Frequently Asked Questions¶
What version of Python does Briefcase support?¶
Python 3.5 or higher.
What platforms does Briefcase support?¶
Briefcase currently has support for:
macOS (producing DMG files, or raw .app files)
Linux (producing AppImage files)
Windows (producing MSI installers)
iOS (producing Xcode projects)
Android (producing Gradle projects)
Support for other some other packaging formats (e.g., NSIS installers for Windows; Snap and Flatpak installers for Linux) and other operating systems (e.g., tvOS, watchOS, WearOS) are on our roadmap.
Briefcase’s platform support is built on a plugin system, so if you want to add support for a custom platform, you can do so; or, you can contribute the backend to Briefcase itself.
How do I detect if my app is running in a Briefcase-packaged container?¶
Briefcase adds a PEP566
metadata file when it installs your app’s code. The metadata can be retrieved
at runtime as described in the Accessing Briefcase packaging metadata at
runtime how-to. You can determine if your
app was packaged with Briefcase by testing for the existence of
the Briefcase-Version
tag:
in_briefcase = 'Briefcase-Version' in metadata