Fix passing special characters to console-mode launcher on Windows

[lassoan]

Special characters in command-line arguments on Windows were only converted correctly in the non-console launcher. Now on Windows, command-line arguments are always converted to classic unix-style argc/argv with UTF-8 encoding.

[lassoan]

@jcfr how can we create a new AppLauncher release after we merge this?

[jamesobutler]

The CD workflow gets triggered on the creation of a GitHub release as of 91f3d8e. Or manually triggered by specifying a tag and running the workflow through workflow dispatch.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This pull request fixes special character handling in Windows console-mode launcher by ensuring command-line arguments are consistently converted to UTF-8 encoding on Windows across all launcher modes (console and GUI).

Changes:

• Added wmain entry point for Windows console launcher to properly handle wide-character arguments
• Refactored argument conversion logic to use shared helper functions
• Introduced platform-specific encoding/decoding helpers in ctkAppArguments for consistent UTF-8 handling on Windows

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

File	Description
Main.cpp	Added wmain entry point for Windows console mode with proper UTF-8 argument conversion; refactored cleanup to use deleteUnixArguments
Base/ctkCommandLineParser.h	Added overload for convertWindowsCommandLineToUnixArguments and deleteUnixArguments function declarations
Base/ctkCommandLineParser.cpp	Implemented helper functions for UTF-8 conversion, refactored existing conversion logic to reuse helpers, added cleanup function
Base/ctkAppArguments.cpp	Added platform-specific decodeArgument/encodeArgument helpers to ensure consistent UTF-8 handling on Windows

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[jcfr]

To follow-up on @jamesobutler comment, the release pipeline should be fully automated :)

[lassoan]

To follow-up on @jamesobutler comment, the release pipeline should be fully automated :)

Awesome! Thanks for the responses @jamesobutler and @jcfr.

I've found the build binaries in the CI artifacts and tested that everything works well on Windows now!
Once CI is finished successfully I'll merge.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

Base/ctkCommandLineParser.cpp:978

• In convertWindowsCommandLineToUnixArguments(), the early guard returns before initializing *argc/*argv when cmd_line is null. Callers (e.g., wWinMain) pass uninitialized locals and appLauncherMain later reads argv[0], so this can lead to undefined behavior/crash. Consider always setting *argc = 0 and *argv = nullptr first, and if cmd_line is null fall back to returning at least argv[0] (empty or module filename).

void ctkCommandLineParser::convertWindowsCommandLineToUnixArguments(PWSTR cmd_line, int* argc, char*** argv)
{
  if (!cmd_line || !argc || !argv)
  {
    return;
  }
  *argc = 0;
  *argv = nullptr;

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

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[Copilot]

The documentation incorrectly refers to "argv[0]" when it should refer to "wideArgv[0]". The parameter "argv" is an output parameter (where the converted arguments are stored), while "wideArgv" is the input parameter. The comment should read: "The original value of wideArgv[0] is not used."

Suggested change

	* path determined by ::GetModuleFileNameW. The original value of argv[0] is not used.
	* path determined by ::GetModuleFileNameW. The original value of wideArgv[0] is not used.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

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[jamesobutler]

@lassoan Full release steps are documented at the following below including updating the CMakeLists.txt with the bumped version corresponding to the new tag that is then created.

https://github.com/commontk/AppLauncher/blob/61c35e7516a87a96032cba6e6672a0728f7c55fa/README.md#maintainers-how-to-make-a-release-

[lassoan]

I assumed that's the old manual process :(