Add appimage support / installation (linux)

[mutlusun]

Description

Many thanks for your work on quarto!

I recently discovered quarto and decided to install it. Using a non-debian based linux distribution, it is hard to install quarto (see also #4505). In addition to a lack of documentation, different binaries and directories need to be copied to different places and clutter the home directory of a user.

Thus, I think it would be beneficial to provide an appimage for quarto. This is a very easy way to install an application on all modern linux distributions. The corresponding file needs to be downloaded and executed. That's it.

Appimages are similar to flatpaks (or snaps) but lack the sandboxing. Distributing quarto as flatpak would be preferable but need adaptions of the code (how system binaries like python, R, julia are executed). In the case of quarto, sandboxing is not that beneficial as host binaries need to be executed.

I created a simple shell script that converts a downloaded quarto tarball to an appimage. (The appimagetool is necessary for that.) If the authors are interested in such an installation option, I am happy to contribute a Github action target that creates an appimage and adds it to the assets of a release.

Shell script:

#!/bin/sh

# General paths
PATH_BASE="./quarto-1.5.35-linux-amd64/quarto-1.5.35/"
PATH_OUTPUT="./quarto-appimage-test/"

# Some payload
FILE_CONTENT_APPRUN=$(cat <<-EOF
#!/bin/sh
SELF=\$(readlink -f "\$0")
HERE=\${SELF%/*}
export PATH="\${HERE}/usr/bin/:\${HERE}/usr/sbin/:\${HERE}/usr/games/:\${HERE}/bin/:\${HERE}/sbin/\${PATH:+:\$PATH}"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="\${HERE}/usr/lib/:\${HERE}/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/:\${HERE}/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/:\${HERE}/usr/lib32/:\${HERE}/usr/lib64/:\${HERE}/lib/:\${HERE}/lib/i386-linux-gnu/:\${HERE}/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/:\${HERE}/lib32/:\${HERE}/lib64/\${LD_LIBRARY_PATH:+:\$LD_LIBRARY_PATH}"
export PYTHONPATH="\${HERE}/usr/share/pyshared/\${PYTHONPATH:+:\$PYTHONPATH}"
export XDG_DATA_DIRS="\${HERE}/usr/share/\${XDG_DATA_DIRS:+:\$XDG_DATA_DIRS}"
export PERLLIB="\${HERE}/usr/share/perl5/:\${HERE}/usr/lib/perl5/\${PERLLIB:+:\$PERLLIB}"
export GSETTINGS_SCHEMA_DIR="\${HERE}/usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/\${GSETTINGS_SCHEMA_DIR:+:\$GSETTINGS_SCHEMA_DIR}"
export QT_PLUGIN_PATH="\${HERE}/usr/lib/qt4/plugins/:\${HERE}/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/qt4/plugins/:\${HERE}/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt4/plugins/:\${HERE}/usr/lib32/qt4/plugins/:\${HERE}/usr/lib64/qt4/plugins/:\${HERE}/usr/lib/qt5/plugins/:\${HERE}/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/qt5/plugins/:\${HERE}/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/plugins/:\${HERE}/usr/lib32/qt5/plugins/:\${HERE}/usr/lib64/qt5/plugins/\${QT_PLUGIN_PATH:+:\$QT_PLUGIN_PATH}"
EXEC=\$(grep -e '^Exec=.*' "\${HERE}"/*.desktop | head -n 1 | cut -d "=" -f 2 | cut -d " " -f 1)
exec "\${EXEC}" "\$@"
EOF
)
FILE_CONTENT_DESKTOP=$(cat <<-EOF
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Quarto
Icon=quarto
Exec=quarto render %u
Terminal=true
Categories=Development;Building;Science;
EOF
)
# Taken from: https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/blob/main/tests/docs/smoke-all/confluence/quarto-hex.svg
FILE_CONTENT_SVG=$(cat <<-EOF
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- Generator: Adobe Illustrator 26.5.0, SVG Export Plug-In . SVG Version: 6.00 Build 0)  -->
<svg version="1.1" id="Layer_1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" x="0px" y="0px"
	 viewBox="0 0 2521 2911" style="enable-background:new 0 0 2521 2911;" xml:space="preserve">
<style type="text/css">
	.st0{fill:#42709B;}
	.st1{fill-rule:evenodd;clip-rule:evenodd;fill:#DCE1EB;}
	.st2{fill:#FFFFFF;}
</style>
<g id="letters">
	<g>
		<g>
			<polygon class="st0" points="2521,727.8 1260.5,0 0,727.8 0,2183.2 1260.5,2911 2521,2183.2 			"/>
		</g>
		<g>
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</svg>
EOF
)


# Create base dir and necessary sub directories
mkdir -p $PATH_OUTPUT/usr

# Create AppRun file
echo "$FILE_CONTENT_APPRUN" > $PATH_OUTPUT/AppRun
chmod a+x $PATH_OUTPUT/AppRun

# Copy quarto files
cp -ra $PATH_BASE/bin $PATH_OUTPUT/usr/
cp -ra $PATH_BASE/share $PATH_OUTPUT/usr/

# Add .desktop file and icon
echo "$FILE_CONTENT_DESKTOP" > $PATH_OUTPUT/quarto.desktop
echo "$FILE_CONTENT_SVG" > $PATH_OUTPUT/quarto.svg

# Run appimagetool
./appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage $PATH_OUTPUT