Creating Executable Jars For Your Clojure App | Hacker News Reader

Creating Executable Jars For Your Clojure App

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28 pointskyleburton6 comments

As a B2C Java developer, I have to say it: don't distribute jars to end users. The user experience is horrific. Knowing how to make executable jars is valuable, just make sure it is the step in your ant file right before you execute your native wrapping.

Java build tools are wonderfully cross platform so you can use the following pair regardless of your development environment, as far as I know. I routinely build BCC for Macs on Windows Vista.

Launch4j: packs jars into self-contained .exes, with all the trimmings. Includes ant integration. http://launch4j.sourceforge.net/

JarBundler: an Ant task which packs jars into Mac applications http://jarbundler.sourceforge.net/

You need a file called JavaApplicationStub to get JarBundler to work. Macs can apparently produce it with software that comes onboard. I got mine by outsourcing wrapping of the very first Mac version of BCC to somebody on RentACoder, and since they I've just copy/pasted every time I've done a version upgrade. I really don't understand the internals of Java Mac applications, but I think you can also copy/paste any JavaApplicationStub you encounter on the Internet, if you're also developing on a non-Mac platform.

(Wrapping isn't quite the last thing you'll need to do to make a Java app cross-platform -- ask me some time about the joys of finding a good directory to store settings in -- but it is a low-effort absurdly-high-reward step to take.)

I don't have any experience with deploying B2C Java apps to Linux users so I don't know what I'd do for wrapping it there. (While I will probably never write B2C for Linux users, I would be interested if someone with experience with it shared what they did.)

"As a B2C Java developer, I have to say it: don't distribute jars to end users. The user experience is horrific. Knowing how to make executable jars is valuable, just make sure it is the step in your ant file right before you execute your native wrapping."

I distribute jars with JotBot, a desktop app written in JRuby. It has native installers for Win 32 and OSX; jars are just more files dropped off in a folder, and the user need never think about them, since kicking off the app is handled by a some native launcher.

That sounds like a workable solution, too. Oh, that reminds me, I saw a great presentation at JavaOne about deploying JRuby apps to end users. Unfortunately I don't have my notes on me -- technically I think it was about scripting Swing apps with JRuby and their demos were amazing. (Suffice it to say I have not often seen Ruby used to run real-time 3D games.)

Anyhow, one of the footnotes was that there is this package called Rawr which gives you a Ruby option for packaging a minimal JRuby install with the application and giving it a nice native-esque packaging experience.

(Come to think of it, wasn't JotBot the sample application at that presentation? I remember it being a timetracking app but don't have my notes in front of me.)

That sounds like Logan Barnett and David Koontz, talking about Monkeybars, the main library behind JotBot (well, now I'm using my fork of Monkeybars in JotBot, but the core is the same).

Rawr is used to package up JRuby apps, including JotBot.

The apps don't have to be made with Monkeybars to use Rawr, and it may be possible to take a compiled Clojure app and make a redistributable package using Rawr. If not, I'm sure Rawr could be ported to Clojure (Cawr?) to make life easier.

Somebody might find this useful: http://github.com/burke/cljtemplate -- a barebones template project for clojure, using ant, with compilation for java and clojure source.

Something like Rawr would be good.

http://rawr.rubyforge.org/

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