## Linked issue
Closes#4556Closes#4557Closes#4144Closes#4151Closes#4152Closes#4153Closes#4229Closes#4356Closes#4401Closes#4403Closes#4519Closes#4523Closes#4390Closes#4414Closes#4484
## Summary / motivation
After 4 months of exploring Briefcase for packaging, we're confident it
solves most problems with the uv launcher with less complexity and at a
lower maintenance cost, especially with the parallel work on the release
CI, which we already used to make 5 releases.
This also removes platform-specific packaging/signing code used to
produce macOS dmg files and Windows NSIS installers, which is now
largely handled by Briefcase and the release CI.
The custom install scripts for Linux are mostly preserved under
qt/installer/linux-template and used in the Briefcase build.
## How to test
- [ ] No build problems.
- [ ] The `tools/build-installer` scripts still work.
- [ ] No CI/release workflow issues.
- [ ] No user-visible changes in dev environment and Briefcase build.
migrates Anki Desktop packaging from the legacy
NSIS/uv-based installer to [BeeWare
Briefcase](https://briefcase.readthedocs.io/). This branch integrates
work from many related issues and PRs to deliver cross-platform native
installers (MSI on Windows, .app on macOS, PyInstaller on Linux) with
code signing, notarization, and file association support.
## Integrated PRs
- #4585 — Set up Briefcase
- #4596 — Add Briefcase icons
- #4598 — Handle Briefcase file associations
- #4601 — Add Briefcase app permissions
- #4609 — Customize Briefcase's MSI installer
- #4616 — Set up Briefcase code signing and notarization
- #4618 — Fix Briefcase packaging for x86 Macs
- #4623 — Customize Briefcase's Linux template
- #4627 — List required Debian packages for Briefcase installer
- #4630 — Update Briefcase's Windows template
- #4631 — Rewrite Linux install/uninstall scripts for PyInstaller
- #4638 — Use PyInstaller on Linux
- #4645 — Update installer docs
- #4654 — Disable Briefcase's universal builds for macOS
- #4672 — Deal with existing NSIS installations in MSI installer
- #4676 — Remove duplicate Briefcase icons
- #4677 — Tweak Linux scripts for new installer
- #4709 — Add anki-console.bat to Briefcase's Windows package
## Related Issues
- #4557 — Evaluate BeeWare Briefcase for Anki packaging and distribution
- #4678 — Support native Windows ARM64 builds for Briefcase
- #4688 — Linux installer: migrate to PyInstaller and rewrite install
scripts
- #4689 — Investigate startup performance with Briefcase
- #4690 — Specify required Linux system packages for Briefcase
- #4691 — Investigate Windows ARM64 support with Briefcase
- #4692 — Test on Linux ARM with Briefcase
- #4693 — Separate ARM and Intel macOS releases
- #4694 — Update developer documentation for Briefcase installer
- #4695 — Support upgrade/downgrade with the Briefcase installer
- #4696 — Update user documentation for new installer
- #4702 — Update Briefcase's Windows template with upstream security fix
and OS version check
- #4703 — Follow-up tweaks to Linux install/uninstall scripts
## Related PRs
- #4619 — Enable Windows ARM64 support
- #4632 — Release action
---------
Co-authored-by: Abdo <abdo@abdnh.net>
Co-authored-by: Andrew Sanchez <andrewsanchez@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Fernando Lins <1887601+fernandolins@users.noreply.github.com>
- No need for the checkbox, as an unchecked box is equal to an empty
`QLineEdit`.
- The value was saved to the profile but not loaded.
- And the real pièce de résistance: I've figured out how to "Promote"
the `QLineEdit` to a `TagEdit`.
Hope you like it! :)
