Generate a single exe using pyinstaller for a kivy app

Question

I have a simple kivy app that I would like to generate an single exe for.

I generated a virtual env using virtualenv --python=C:\Python27\python.exe <path/to/new/virtualenv/>. I then activate that environment.

Within the virtualenv, I then install the following modules:

python -m pip install --upgrade pip wheel setuptools

python -m pip install docutils pygments pypiwin32 kivy.deps.sdl2 kivy.deps.glew --extra-index-url https://kivy.org/downloads/packages/simple/

python -m pip install kivy

pip install pyinstaller

I then have the following files below.

The touch.py file contains the code below:

import ctypes
import kivy
kivy.require('1.10.0')
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.gridlayout import GridLayout
from kivy.uix.button import Button
from kivy.core.window import Window

SIZE = 2
NUM_BOXES = SIZE * SIZE

class MyGrid(GridLayout):
    def __init__(self, app, matrix, m_size, **kwargs):
        super(MyGrid, self).__init__(**kwargs)
        self.app = app
        self.matrix = matrix
        self.m_size = m_size
        self.sq_size_x = Window.size[0] / m_size
        self.sq_size_y = Window.size[1] / m_size
        self.count = set()

    def on_touch_down(self, touch):
        pass

    def on_touch_move(self, touch):
        try:
            mouse_x, mouse_y = touch.pos
            section_x = int(mouse_x // self.sq_size_x)
            section_y = int(mouse_y // self.sq_size_y)

            self.matrix[section_y][section_x].background_color = (0, 1, 0, 1)

            self.count.add(str(section_y) + "_" + str(section_x))
        except:
            ## DONT KNOW WHY IT GETS OUT OF RANGE SOMETIMES
            pass

        ## FULLY COLORED, CLOSE APP
        if len(self.count) >= NUM_BOXES:
            self.app.stop()

    def on_touch_up(self, touch):
        pass

class MyApp(App):
    def populate_matrix(self):
        matrix = [ [ Button(text="") for x in range(self.m_size) ] for y in range(self.m_size)]
        return matrix

    def populate_layout(self):
        for y in range(self.m_size-1,-1,-1): ## FILL y BACKWARDS, SINCE BOTTOM IS 0
            for x in range(self.m_size):
                self.layout.add_widget(self.matrix[y][x])

    def get_screen_size(self):
        user32 = ctypes.windll.user32
        screensize = user32.GetSystemMetrics(0), user32.GetSystemMetrics(1)

        return screensize

    def build(self):
        screensize = self.get_screen_size()
        Window.size = (screensize[0], screensize[1])
        Window.fullscreen = 'auto'  ## MAKES APP FULLSCREEN BUT HAS COORDINATE ISSUES (IF ONLY BYITSELF)
        Window.borderless = True
        self.m_size = SIZE
        self.matrix = self.populate_matrix()
        self.layout = MyGrid(self, self.matrix, self.m_size, cols=self.m_size)
        self.populate_layout()

        return self.layout

if __name__ == "__main__":
    MyApp().run()

The touch.spec file contains the code below:

# -*- mode: python -*-

block_cipher = None


from kivy_deps import sdl2, glew

a = Analysis(['touch.py'],
             pathex=["C:\\Users\\XXX\\Desktop\\testingKivy"],
             binaries=[],
             datas=[],
             hiddenimports=[],
             hookspath=[],
             runtime_hooks=[],
             excludes=[],
             win_no_prefer_redirects=False,
             win_private_assemblies=False,
             cipher=block_cipher,
             noarchive=False)
pyz = PYZ(a.pure, a.zipped_data,
             cipher=block_cipher)
exe = EXE(pyz,
          a.scripts,
          a.binaries,
          a.zipfiles,
          a.datas,
          [],
          name='touch',
          debug=False,
          bootloader_ignore_signals=False,
          strip=False,
          upx=True,
          runtime_tmpdir=None,
          console=True )

coll = COLLECT(exe, Tree("C:\\Users\\XXX\\Desktop\\testingKivy"),
   a.binaries,
   a.zipfiles,
   a.datas,
   *[Tree(p) for p in (sdl2.dep_bins + glew.dep_bins)],
   strip=False,
   upx=True,
   name='touchtracer')

I then run the command:

python -m PyInstaller --onefile touch.spec

When executing just pyinstaller --onefile touch.py, the exe generated doesnt work. It seems like some of the dependencies under sld2 is not packaged correctly. Thus I ended up updating the .spec file with the above.

When using the touch.spec file, it does generate a single exe, but that doesnt work by itself. Under the dist folder, it generates a touch.exe (which doesnt work by itself), but under dist folder, it also generates a folder touchtracer, which has a lot of files/dlls and also a touch.exe (which works fine). My question is, is there a way to package this into a single exe?

Somebody did say "make sure in the spec file there is no collect step:

"In one-file mode, there is no call to COLLECT, and the EXE instance receives all of the scripts, modules and binaries."" (link). But I dont know how to include the sdl2 dependencies in another way. Not sure how to use --add-data correctly in this case.

Answer 1

Running Pyinstaller with a .spec file argument makes it ignore almost any options that you provide on the command line. I would recommend doing a pyi-makespec --onefile touch.py to get a one file starting .spec file. Then edit the touch.spec file to add the sdl stuff. Just add the same line (*[Tree(p) for p in (sdl2.dep_bins + glew.dep_bins)]) in the exe portion just after the a.datas line (just like you have it in the coll section). Then just run python -m PyInstaller touch.spec.