grocy-desktop

A (Windows) desktop application wrapper for grocy

Motivation

grocy is a selfhosted PHP web application, so normally runs on webservers. If you are not so familiar with the technical things regarding webservers, but just want to have grocy running like a normal (Windows) desktop application, this is what you need.

How to install

• Classic installer
  • Just download and execute the latest release, afterwards you will have a shortcut on your desktop which starts grocy.
• Microsoft Store
  

Please note that the user data is not automatically transfered when switching between the classic installer and the Microsoft Store version, please use the backup/restore functionality to transfer your data.

How to update

Just download and execute the latest release. grocy and Barcode Buddy (if enabled) can also be updated separately (see the grocy and Barcode Buddy menu in the top menu bar).

How to backup/restore

All user data can be exported and restored as a ZIP file (see the grocy and Barcode Buddy (if enabled) menu in the top menu bar).

Localization

grocy-desktop is fully localizable - the default language is English (integrated into code), a German localization is always maintained by me. You can easily help translating grocy at https://www.transifex.com/grocy/grocy-desktop, if your language is incomplete or not available yet. (grocy-desktop and grocy will use automatically the localization based on your system language, if available.)

Barcode Buddy integration

Barcode Buddy (https://github.com/Forceu/barcodebuddy) is a barcode helper tool for grocy and can be activated via File -> Enable Barcode Buddy.

External access

Both grocy and Barcode Buddy (if enabled) can be optionally accessed from external machines, external access can be enabled via File -> Enable external access (please accept the native Windows firewall question accordingly). See the status bar for information about the URLs.

User data synchronization

If you want to have grocy-desktop on more than one machine, you can enable synchronization of all user data via File -> Enable user data synchronization. All user data will be exported to the selected directory an closing the application and restored on application start (e. g. use any cloud-synced directory for that).

Things worth to know

How this works technically

grocy-desktop is a .Net Windows Forms application. It uses CefSharp as an integrated browser and utilizes nginx / PHP (FastCGI) to host grocy. The UWP app (Appx package to be distributed through the Microsoft Store) is built using Desktop Bridge, all needed dependencies/manifests are located in the appx_dependencies folder.

What the installer does

The installer has bundled, beside the application itself and the CefSharp dependencies, a for grocy configured PHP and nginx version (in embedded_dependencies/php.zip / embedded_dependencies/nginx.zip) and the current grocy and Barcode Buddy release. grocy and Barcode Buddy (if enabled) can also be updated separately, see above. Everything will be unpacked to %localappdata%\grocy-desktop by default, the path can also be changed during the installation process. (This does not apply when running/installing the UWP app, normally from the Microsoft Store - UWP apps have their own default package locations.)

What happens on start

grocy-desktop will do the following things and then opens the locally hosted instance in the integrated browser:

• Unpacking the dependency ZIP files, if needed, to %appdata%\grocy-desktop\runtime-dependencies, grocy to %appdata%\grocy-desktop\grocy and (if enabled) Barcode Buddy to %appdata%\grocy-desktop\barcodebuddy
  • When running the UWP app (normally installed from the Microsoft Store), the used paths are %userprofile%\.grocy-desktop\runtime-dependencies and %userprofile%\.grocy-desktop\grocy / %userprofile%\.grocy-desktop\barcodebuddy
• Configuring grocy and Barcode Buddy (if enabled) in embedded mode (user data will be saved %appdata%\grocy-desktop\grocy-data / %appdata%\grocy-desktop\barcodebuddy-data, these paths can be changed (see the grocy and Barcode Buddy (if enabled) menu in the top menu bar)
  • When running the UWP app (normally installed from the Microsoft Store), the default path is %userprofile%\.grocy-desktop\grocy-data / %userprofile%\.grocy-desktop\barcodebuddy-data
  • The default ports used are 4010 for grocy and 4011 for Barcode Buddy, if they're already used, a random free port is used instead
• Starting nginx, bound to localhost if external access is disabled, otherwise bound to all network interfaces
• Starting PHP FastCGI, bound to localhost on a random free port

Contributing / Say thanks

Any help is more than appreciated. Feel free to pick any open unassigned issue and submit a pull request, but please leave a short comment or assign the issue yourself, to avoid working on the same thing.

See https://grocy.info/#say-thanks for more ideas if you just want to say thanks.

Roadmap

There is none. grocy is only my hobby, one I like, but not the only one, and because of that, there are no release dates, no schedules for when anything is ready, it's done when it's done, maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow next year, everyone is invited to contribute - I appreciate all ideas and contributions. The progress of a specific bug/enhancement is always tracked in the corresponding issue, at least by commit comment references.

Screenshots

How to build

You will need Visual Studio 2019. All dependencies are included, available via NuGet or will be downloaded at compile time (see build events). The setup is built using WiX Toolset, which should be installed along with the Wix Toolset Visual Studio 2019 Extension. To build the Appx package (UWP app) you will need the Windows 10 SDK 10.0.18362.0 (this is done in the Post-build event of the grocy-desktop-setup project).

License

The MIT License (MIT)