Documentation on how to create an official AppImage package for Linux may be slightly inadequate

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chaosDesigner
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Joined: Sun Oct 06, 2024 2:47 am

Documentation on how to create an official AppImage package for Linux may be slightly inadequate

Post by chaosDesigner »

I'm currently learning both Lua and the LÖVE API. I was following Sheepolution's tutorial, and created the Panda Shooter game described in chapters 14 and 15. However, since I'm a Linux user, I didn't want to only make a Windows package, but also one for Linux, and so I followed the documentation found on the official wiki regarding game distribution. Creating the Windows executable was no issue, and after sending it to some friends of mine who use Windows, they were able to confirm that it did run properly. However, despite following the instructions on the link there, I ran into issues with the AppImage package for Linux (following the Windows-like fusion method added in LÖVE 11.4).

Even though everything seemed to be working properly even when I ran squashfs-root/bin/PandaShooter, running the final resulting AppImage had the same result as running the LÖVE AppImage by itself; i.e. it just showed LÖVE's default "no game" screen. I even followed the steps multiple times to make absolutely sure I had done everything correctly, and I got the same result. Eventually, I read the note at the bottom about some error that's fixed by editing the AppRun file, so I decided to open that and I found this line:

Code: Select all

# uncomment and edit to add your own game
#FUSE_PATH="$APPDIR/my_game.love"
#FUSE_PATH="$APPDIR/my_game"
I decided to uncomment the final line and edit it to FUSE_PATH="$APPDIR/bin/PandaShooter", and that was what finally did it. Once I did that, the packaged AppImage played the game properly. I believe the wiki should be edited to reflect this, though I haven't done it myself since I still have certain doubts about this whole process, since I'm a bit new to packaging software in general, and I have also never edited a wiki before.

Mainly, what effect does editing love.desktop actually have? It seemed to change the icon for the AppImage itself, once it's packaged, but I think editing the Exec field had no effect, and even though the AppImage does have its own icon, once I run it, the icon that appears on the taskbar at the bottom of my desktop is still just the LÖVE logo. I couldn't find any way to get the correct logo to show up. For whatever it's worth, I also couldn't manage to change it for Windows, despite the fact that I'm certain I changed the t.window.icon property in conf.lua, and used the same .love file for both packages. I suspect it might have to do with the fact that I did not provide a .ico file, though, which I didn't know was necessary for Windows executables at the time. I'm still stumped for the AppImage, however.
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