Tutorials or instructions on delivering MacOSX apps...

[Chipp Walters]

Alex,

Thanks for the info. Great stuff. Now if only I could understand any of it
;-) Not to worry, I'll bang around and ask questions.

Who said Macs were easier? Not when it comes to compiling and delivering
apps! (<--WARNING: OBVIOUS TROLL)

Is it possible to edit the app bundle info.plist file with a text editor? I
don't think I want to build a "hello world" C app as then I'd have to learn
yet another IDE. Hey anyone, how 'bout making a Rev app do to all of this
stuff automatically?

best,

Chipp


> -----Original Message-----
> From: use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com
> [mailto:use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com]On Behalf Of Alex Rice
> Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2004 11:08 AM
> To: How to use Revolution
> Subject: Re: Tutorials or instructions on delivering MacOSX apps...
>
>
>
> On Feb 5, 2004, at 12:50 AM, Chipp Walters wrote:
>
> > I've seen (and made) some tutorials on building icons for Windows
> > apps. And
> > using a utility like Install Creator from Clickteam
> > (www.clickteam.com) is a
> > great way to build an installer for Windows.
>
> For Windows I *highly* recommend InnoSetup (it's free too!)
> http://innosetup.com or jrsoftware.org
>
>
> > But, I've not yet built installers for standalones on MacOSX. Anyone
> > know of
> > a step-by-step way to produce and distribute commercial standalones
> > for OSX?
>
> There is no canonical way to do it like there is on Windows (pick
> Installshield, Windows Installer, or a work-alike like InnoSetup)
>
> First install the OS X Dev Tools CD you will get lots of good free
> utilities with it. Here are some concepts I have found useful.
>
> App Bundle's Info.plist
> You will probably want to replace the app bundle produced by Runrev.
>
> In the bundle, Info.plist is the file that specifies everything that
> makes an app bundle an app bundle: the Icons filename, Get Info string,
> HelpBook filename, Executable name, Copyright string, etc.
>
> What I recommend is using Project Builder or XCODE to build a hello
> world C app, to get the App Bundle and Info.plist created for you
> exactly how you want it. PB/XCODE has a nice GUI for entering all the
> fields of the Info.plist. Then copy the Rev executable into the new app
> bundle. I'll attach a shell script I use for this purpose.
>
>
> App Bundle Contents
> If you have a lot of files to manage, you can also attach a
> shell-script build phase to the PB/XCODE project which can be used to
> copy files into the app bundle. Or use Drag and Drop to attach files to
> the project so PB/XCODE will put them into the Resources folder of your
> app bundle.
>
>
> Distribute with DMG
> If your app is a single app bundle, or self-contained in a folder, I
> would suggest using a DMG disk image. Although you can use
> DiskUtility.app or CLI tools to create .dmg files, I use the shareware
> DropDMG. DropDMG allows you to attach auto-open flags, and license
> agreement texts to the DMG. See
> <http://mindlube.com/download/files/Slacker-2_1_6.dmg> for an example.
>
> The basic idea with DMGs is they open up and the user can run the app
> from right there (assuming the app doesn't write to it's own folder),
> or the user most likely will drag-drop the app to their Applications
> folder.
>
> It might sound overly simplistic, but it works good and in fact Apple
> uses dmg images to distribute several of their apps.
>
>
> Icon Composer (in Developer/Applications/Utilities)
> Create 4 sizes of icons in Photoshop or whatever, then copy-paste them
> into this app to create a .icns file. Reference the icns file in your
> Info.plist
>
>
> PackageMaker (in Developer/Applications/Utilities)
> This is the "official" Apple installer-maker for MacOS X. It used to be
> tough to use safely and sanely. But if you decide against DMG disk
> images, then look at this. Packages still need to be imaged somehow
> (.sit or .dmg for instance. Packages can also *run scripts* at install
> time, so they are used for more complicated installs where drag-n-drop
> won't work.
>
>
> Property List Editor (in  Developer/Applications/Utilities)
> Edit Info.plist XML files with a nice GUI.
>
>
> 3rd party Installers
> If you decided against DMG and against Packages, then there are 3rd
> party installers like WISE, VISE, Stuffit InstallerMaker and others.
>
> ----
>
> This shell script takes the standalone output from Revolution, and
> copies it into a custom application bundle I maintain.
>
> #!/bin/sh
>
> #
> # build an OSX app bundle for ARC testing.
> #
>
> # this is the binary executable produced by runrev
> cp
> build/FacilityCa_MacOSX_Standalone/FacilityCalculator.app/Contents/
> MacOS/Revolution \
>
> build/NPSFacCalc/FacilityCalculator.app/Contents/MacOS/
> FacilityCalculator
>
> # revclips.bundle could go into Resources or Plugins instead, but
> # but it works here to
> cp -R revclips.bundle \
>      build/NPSFacCalc/FacilityCalculator.app/Contents/MacOS
>
> # not using revxml yet
> # cp -R  build/Standalone_MacOSX_FacilityCa/revxml.bundle \
> #    build/NPSFacCalc/FacilityCalculator.app/Contents/MacOS
>
> # supporting files
> cp -R clips-models \
>      build/NPSFacCalc/FacilityCalculator.app/Contents/MacOS
> # delete emacs backup files
> rm
> build/NPSFacCalc/FacilityCalculator.app/Contents/MacOS/clips-models/*~
>
> # supporting files
> cp -R data \
>      build/NPSFacCalc/FacilityCalculator.app/Contents/MacOS
>
> # unneeded files
> rm
> build/NPSFacCalc/FacilityCalculator.app/Contents/MacOS/data/
> UserData*.rev
> rm build/NPSFacCalc/FacilityCalculator.app/Contents/MacOS/data/*~
>
> # launch the app for testing
> # open build/NPSFacCalc/FacilityCalculator.app
>
> --
> Alex Rice | Mindlube Software | http://mindlube.com
>
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