# Application distribution

To distribute your app with atom-shell, you should name the folder of your app
as `app`, and put it under atom-shell's resources directory (on OS X it is
`Atom.app/Contents/Resources/`, and on Linux and Windows it is `resources/`),
like this:

On Mac OS X:

```text
atom-shell/Atom.app/Contents/Resources/app/
├── package.json
├── main.js
└── index.html
```

On Windows and Linux:

```text
atom-shell/resources/app
├── package.json
├── main.js
└── index.html
```

Then execute `Atom.app` (or `atom` on Linux, and `atom.exe` on Windows), and
atom-shell will start as your app. The `atom-shell` directory would then be
your distribution that should be delivered to final users.

## Packaging your app into a file

Apart from shipping your app by copying all its sources files, you can also
package your app into an [asar](https://github.com/atom/asar) archive to avoid
exposing your app's source code to users.

To use an `asar` archive to replace the `app` folder, you need to rename the
archive to `app.asar`, and put it under atom-shell's resources directory like
bellow, and atom-shell will then try read the archive and start from it.

On Mac OS X:

```text
atom-shell/Atom.app/Contents/Resources/
└── app.asar
```

On Windows and Linux:

```text
atom-shell/resources/
└── app.asar
```

More details can be found in [Application packaging](application-packaging.md).

## Rebranding with downloaded binaries

After bundling your app into atom-shell, you will want to rebrand atom-shell
before distributing it to users.

If you don't care about the executable name on Windows or the helper process
name on OS X, you can simply rename the downloaded binaries, and there is also a
grunt task that can download prebuilt atom-shell binaries for your current
platform automatically:
[grunt-download-atom-shell](https://github.com/atom/grunt-download-atom-shell).

### Windows

You can not rename the `atom.exe` otherwise native modules will not load. But
you can edit the executable's icon and other information with tools like
[rcedit](https://github.com/atom/rcedit) or [ResEdit](http://www.resedit.net).

If you don't use any native Node module, it is fine to rename `atom.exe` to any
name you want.

### OS X

You can rename `Atom.app` to whatever you want, and you also have to rename the
`CFBundleDisplayName`, `CFBundleIdentifier` and `CFBundleName` fields in
following manifest files if they have these keys:

* `Atom.app/Contents/Info.plist`
* `Atom.app/Contents/Frameworks/Atom Helper.app/Contents/Info.plist`

### Linux

You can rename the `atom` executable to whatever you want.

## Rebranding by rebuilding atom-shell from source

The best way to rename atom-shell is to change the product name and then build
from source. To do this you need to override the `GYP_DEFINES` environment
variable and have a clean rebuild:

__Windows__

```cmd
> set GYP_DEFINES="project_name=myapp product_name=MyApp"
> python script\bootstrap.py
> python script\build.py -c Release -t myapp
```

__Bash__

```bash
$ export GYP_DEFINES="project_name=myapp product_name=MyApp"
$ script/bootstrap.py
$ script/build.py -c Release -t myapp
```

### grunt-build-atom-shell

Manually checking out atom-shell's code and rebuilding could be complicated, so
a Grunt task has been created that will handle this automatically:
[grunt-build-atom-shell](https://github.com/paulcbetts/grunt-build-atom-shell).

This task will automatically handle editing the `.gyp` file, building from
source, then rebuilding your app's native Node modules to match the new
executable name.