Compiling and Running Standalone Applications
If you have a license for COMSOL Compiler™, there will be a Compiler button in the ribbon section Main, as shown below.
Clicking this button will add a Compiler node to the application tree, shown in the figure below.
The corresponding Settings window is shown below.
Compiling Applications
To compile an application, you need to make a few selections in this window. Specify an output Directory, where the executable files will be saved after compilation.
The Runtime option can be left at Download for most situations. COMSOL Runtime contains all the COMSOL Multiphysics software components needed to run the application as a standalone program. The Runtime setting specifies how the COMSOL Runtime environment will be acquired from the compiled application. If this setting is Download then the first time a user starts the compiled application the COMSOL Runtime environment files will be downloaded (a service provided by COMSOL). If the COMSOL Runtime environment already exists on the computer, with a matching version number, then no download will be performed. The option Embed will bundle the COMSOL Runtime files in the executable file. Note that with this option, the file size may be around 1GB even for smaller applications.
You also have the option to preinstall COMSOL Runtime by downloading and installing from: www.comsol.com/runtime-download
The Platforms settings determine which target-platform executables should be generated at compilation. The extensions of the executables for the Windows® and Linux® operating systems will be .exe and .sh, respectively. For macOS, a .tar archive is created; unpack this archive on macOS to extract the app.
The Icon for Windows lets you specify the desktop icon. The Splash setting lets you specify a BMP-image file to be displayed at startup.
After compilation, in the Windows® operating system, the executable file will be available in the output directory, as shown in the figure below.
As a next step, you can, for example, right-click the EXE file and create a shortcut that you then place on the Windows® desktop. Note that the .exe file extension might not be shown, depending on the operating system settings.
You can also compile an application from the operating system command line. For more information, see the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual.
Running Compiled Applications
When running a compiled application, for example, by double-clicking the .exe file in the Windows® operating system, a splash screen is shown and the application will start. If the application has the Splash option set to Default, then a neutral-looking built-in splash screen will be shown.
It is recommended that you replace this with your own splash screen.
If this is the first time you are running an application on a particular computer, then, in addition, an Initializing Installer progress window will be displayed. The initialization progress window is shown below.
After a short moment, the COMSOL Runtime Installer window is displayed, as shown below.
The COMSOL Runtime Installer and its click-through agreement are only shown once, and the next time you start the same application, it will not be shown. The click-through agreement and initialization progress window will also not be shown if you run another application on the same computer that was generated with the same COMSOL Compiler version (having the same version of the COMSOL Runtime).
Click Next to proceed to the Options page, as shown in the figure below.
On this page, you can set the destination folder for the COMSOL Runtime files, choose to register LiveLink™ products (if included), and control how updates for the COMSOL Runtime are handled. Click Install to continue. The installation takes a few minutes and, when finished, the installer will prompt the user to start the application.
If you selected the Ask to update the installed COMSOL Runtime for applications compiled with a newer version checkbox while installing the COMSOL Runtime, running an application compiled with a newer version of COMSOL Multiphysics will give you the option to either run anyway or to download an update. An example of this is shown in the figure below.
An option for showing the COMSOL About dialog is always available in a compiled application. The author of the application controls how this information is available from the Settings of the Main Window; see About Dialog. The figure below shows the About dialog.
In the About dialog, the user of a compiled application can access the Preferences by clicking the corresponding button. The Preferences window for a compiled application is shown below.
Here, the user can change settings for Visualization, Mouse, Temporary files, Recovery, Multicore, GPU acceleration, LiveLink™ for MATLAB®, and Product updates. These settings represent a subset of the Preferences available in COMSOL Multiphysics and more information can be found in the COMSOL Multiphysics Reference Manual.
If the compiled application detects that OpenGL® graphics hardware acceleration is not supported, then the application will automatically switch to software rendering and exit. The next time the application starts, software rendering will be used.