CI/CD configuration / Automated Build config

[Philippe_Fuentes]

Hello,
I’m trying to get information on how to setup a CI/CD configuration on Gitlab or Github to automatically build and deploy our desktop app for Mac and Windows.
I found this interesting post:

Build server -> headless IDE?

Hello, we have a build server, and we control it over IDE scripting. It’s integerated into our CI/CD Pipeline and is called over Gitlab runners. This runs okayish, but has some weaknesses we want to get rid of, so I have some questions: Is it possible to have a “headless” IDE version? Where only the compiler works, not the UI or so? Can one develop a CLI for controlling the IDE more than the clunky scripting commands and open arguments? To build a project, you have to sign into Xojo with you…

And I was wondering if anyone could share more details / resources about their setup
Also, maybe things evolved since and a headless IDE exists now ?
I’m new to Xojo but I setup CI/CD pipelines for other tech stacks.

@Lars_Lehmann @Greg_O_Lone could you share some resources/advice who helped you setup the solution ?

Thanks a lot in advance.

[Beatrix_Willius]

There is no headless Xojo. I think the feature request now has drinking age (at least the European one).

Automating the IDE means using “IDE Communicator”. There is a project in the examples. The IDE Communicator can open, change and build multiple projects.

You do know that you can build macOS apps only on a Mac?

[Greg_O]

@Beatrix_Willius

You do know that you can build macOS apps only on a Mac?

That’s not true any more. You can only sign macOS on a Mac, but you can certainly build them on Windows and Linux now.

[Philippe_Fuentes]

Automating the IDE means using “IDE Communicator”. There is a project in the examples. The IDE Communicator can open, change and build multiple projects.

Saw this indeed in the thread I mentioned, thanks

[Philippe_Fuentes]

Good to know thx, would have thought like @Beatrix_Willius

[Greg_O]

The IDE requires a logged-in GUI session to launch. Now that said, you probably could accomplish that using a virtual machine running inside a headless session if the VM has virtual video drivers. I’ve not tried it myself, but my foray into Jenkins as of late has got me trying all kinds of new things.

One thing I can tell you that works is a Parallels VM that is set to start in the background. It’s also a good way to take better advantage of multi core machines (greater than 8) since the IDE will only use 8 for compiling, max. For instance, I have an old Mac Pro here that has 12 physical (24 virtual) cores. We ran two virtual machines here for a while and it allows you to run newer versions of macOS than the native machine can handle too. My Mac Pro can only run 10.13, but the VMs were running 10.15.