Nextcloud Desktop Client blueprints

📘 We decided to use KDE Craft to get all binary dependencies of the Nextcloud files desktop client.

System requirements

• Windows 10 or Windows 11
• The desktop client code
• Python 3
• PowerShell
• KDE Craft
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2022
• Inkscape
• A Nextcloud server

[!TIP] We highly recommend Nextcloud development environment on Docker Compose for testing/bug fixing/development. https://juliushaertl.github.io/nextcloud-docker-dev/

Set up Windows 10 or Windows 11

• If you don't have Windows as your main system, you could try to run it as a virtual machine:
  https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virtual-machines/

Set up Microsoft Visual Studio

1. Open the Visual Studio Installer.
2. Click on Modify:

3. Select Desktop development with C++:

Install Inkscape

• Install the latest version of Inkscape.

Set up KDE Craft

1. You will need to install Python 3: https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/
2. Set up KDE Craft as instructed in Get Involved/development/Windows - KDE Community Wiki.
3. Use the default options, including Qt6 (since desktop 3.14, we are using Qt 6).

[!IMPORTANT] C:\CraftRoot is the path used by default by KDE Craft. When you are setting it up you may choose a different folder: you will need to change from C:\CraftRoot to the path you picked in the next steps listed here.

How to use the desktop client blueprints

1. After following the instructions in Get Involved/development/Windows - KDE Community Wiki.
2. Open PowerShell.
3. Run craftenv.ps1 as described in the instructions above:

C:\CraftRoot\craft\craftenv.ps1

4. Add the blueprints from this repository:

craft --add-blueprint-repository https://github.com/nextcloud/desktop-client-blueprints.git

$ craft craft

6. Install all desktop client dependencies:

craft --install-deps nextcloud-client

Compiling the desktop client

1. Make sure your environment variable %PATH% has no conflicting information to the environment you will use to compile the client. For instance, if you have installed OpenSSL previously and have added it to %PATH%, the OpenSSL installed might be a different version than what was installed via KDE Craft.
2. To use the tools installed with Visual Studio, you need the following in your %PATH%:
   
3. Open the Command Prompt (cmd.exe).

[!IMPORTANT] The next steps has only been tested and proven to work when using Command Prompt.

4. Run:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvarsall.bat" x64

[!TIP] Alternatively you can use the tools installed with KDE Craft by adding them to %PATH% in your current session:

set "PATH=C:\CraftRoot\bin;C:\CraftRoot\dev-utils\bin;%PATH%"

This will result in using the cmake version downloaded with KDE Craft.

5. Clone the desktop client repository.

git clone https://github.com/nextcloud/desktop.git

6. Create the build folder <build-folder>.

mkdir <build-folder>

7. Go into the build folder.

cd <build-folder>

8. Run cmake.

cmake ..\<desktop-cloned-repo> -G Ninja -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=. -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=C:\CraftRoot -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo

9. Compile the desktop client

cmake --build .

[!NOTE] If you have questions about it, you may use the forums at https://help.nextcloud.com to ask them. If you find bugs with these steps, you may open a GH issue at https://github.com/nextcloud/desktop/issues.