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2. Create a template project

Conveyor has four pre-canned "Hello World" project templates. They can form the basis of your own apps:

  1. A native OpenGL app written in C++.
  2. An Electron app.
  3. A GUI JVM app using the reactive Jetpack Compose for Desktop toolkit.
  4. Another JVM GUI app using JavaFX.

Warning

  • Electron support is in beta. It has received less testing than the other types of app.

Generating a project based on these templates is the quickest way to try things out. The JVM and Electron apps are easy to play with because you don't need cross-compilers. For the C++ project you'll need to compile it on each OS that you wish to target. It's your choice, this tutorial will guide you through all of them.

  • For the native C++ app, install CMake and the compiler toolchain for each platform you will target.
  • For a JVM app, install a JDK 11 or higher.
  • For the Electron app, you must have npm installed.
  • Run the following command, picking an app type and reverse DNS name as you see fit. There are also --display-name and --output-dir flags but they are optional.
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conveyor generate {cmake,electron,compose,javafx} --rdns=com.example.my-project
  • Change into the output directory you just created and run any commands that were printed on the screen.

Identifying an app with a reverse DNS name is required for some platforms like macOS, and other needed values can be derived from it. A directory named after the last component (in this case my-project) will be populated with a buildable project. Use names-with-dashes when separating words, not camelCase, as that way you'll get smarter defaults.

We'll explore what's inside the project directory in a moment. For now, note that there's a conveyor.conf file at the top level directory. This is where your packages are configured.

Reverse DNS names

RDNS names are just a naming convention meant to keep apps clearly separated. Actual domain name ownership isn't checked by anything. If you don't have a website consider creating a GitHub account and then using io.github.youruser.yourproject, which will ensure no naming conflicts with anyone else.

Cross platform UI

Jetpack Compose is the next-gen native UI toolkit on Android and it also runs on Windows/Mac/Linux, making it easy to share code between mobile and desktop. JavaFX also runs on mobile and the web. The native C++ app uses OpenGL and the GLFW library, which abstracts the operating system's windowing APIs.