Deploy(installer maker) guide of C-Play

After building C-Play, with Craft and MPV, you would want to deploy it to a working directory, and optional build an installer.

Too make it standalone, you need to copy/install all dependencies including all DLL:s (For Qt, KF and MPV etc) and QML files alongside the executable.

First, make sure your CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX is set to the folder you want to copy everything to.

Shared “delay-loading” can be tricky to follow, so some manual try/error can be expected of which DLLs are needed for C-Play to start. For copying the correct source (as of Craft with 5.15 LTS) and MPV through current guide, simply enable CPLAY_INSTALL_DEPENDENCIES in CMake.

The following options become visible below (and executed in this order):

  • CPLAY_INSTALL_ITEMS_FROM_DATA: Does copy all files from C-Play data source into the install directory.

  • CPLAY_INSTALL_PLUGINS_FROM_CRAFT : Copy all plugins (dlls) from Craft build

  • CPLAY_INSTALL_QML_FROM_CRAFT : Copy all qml files from Craft build

  • CPLAY_INSTALL_PREDEFINED_DLL_LIST : Will copy a predefined list of DLLs from Craft and MPV bin folders (made manually and then printed with “dir /b *.dll > dll_list.txt”). The easiest approach of generating your own (if this does not work), is coping all dlls from craft to the bin directory, launch C-Play and then try to delete all dlls. The ones that cannot be deleted is the ones to keep.

  • CPLAY_INSTALL_GET_RUNTIME_DEPENDENCIES: Runs a cmake command to look for any direct dependencies of C-Play, in the QMAKE/CRAFT and MPV build directories. To complete the pre-defined list (which only fetches from CRAFT/QMAKE directory).

Run INSTALL from Visual Studio to trigger a complete install/copy operation for each of the above options. Then your CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX/bin should include a working standalone solution of C-Play.

Build installer

After INSTALL has been run in Visual Studio, it is time to make an installer following this steps:

  1. Download latest Visual Studio Re-dist to the /bin folder to be launched during installation of C-Play.

  2. Run the “CPlay_Pack.nsi* script, now present in the install directory to make an installer.

  3. The installer is now ready…

Note: It’s recommended to also copy the mpv.exe into the /bin folder before making the installer, as this is a useful tool for looking into media specifics.