Hey guys, quick question: I am building an app in...

# compose-desktop

[Shabinder Singh]

Hey guys, quick question:

I am building an app integrating VLC4J, but I don't want to package whole VLC in my binaries, since that will be ~100MB increase.

Instead is there a way where I can do following ?
• Upon App Install, check if VLC4J is not present.
• If not present, show an Installer of some kind and have user install vlc for current system architecture ?

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Not really a question about Compose.

[Shabinder Singh]

Since packaging native libs could be done with compose package in appResources, I figured we could able to build an multiplatform installer, if yes, can you point me in the correct direction where to start digging ?

[Chris Athanas]

I’m attempting to deliver the same functionality, and want to include the VLCJ library in my distributable MacOS desktop app, and finding there are security permissions problems when accessing the library at runtime. You can see my recent threads about this, but as of now, playing video in compose-desktop seems to only work when run from the IDE. I have seen no documentation about how to get around the permissions problems with the MacOS sandbox for distribution. Other targets (linux, windows) are not having these issues. Compose native libraries work fine.

[Chris Athanas]

You can check my project as a reference. It’s currently building and I’m able to publish to the AppStore, just can’t use the VLCJ or WebView libraries currently due to permissions issues that I dont know how to solve. The libraries are being shipped and loaded, but when these libraries are accessed causes a crash at runtime. Normal kotlin-native (KMM/KMP) libraries all work fine.

https://github.com/realityexpander/CloudCoverUSA2

[Shabinder Singh]

Pls if possible keep me posted here. if you get it working.

[Chris Athanas]

I recently published the iOS version of my Compose KMP app “Cloud Cover USA 2,” and Apple is now making it also available as a desktop app! So, the native movie player works just like the iOS App running on a phone or iPad. No need for Java swing libraries… the standard KMP libraries made for iOS will work fine out of the box.

This looks like an alternative solution for deploying Compose-desktop apps to the AppStore. Instead of targeting MacOS, you just target iOS, and you will automatically be able to run on Mac desktop.

Here’s the app in the Apple AppStore as my proof: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cloud-cover-usa-2i/id6499233780

Hope this helps!