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pythonpippyinstallersetuptools

Tool like PyInstaller but without the bundling?


I have a GUI app that I would like to distribute using PyInstaller, but it can sometimes be difficult to get PyInstaller apps to run due to complex imports and/or dlls. It would be nice if there were a backup options where we could create a launcher that just relies on a local Python installation, where we can be more confident that the dependencies are in order. Setuptools claims to support something similar, but it is based on the deprecated Easy-Install, and is not supported by pip.

This may seem like a trivial task, but here are the main three things I'd like this tool to do:

  • Create an OS appropriate executable launcher (Windows, Mac or Linux) in a user-specified directory
  • The launcher should activate the appropriate Python environment if necessary
  • Copy any application config files that the user might need to change to the application directory

Solution

  • Seems like Pyshortcuts can handle the first two requirements. Copying of config files would then need to be handled by either the application or as part of an install script.