Export Info and Tips

Application Export

Processing can export Java Applications for Linux, macOS, and Windows platforms. When the “Export Application” button is pressed or “Export Application” is selected from the “File” menu, a dialog box opens and you can select whether you want the application to run in Presentation mode along with other options. A folder will be created for the application, the source code for the sketch, and all required libraries will be embedded

Some hints and notes follow below. If you find problems, file a bug.

• Starting with Processing 2.1, the Java runtime (JRE) can be embedded with exported applications. The positive side of this is that it makes the application much more likely to behave exactly as it does when run from the PDE, and that users of the exported application won't have to install anything additional. The downside is that exported applications are much larger (~100 MB), and the export command takes more time. We strongly recommended that you embed Java with your application. Not including it opens a pandora's box of problems that can happen when people try to run your project.

• An application for Mac OS X can only be exported from OS X. This is due to the complexity of how Oracle's JDK works on OS X, and the limitations of the appbundler that we use.

• The "application.xxxx" folders will be removed completely during export (unless you turn off that behavior in the Preferences window).

• It is important that you don't have a method named main() in your sketch, because it will fool the preprocessor into thinking you have a clue, when in fact you don't.

• If the code in your sketch starts public class blah extends PApplet, you'll need to write your own main() method in order for Export to Application to work. It should look something like this:

  static public void main(String args[]) {
    PApplet.main("YourClassName");
  }
  

  Writing your own main() method is a bad idea and almost certain to break your sketch.

• The Mac OS X export is a nice .app bundle like a regular OS X application. You can change the icon or edit its settings by using "Show Package Contents" and editing Info.plist or replacing sketch.icns with something more exciting.

• On OS X, you can also customize the exported application automatically by copying the Info.plist.tmpl file from inside the Processing.app package into your sketch. Any changes made to that copy of Info.plist.tmpl will be used whenever that sketch is exported.

• On Windows, use this code to set the icon used in the title bar:

  PImage titlebaricon = loadImage("myicon.png");
  surface.setIcon(titlebaricon);
  

• Linux is just a shell script, which can probably be used on most Unix platforms (there's almost nothing to it).

• When distributing your application, the "source" folder can be removed from the export if you'd like, but other files (such as the lib folder and any .dll files or whatever) should be left intact otherwise the application will not work.

• Library writers can now specify what files to export for each platform, see the Library-Basics page for more information.

• Your current memory settings will be exported with the application. If you've set outrageous memory requirements, you might want to undo that before exporting for others, or edit the exported files by hand (Contents/Resources/Info.plist on Mac OS X and lib/args.txt on Windows).

• If you want to replace (or add) titlebar text, just do this in setup():

  surface.setTitle("This is in the titlebar!"); 
  

Presentation Mode Features

The Presentation Mode simply clears the rest of the screen when running the sketch. You can set the default background color (for the area around your sketch) in the Preferences window.

• The ESC key will quit a sketch, even in Present mode. To prevent this from happening, intercept the ESC on keyPressed() so that it isn't passed through to PApplet. Use the following code to prevent ESC from quitting the application:

  void keyPressed() {
    if (key == ESC) {
      key = 0;  // Fools! don't let them escape!
    }
  }
  

• You can hide the stop button with the --hide-stop command line option to PApplet. More details about command line options are above in the "Export to Application" section. From inside the Processing environment, you can't hide the stop button (unless your sketch window obscures it anyway) easily, so better to export as an application.