before proceeding.

git clone https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks-launcher  # clone this repository
cd musicblocks-launcher
cd src
git clone https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks [--depth=1]
yarn install
./patch.sh  # patches the app so that it is compatible with electron
npx electron-builder --win --publish never

This will automatically create a dist folder with a MusicBlocks*.exe.

MacOS Executables

To build Music Blocks binaries on MacOS, you will need the Homebrew package manager or to otherwise install gnu-sed in order to patch musicblocks to be compatible with electron.

git clone https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks-launcher  # clone this repository
cd musicblocks-launcher
cd src
npm i
brew install gnu-sed # required to apply patch.sh
git clone https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks [--depth=1]
gsed -i 's/sed/gsed/g' patch.sh
sh ./patch.sh # patches the musicblocks-app so that it is compatible with electron
npx electron-builder --mac --publish never

This will automatically create a dist folder with a MusicBlocks*.dmg.

License

This software is free, "Free as in Freedom". The original source code of the Music Blocks web interface is licensed under GNU AGPL. The source code of the Music Blocks is available at GitHub repository: https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks

Continuous Integration, Electron configuration files proudly licensed under MIT

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2020 Srevin Saju

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

sugarlabs / musicblocks-launcher