Notice

Maintenance of the gradle-launch4j plugin has been take over by Sebastian Bögl. The new github repo is:

TheBoegl/gradle-launch4j.

All changes will take place there.

Introduction

The gradle-launch4j plugin uses http://launch4j.sourceforge.net/ to create windows .exe files for java applications. Launch4j must be installed as well to use this plugin.

Tasks

There are 4 tasks:

• generateXmlConfig - Creates XML configuration file used by launch4j.
• copyL4jLib - Copies the project dependency jars in the lib directory.
• createExe - Runs launch4j to generate an .exe file.
• launch4j - Placeholder task that depends on the above.

Launch4j must be installed separately as it includes native code.

Configuration

The configuration follows the structure of the launch4j xml file. See the launch4j documentation for the meanings. The gradle-launch4j plugin tries to pick sensible defaults based on the project. The only required value is the mainClassName.

An example configuration within your build.gradle might look like:

apply plugin: 'launch4j'

launch4j {
    mainClassName = "com.example.myapp.Start"
    icon = 'icons/myApp.ico'
}


buildscript {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
    }

    dependencies {
        classpath 'edu.sc.seis.gradle:launch4j:1.0.6'
    }
}

See the [http://gradle.org/docs/current/userguide/custom_plugins.html#customPluginStandalone](Gradle User guide) for more information on how to use a custom plugin.

The values configurable within the launch4j extension along with their defaults are:

• String launch4jCmd = "launch4j"
• String outputDir = "launch4j"
• String xmlFileName = "launch4j.xml"
• String mainClassName
• boolean dontWrapJar = false
• String headerType = "gui"
• String jar = "lib/"+project.tasks[JavaPlugin.JAR_TASK_NAME].outputs.files.getSingleFile().name
• String outfile = project.name+'.exe'
• String errTitle = ""
• boolean cmdLine = false
• String chdir = '.'
• String priority = 'normal'
• String downloadUrl = ""
• String supportUrl = ""
• boolean customProcName = false
• boolean stayAlive = false
• String manifest = ""
• String icon = ""
• String version = project.version
• String copyright = "unknown"
• String opt = ""
• String bundledJrePath
• String jreMinVersion = project.targetCompatibility
• String jreMaxVersion
• String mutexName
• String windowTitle
• String messagesStartupError
• String messagesBundledJreError
• String messagesJreVersionError
• String messagesLauncherError
• Integer initialHeapSize
• Integer initialHeapPercent
• Integer maxHeapSize
• Integer maxHeapPercent

Mac OSX Lion and Later

The two native executables distributed with launch4j (ld and windres) are PPC and with Lion, Apple has remove the ability to emulate the PPC on an Intel processor. So, Launch4J will not run out of the box on Lion.

However, it is easy to recompile ld and windres and replace them in the Launch4J distribution.

Details

Download the latest binutils (2.22 as of 7 Feb 2012) from [http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/].

tar zxf binutils-2.22.tar.gz
cd binutils-2.22
./configure --target=i686-pc-mingw32
make
cp binutils/windres /whereever_you_installed/launch4j/bin/.
cp binutils/ld/ld-new /whereever_you_installed/launch4j/bin/ld

The new ld and windres should now work with Launch4J on Lion. Note that ld seems to be compiled to ld-new by default in binutils, so you need to make sure you rename as well as copying to the correct location.