anvil-appimage 1.0.1

Automatically install AppImages with desktop integration
Documentation

💻 Technologies

Rust Linux

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⚒️ Anvil - AppImage Installer for Linux

🚀 Description

Anvil is a command-line tool written in Rust that automatically installs AppImages into your Linux system. No more manually extracting icons or creating desktop entries – Anvil does it all for you.

✨ Features

  • 📦 Automatic Organization - Moves AppImages to a dedicated folder (~/.Applications_AppImage by default)
  • 🔧 Permission Management - Automatically sets executable permissions (chmod +x)
  • 🎨 Smart Icon Extraction - Extracts the best quality icon from the AppImage (PNG prioritized by file size)
  • 🖥️ Desktop Integration - Creates proper .desktop entries in ~/.local/share/applications/
  • 🎯 Customizable - Set custom names, icons, and categories
  • 🎭 Verbose Mode - See exactly what's happening under the hood with --verbose
  • 🎨 Beautiful Output - Color-coded messages for errors, warnings, and success

📦 Installation

From Source

git clone https://github.com/Jorge-Guedes/anvil.git
cd anvil
cargo build --release
sudo cp target/release/anvil /usr/local/bin/

Using Cargo

cargo install --git https://github.com/Jorge-Guedes/anvil.git

🚀 Usage

# Basic usage
anvil --source ~/Downloads/MyApp.AppImage

# With custom name and categories
anvil --source ~/Downloads/MyApp.AppImage --name "MyApp" --categories "Development;IDE;"

# Using a custom icon
anvil --source ~/Downloads/MyApp.AppImage --icon ~/icons/myapp.png

# See detailed progress
anvil --source ~/Downloads/MyApp.AppImage --verbose

# Get help
anvil --help

⚙️ Options

Option Description Default
-s, --source Path to the AppImage file Required
-d, --destination Destination directory under HOME .Applications_AppImage
-n, --name Custom name for the application (from filename)
-i, --icon Path to a custom icon file (extracted from AppImage)
-c, --categories Desktop entry categories Utility
-v, --verbose Show detailed progress messages false
-h, --help Print help -
-V, --version Print version -

📁 What Anvil Does

  1. Validates the AppImage file
  2. Creates a dedicated folder in ~/.Applications_AppImage/AppName/
  3. Moves the AppImage to its new home
  4. Sets executable permissions (755)
  5. Extracts the best icon (if no custom icon provided)
  6. Creates a .desktop entry in ~/.local/share/applications/
  7. Updates the application database

🔧 Example

$ anvil --source ~/Downloads/Flameshot-13.3.0.x86_64.appimage --name "Flameshot" --verbose

INFO: Valid format (appimage)
INFO: Base folder ready
INFO: App folder created: /home/user/.Applications_AppImage/Flameshot
INFO: Moving Flameshot-13.3.0.x86_64.appimage to /home/user/.Applications_AppImage/Flameshot/Flameshot-13.3.0.x86_64.appimage
INFO: File moved successfully
INFO: Execute permissions set
INFO: Extracting AppImage contents...
INFO: Found 7 icons
INFO: Best icon: "squashfs-root/usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/flameshot.png"
INFO: Copying icon from squashfs-root/usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/flameshot.png to /home/user/.Applications_AppImage/Flameshot/flameshot.png
INFO: Icon copied successfully
INFO: Icon extracted successfully
INFO: Desktop entries directory ready
INFO: Desktop entry created at /home/user/.local/share/applications/Flameshot.desktop
INFO: Application database updated successfully
SUCCESS: Flameshot installed successfully

🏗️ Building from Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Jorge-Guedes/anvil.git
cd anvil

# Build in debug mode
cargo build

# Build in release mode
cargo build --release

# Run tests
cargo test

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.