Has anyone used OpenJDK 13 with JPackage for deployment / releases?

General Discussions
#1

OpenJDK 13 is a preview JDK with support for JPackage, a packaging tool with integration to allow packaging Java code into native applications. Packr, and Pack 2.0 are marked for deprecation and JPackage is the replacement for Packr.

I’m assuming this is for creating native installers.

Has anyone used this before?

I’m currently using Java SE 12.0.1 with my game, and I’m currently looking around for some packaging tools that are compatible with Java 12.0.1, possibly going to look into Java 13.

I know this is a bold question, and I don’t expect to get any answers. Perhaps, there are more up-to-date information out there for Java 12 code?

#2

I remember trying JavaPackager about a year ago and giving up on it. At first it looked like less of an investment in terms of time needed to get it to work, but there were limitations, including difficulties getting it to work with customized/minimized runtimes. It would be great if this new tool worked smoothly. Good to see it also includes provisions for icons!

Whoever serves as the pioneer here, please consider contributing to our wiki area!

I’ve posted a couple places about my current “command line” distribution path (I am using OpenJDK 11 or 12, with OpenJFX 11), but here it is again FWIW:

  1. move project source code to target OS and add an enclosing module folder and module-info.java file.
  2. command line compile
  3. command line jlink
    4-Windows) Inno Setup 5 (now 6?)
    4-MacOS) manually create .app

I posted an article that shows how to shorten the process, by making a jar of the project and make a jlink-built jvm capable of running that jar. The article was ostensibly for older Java projects (pre-modules), but there is no reason that it can’t be used for current code as well. It assumes that the dev environment is using the “unnamed module” (the default module that is built when a module for the source code is not specified).

Would be happy to explain in more detail any step (did so for some of this in our wiki area). Would be even happier to see guidance on short cuts or more direct approaches using higher level tools, such as the new JPackage.