[SOLVED] How can I package a Qt program built with CMake on Windows?

Issue

I'm writing a cross-platform program which I'd like to package on Windows. I got it to run by putting three DLLs (Qt5Core, Qt5Widgets, Qt5Gui) in the build directory, then made a tarball and gave it to someone else with a Windows box, but it would not run on his Windows box. I searched for a way to get whatever else it needed and found Nathan Osman's post about windeployqt, so I copied windeployqt.cmake to the cmake/Modules directory, but couldn't figure out how to use it. Is there a way to use CPack to make a package (even if it's just a tarball) that has everything needed to run the program on a Windows box that doesn't have the compiler or Qt installed?

Here's the CMakeLists.txt file with some (hopefully irrelevant) stuff removed:

project(perfecttin)
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.8.0)
set(CMAKE_INCLUDE_CURRENT_DIR ON)
set(CMAKE_AUTOMOC ON)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17) # appeared in CMake 3.8
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)
set(CMAKE_CXX_EXTENSIONS ON)
set(SHARE_DIR ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/share/perfecttin)
add_definitions(-DBOOST_ALL_NO_LIB)
if ("${CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_ID}" STREQUAL "MSVC")
set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS ON)
else ()
set(Boost_USE_STATIC_LIBS OFF)
endif ()

set(CMAKE_MODULE_PATH ${CMAKE_MODULE_PATH} "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/cmake/Modules/")
find_package(LibPLYXX)
find_package(Qt5 COMPONENTS Core Widgets Gui LinguistTools REQUIRED)
find_package(Boost COMPONENTS program_options)
find_package(Threads)

qt5_add_resources(lib_resources perfecttin.qrc)
qt5_add_translation(qm_files perfecttin_en.ts perfecttin_es.ts)
# To update translations, run "lupdate *.cpp -ts *.ts" in the source directory.

add_executable(perfecttin-gui adjelev.cpp angle.cpp binio.cpp
           <snip lots of source files>
               unitbutton.cpp ${lib_resources} ${qm_files})
target_link_libraries(perfecttin-gui ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT} Qt5::Widgets Qt5::Core)
target_link_libraries(fuzzptin ${CMAKE_THREAD_LIBS_INIT})
target_compile_definitions(fuzzptin PUBLIC _USE_MATH_DEFINES)
target_compile_definitions(perfecttin-gui PUBLIC _USE_MATH_DEFINES)
set_target_properties(perfecttin-gui PROPERTIES WIN32_EXECUTABLE TRUE)

install(TARGETS perfecttin-gui DESTINATION bin)
install(FILES ${qm_files} DESTINATION share/perfecttin)

include_directories(${PROJECT_BINARY_DIR})
configure_file (config.h.in config.h)

set(CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_MAJOR ${PERFECTTIN_MAJOR_VERSION})
set(CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_MINOR ${PERFECTTIN_MINOR_VERSION})
set(CPACK_PACKAGE_VERSION_PATCH ${PERFECTTIN_PATCH_VERSION})
set(CPACK_RESOURCE_FILE_LICENSE ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/COPYING)
set(CPACK_SOURCE_IGNORE_FILES /\\\\.git;.*~)
include(CPack)

include(CTest)

Solution

If you already have in your ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/cmake/Modules/ directory the file Windeployqt.cmake, you may use it like this:

install(TARGETS perfecttin-gui 
    DESTINATION "${INSTALL_BIN_PATH}"
)

if(WIN32)
    include(Windeployqt)
    windeployqt(nitroshare-cli ${INSTALL_BIN_PATH})
endif()

Here is the full example.

Answered By - Former contributor

Answer Checked By - David Marino (WPSolving Volunteer)