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🖥️ Nextcloud Desktop Client blueprints

:blue_book: We decided to use KDE Craft to get all binary dependencies of the Nextcloud files desktop client.

System requirements

[!TIP] We highly recommend Nextcloud development environment on Docker Compose for testing/bug fixing/development.<br> ▶️ https://juliushaertl.github.io/nextcloud-docker-dev/

Set up Windows 10 or Windows 11

Set up Microsoft Visual Studio

  1. Open the Visual Studio Installer.
  2. Click on Modify:

vs-studio-2022

  1. Select Desktop development with C++:

vs-studio-dev

Install Inkscape

Set up KDE Craft

  1. You will need to install Python 3: https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/
  2. Set up KDE Craft as instructed in Get Involved/development/Windows - KDE Community Wiki.
  3. Use the default options, including Qt6 (since desktop 3.14, we are using Qt 6).

[!IMPORTANT] C:\CraftRoot is the path used by default by KDE Craft. <br> When you are setting it up <b>you may choose a different folder</b>: you will need to<br> ⚠️ change from C:\CraftRoot to the path you picked ⚠️ in the next steps listed here.

How to use the desktop client blueprints

  1. After following the instructions in Get Involved/development/Windows - KDE Community Wiki.
  2. Open PowerShell.
  3. Run craftenv.ps1 as described in the instructions above:
C:\CraftRoot\craft\craftenv.ps1
  1. Add the blueprints from this repository:
craft --add-blueprint-repository https://github.com/nextcloud/desktop-client-blueprints.git
$ craft craft
  1. Install all desktop client dependencies:
craft --install-deps nextcloud-client

Compiling the desktop client

  1. Make sure your environment variable %PATH% has no conflicting information to the environment you will use to compile the client. For instance, if you have installed OpenSSL previously and have added it to %PATH%, the OpenSSL installed might be a different version than what was installed via KDE Craft.
  2. To use the tools installed with Visual Studio, you need the following in your %PATH%: path
  3. Open the Command Prompt (cmd.exe).

[!IMPORTANT] The next steps has only been tested and proven to work when using Command Prompt.

  1. Run:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat" x64

[!TIP] Alternatively you can use the tools installed with KDE Craft by adding them to %PATH% in your current session:

set "PATH=C:\CraftRoot\bin;C:\CraftRoot\dev-utils\bin;%PATH%"

This will result in using the cmake version downloaded with KDE Craft.

  1. Clone the desktop client repository.
git clone https://github.com/nextcloud/desktop.git
  1. Create the build folder <build-folder>.
mkdir <build-folder>
  1. Go into the build folder.
cd <build-folder>
  1. Run cmake.
cmake ..\<desktop-cloned-repo> -G Ninja -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=. -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=C:\CraftRoot -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
  1. Compile the desktop client
cmake --build .

[!NOTE] ❓ If you have questions about it, you may use the forums at https://help.nextcloud.com to ask them.<br> 🐛 If you find bugs with these steps, you may open a GH issue at https://github.com/nextcloud/desktop/issues.