I followed this beginner course: RPA certification level I: Beginner's course from Robocorp and succesfully created my first robot in VS Code Now I thought it would be nice to make a portable exe instead of linking the project to Robocorp Control Room. Because it would be much more convenient to not having to install VS Code, Python and etc on for example my dad his pc. After a quick search I didn’t seem to find any solution to this. And thus here I am asking if this is possible. And if so, how can I do it?
Thanks in advance for taking a look and have a great day!
PS: If something isn’t clear because English isn’t my native language, just ask
Your English is fine, (btw probably at least 1/2 there people in this forum aren’t native English speakers, so your in good company )
Converting a robot script into a exe is not something I’ve heard of anyone trying to do before so I doubt anyone has experience with it and there won’t be a step by step guide.
There is are tools like pyinstaller and py2exe that will let you turn a python script into a windows exe, so I guess it might be possible to use one of those to package robot framework + robot framework libraries you need and your robot script into an exe, wile I used pyinstaller a long time ago it was not with robot framework, so you’ll probably be trailblazing a bit here.
I think that RCC is the better choice for you, because it was made exactly to make automations portable.
Py2exe etc. can work but there can be alyways some pitfalls. Finding and solving will definitely cost you more time than RCC will need to build an environment for your automation
And, btw. there is no need to install VS Code on a machine where you don’t work with the code.
Regards,
Simon
Thx for the quick replies! I quickly looked into RCC and I think it may the perfect solution for my problem And also thanks for mentioning py2exe and pyinstaller, it might become handy in future projects
RCC is interesting. I wonder if RCC can support a RF deployment that involves non-python libraries (e.g. Java, perhaps even .NET, ruby, and others), would that be in their future roadmap?
Aside from RCC and py2exe, another option is to encapsulate the RF ecosystem you are working with into a self contained image for deployment such as a vagrant based (preconfigured) virtual machine. Or a single or series of docker container images. These options for sure would allow for mixed language ecosystem beyond python. Granted these options may require certain expertise to utilize if one not familiar with them. I don’t know about vagrant option, but I saw there are already basic RF docker implementations on the internet to work with.
Now I thought it would be nice to make a portable exe instead of linking the project to Robocorp Control Room. Because it would be much more convenient to not having to install VS Code, Python and etc on for example my dad his pc. After a quick search I didn’t seem to find any solution to this. And thus here I am asking if this is possible. And if so, how can I do it?
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And also thanks for mentioning py2exe and pyinstaller, it might become handy in future projects 