Creating a standalone .exe on the pc

NOTICE: This page contains build instructions for the CellProfiler-Analyst 2.0 series. For the 3.0 series, run Pyinstaller with the `.spec` files found in the /distribution folder.

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• First make sure you've fully updated CPA from GitHub.
• Since CPA contains dependencies from CellProfiler, clone the CellProfiler repository and follow the instructions here for installing Java, Microsoft compilers, Python and the Python libraries.
  • Make sure that the JAVA_HOME environment variable is set
  • In addition to the dependenices listed above, you will also need the scikit-learn library.
• Also make sure that you have installed InnoSetup and py2exe.

Build the .exe

• Remove any old build/ or dist/ directories:
  

  del /F build dist

• cd to the cpa folder in the CPA folder, and run the py2exe build script:
  

  python setup_py2exe.py py2exe

  • If it errors with message that a .DLL can't be found, often the missing DLL can be found on the web. For example, many DLL's can be found here
• Run .\dist\cpa.exe and make sure it works. If it errors, a file 'cpa.exe.log' will appear that contains the error message.
• Take special note of the revision # in the title bar (eg: in "CellProfiler Analyst 2.0 r8582" 8582 is the revision #). We'll need this later.

Create the Installer

• From the CPA folder, open CellProfilerAnalyst.iss in Inno Setup and edit the OutputDir field to the desired location
• Run the Setup builder by clicking the little green arrow in Inno Setup. This will create an .exe in the output folder specified above
• Double-clicking this file will launch an installer which will have options for installation location, whether to create desktop icons, Start Menu folders, etc