Organize dist directory to be uniform for all platforms

[Mercieral]

• Version: latest

• Target: All

This is a small suggestion to organize the dist directory to make it a little more clean when building for multiple platforms. When I build with build -mlw, It looks something like...

./dist
|── myApp-0.1.0-x86_64.AppImage <packed linux>
|── linux
       |── <unpacked linux app files?>
|── mac
       |── myApp.app <unpacked mac>
       |── myApp-0.1.0.dmg <packed mac>
       |── <other various mac related files (zip, LICENSE)>
|── win
      |── myApp Setup 0.1.0.exe <packed win>
      |── <Other win related files>
|── win-unpacked
      |── myApp.exe <unpacked win>
      |── <unpacked win app files> 

To clarify, each platform's output directories are currently organized differently which could be confusing.

• Linux-packed is directly in the dist directory, linux-unpacked (?) is in the dist/linux directory
• mac-packed and unpacked are both in dist/mac
• win-packed is in win and win-unpacked is in win-unpacked.

I'm suggesting, for easier viewing and grabbing of specific platform files, to have something more uniform such as this

./dist
|── linux
       |── linux-packed
                |── myApp-0.1.0-x86_64.AppImage <packed linux>
       |── linux-unpacked
                |── <unpacked linux app files?>
|── mac
       |── mac-packed
                |── myApp-0.1.0.dmg <packed mac>
       |── mac-unpacked
                |── myApp.app <unpacked mac>
       |── <other various mac related files (zip, LICENSE)>
|── win
       |── win-packed
                |── myApp Setup 0.1.0.exe <packed win>
                |── <Other win related files>
       |── win-unpacked
                |── myApp.exe
                |── <unpacked win app files> 

Thoughts/opinions?

I may be able to figure it out and make a PR on my own time, but I wanted to get an opinion first.

[develar]

NSIS and all Linux targets produces artifacts to ./dist. Do you like it? Or per os (as you proposed — linux, mac, win) is better for "viewing and grabbing"?

[Mercieral]

Ah I see why NSIS and linux targets are produced directly to ./dist as they are one file, which is great if you are building just one OS. This would reduce the amount of clicking required to get to the file you need too.

However when building for multiple OS, the inconsistencies make the ./dist directory disorganized and (somewhat) confusing to traverse through. With the structure I suggest, if say the user develops on Mac and wants to put the Linux and windows artifacts on an external drive to transfer to a different machine, all they would have to do is select those two directories and copy them.

[develar]

user develops on Mac and wants to put the Linux and windows artifacts on an external drive to transfer to a different machine

BTW, Parallels Desktop allows you to use "Open in Windows" or "Reveal in Windows". And share mac home to Linux if need.

[develar]

Only, only Squirrel.Windows target creates directory for packed because of *** RELEASES file. It the only reason.

Mac — historically. Can be flattened as well (i.e. as NSIS/Linux).

With the structure I suggest

I don't like it, but... I don't have yet final opinion. In any case it doesn't matter — you should not publish it manually — open PR instead (bintray publisher coming soon).

[develar]

linux can be renamed to linux-unpacked for consistency. But I don't like idea to create special linux directory just for several files — .AppImage or .snap.

[Mercieral]

linux can be renamed to linux-unpacked for consistency

That is fair enough. Even just more consistent naming would make it clearer to the user.

But I don't like idea to create special linux directory just for several files — .AppImage or .snap.

Is this not how the mac directory is though? Correct me if I am wrong, but the .app file is really the only file needed for the unpacked mac application and it is contained in a special mac directory. Maybe the linux-packed directory is a bit of a stretch in my suggested structure and isn't really necessary, but having all of the Linux files in one directory to move around would be useful (to me at least).

BTW, Parallels Desktop allows you to use "Open in Windows" or "Reveal in Windows". And share mac home to Linux if need.

Neat, thanks! I wasn't aware of this as I just recently started developing on Mac recently. I've just been using my MBP and a dual-boot Windows/Linux machine to test the app.

[develar]

a dual-boot Windows/Linux machine to test the app.

Boo. If you don't have money / don't want to buy Parallels Desktop, you can use VirtualBox (but I totally don't recommend it).

[Mercieral]

Ok to be fair I also have a Fedora image in VirtualBox that I test in but I prefer to use my dual-boot Linux Mint for performance and to make sure everything works both separately and in a VM.

We were required to have the separate Linux boot for a few courses in school as well.

[develar]

linux renamed to linux-unpacked. Issue moved to backlog, will be revisited after #529

[petoknm]

Was this implemented? It still seems that the dist directory is a mess...