Building the Desktop App

Budgetzilla uses Tauri to provide a native desktop experience across macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Prerequisites

To build the desktop application, you need the following installed on your system:

Rust — Install via rustup
Node.js 18+ — Download from nodejs.org
Platform Dependencies:
- macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)
- Windows: Microsoft Visual Studio C++ Build Tools and WebView2
- Linux: See Tauri Linux prerequisites

Run the application in development mode with hot-reloading:

cd webapp
npm run tauri:dev

This starts the Vite development server and opens the Tauri window.

cd webapp
npm run tauri:build

Build artifacts will be in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/macos/.

You can use the provided batch script to build on Windows (handling specific MSVC environment issues):

cd webapp
.\build_tauri.bat

Build artifacts will be in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/msi/ and bundle/setup.exe.

The desktop app is configured in webapp/src-tauri/tauri.conf.json.

Field	Description
`productName`	The display name of the application (set to `Budgetzilla`)
`version`	App version string
`identifier`	Unique bundle identifier (e.g., `com.budgetzilla.app`)

Field	Description
`title`	Default window title
`width` / `height`	Initial window dimensions
`resizable`	Whether the user can resize the window

Icons are managed via the Tauri CLI. To update the application icons from a source image:

Place your source icon (1024x1024 PNG recommended) in webapp/Budgetzilla.jpg (or any path)
Run the icon generation command:
Terminal window
```
cd webapp
npx tauri icon ./Budgetzilla.jpg
```

This automatically generates all required formats for all platforms in src-tauri/icons/.

If you encounter errors related to c2.dll or resource exhaustion:

Use build_tauri.bat which forces x86 host tools.
Ensure you have at least 8GB of RAM available.
Check that VsDevCmd.bat path in the script matches your Visual Studio installation.

Ensure your Rust toolchain is up to date:

rustup update

The application requires the WebView2 runtime. It is pre-installed on Windows 10/11, but can be downloaded here if missing.