[v3] packaging AppImage

[rfberaldo]

Hello everyone,

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding how to customize the AppImage packaging, I'm using cgo to run bindings from OpenCV C++, I can build the app just fine, but there's a dependency missing from the generated AppImage, what's a good way to include these dependencies before the packaging?

I'm running the wails3 generate appimage command, from my understanding it calls https://github.com/wailsapp/wails/blob/v3.0.0-beta.22/v3/internal/commands/appimage.go#L27, and looks like the build/linux/appimage/build.sh file is not used.

Should I not use wails3 generate and just make a custom script?

[Kxrma47]

Your reading is correct: wails3 generate appimage packages immediately in Go; it removes/recreates the AppDir, copies the binary, then invokes linuxdeploy. It does not run build/linux/appimage/build.sh, and there is currently no hook for injecting extra libraries between those steps.

For OpenCV libraries loaded via dlopen (and therefore missed by ldd), a custom packaging script is the reliable option:

linuxdeploy --appdir MyApp.AppDir \
  --library /path/to/libopencv_core.so \
  --library /path/to/libopencv_imgproc.so \
  --plugin gtk --output appimage

Also ensure the executable can find bundled libraries, normally with an $ORIGIN/../lib rpath. You can copy Wails' generated AppImage layout/script as the starting point and add the OpenCV libraries before the final linuxdeploy call.

Source: https://github.com/wailsapp/wails/blob/v3.0.0-beta.22/v3/internal/commands/appimage.go