Creating AppImage with Flutter

Hello developer, today i will see how to create an appimage for your linux desktop application.

Motivation

Probably, if you are looking for this article, you should think like me “I hate snaps” or “I hate snaps even more” or just want easier portability for your desktop application. In this article, I will demonstrate how to port a desktop flutter application to an AppImage.

First step

Create your application

flutter create --platforms=linux appimage_example
cd appimage_example

Then build the project

flutter build linux --release

Next step

Download the appimagetool it will create the final app.

And change the file mode.

chmod +x appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage

Final steps

You’ll need copy the bundle folder to a new one called ${APP_NAME}.AppDir

For example:

cp -r build/linux/release/bundle/ AppImageExample.AppDir

Find a cute icon for your app :3

then copy it to AppDir folder.

cp appimage_example.png AppImageExample.AppDir/

Create a AppRun file

this file is used to statup the application.

#!/bin/sh
cd "$(dirname "$0")"
exec ./appimage_example

change the file mode

chmod +x AppRun

then copy it to AppDir folder.

cp AppRun AppImageExample.AppDir/

Create a .desktop file

If you don’t know what is a .desktop file see this.

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Name=AppImage Example
Exec=appimage_example %u
Icon=appimage_example
Categories=Utility;

then copy to AppDir folder

cp AppImageExample.desktop AppImageExample.AppDir/

The AppDirfolder needs to look like this

Build your .AppImage app

Oh yeah the best part B)

Run

appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage AppImageExample.AppDir/ appimage_example.AppImage

You can name the final file however you want, in this example I called it appimage_example.AppImage

And run your applicaton

I hope you enjoyed and been able to do in your application, until the next time❤

References

https://www.booleanworld.com/creating-linux-apps-run-anywhere-appimage/

https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit