I have an application developed for windows. I need to make a setup for MAC. Some things that i will need to do in the setup are: (i)Install Mono Framework (ii)Install my app files (iii) Macbundle my application. In short .how do i make a setup for Mac which the user can download and run my software(application.exe) on a mac. Kindly help.
Thanks
OS X applications are usually distributed as self contained app bundles that don't require an installer.
It seems that Mono provides a package maker that help to create .app bundles from Mono projects: http://www.mono-project.com/MonoMacPackager
Related
I am new to macOS app development. I have knowledge on Windows App development. I have a server application which can be installed offline. For communicating there is a client library which is a .dylib. I want to distribute the .dylib using macOS App Store so that third party application can consume the library.
How to install the .dylib and headers to a location from macOS App Store as a installer?
You cannot distribute dynamic libraries and header files through the App Store. It's for applications only.
Instead, have a look at other means of distributing libraries such as CocoaPods, XCFrameworks etc.
Mac App Store is quite restrictive when it comes to installers. Usually you would distribute an .app that can be run directly and the app then installs more things if needed.
What kind of apps would consume your library? Why not provide a "Framework Bundle"?
This is the typical way to distribute libraries within macOS
How to install the .dylib and headers to a location from macOS App Store as a installer?
You don't. I'm afraid the App Store is not a package manager.
While you can put libraries, CLI binaries and other resources inside a GUI app bundle, you cannot distribute anything other than a GUI app bundle via the App Store. And neither could 3rd parties mark their app as "depending" on your app. And if they linked against a dylib outside of their app path, then it's highly likely that the app would get rejected in review because it would be found to not work. Again, it's not a package manager.
All apps on the App Store are required to be self-contained, so the way Apple wants developers to handle dependencies is by bundling a separate copy.
Thus, the only "supported" way to distribute your library in a way that can be used on the App Store is to make it available for download on your website, and then have each developer bundle a copy of it when they ship their app.
Of course you could opt for other (or additional) channels like brew, which are actual package managers, but that won't help with anything on the App Store.
I am completely new to Mac OS and I have an application written in .Net Core codebase. Now all I want is to get it installed on Mac OS machines. My question is how can I create an installer (.DMG) file? At the moment My Visual Studio on Windows has created a .dll file with all other dependencies in the folder. Also for now most of the configuration values I have hard-coded but in the release build it has to be chosen by an end-user. So how can I prompt them for required directories? If you can provide me a link for documentation tool or any kind of suggestion would be greatly appreciated. At the moment if I want to run my application on Mac I have to use Terminal and then dotnet myApplication.dll in order to run application. My end goal would be to ask user for all required file paths and at the end create a System level Daemon (similar to windows service) to keep it always Alive. Would Xcode help in this situation? I already tried to open my .Net core project using xcode but it failed to load saying unsupported proect type.
Thanking in advance for your help!
If you wanted to use the standard macOS Installer to distribute your .net Core app, you would need to create a .pkg file. There seem to be ways to do this on the console or with Third Party Tools
sudo pkgbuild -install-location /Applications -component /path/to/your/application ./Desktop/YourPackage.pkg
There is an older manpage for pkgbuild, or you can try running man pkgbuild on your Mac.
I haven't tried this, but creating a .pkg is the normal way to install stuff on a Mac for applications where you can't just drag/drop the .app into the Application folder. (macOS applications are actually Directories with a special structure)
A .DMG is just a disk image - it doesn't "do" anything, it's just a container for files. You can create one with Disk Utility.
I have a C# application that works great in Linux and Windows. Now I want to make an installation package for the Mac OS but I don't have anything running it in order to develop it / test it. The software is open source, so I don't want to put money into buying yet another laptop just to test it.
Is there a way to create some kind of installer / package for this C# application without actually needing to have a Mac? I even made a .deb package for Linux. Isn't it possible to somehow convert it?
It depends on how fancy you want to get with the installer. I'd start with something simple like building a package for Homebrew.
That's all command-line, though. If you think your Mac users would be unhappy installing an running from the command-line, you'll have to look into more sophisticated solutions. Mac GUI applications are traditionally built into .app bundles. Unfortunately for you, C# does not have lots of support for cross-compiling to the Mac. It's possible, but it's going to take a lot of trial and error, which will be way more frustrating without a test machine to see if you're doing it right.
You might try CPack (part of CMake). CMake doesn't really do C# (otherwise it'd be perfect for you), but you may be able to point CPack at the completed binaries and get it to bundle them up for the Mac for you. You could also use CMake/CPack to build a dummy Mac application and then you'd be able to swap out all the pieces for your own binaries.
I need your help in choosing a Mac OS X installer version for my application, since I'm not a native Mac user (I am a Windows user).
As far as I know there are two popular installer versions: the regular setup wizard, and the one that uses a window in which you drag the file into the applications folder. Which is preferred and why?
If your application is entirely self contained with all its resources bundled in a single .app package (which is the preferred structure for Mac applications) then use drag and drop installation. If it isn't possible to bundle your application in this way then use an installer .pkg.
There may be other solutions that are appropriate for certain types of application. For example I develop a large Java application that runs on many platforms (including Mac) and we use IzPack to build one installer JAR that works on all platforms. We then package this up as an .exe for Windows users (using Launch4J) and as a .app bundle for Mac users.
If you are not familiar with command line tools or simply not inclined, I would recommend two different IDEs:
Packages - a free and great way to create OSX Installer packages. It is simple to use out of the box, but has great depth for conditional installs.
http://s.sudre.free.fr/Software/Packages/about.html
DMGPackager - shareware - a simple app to create DMG with optional backgrounds, licenses etc.
http://www.skoobysoft.com/utilities/dmgp.html
If you want to distribute, it would be best to sign the installer.
I have an exe setup file. I want to make it compatible with Mac OS. Is there is any way through which we can convert an EXE to DMG, APP or a Jar?
No, you cant, you need to recompile the application for the target platform.
Nope*.
Moreover, if the contained software is compiled for Windows, it won't work on Mac.
If may work only if it is script-based (like in ruby, python, etc.). But usually, you'll have a proper Mac installation package when it is compatible.
**Exception*: some EXE are extractible archives, but it won't change the incompatibility if it is compiled for Windows.
The simple answer is to install software on a Macintosh OS you must recompile it down to a .dmg file. I jumped on Google and this article Creating a Mac OS X App from a Jar File was the second choice. The default Mac OS Java version was 1.5 for Leopard. Target 1.4+ and you should cover systems from at least Leopard and upwards.
As an aside, this tutorial was recently updated for Snow Leopard and covers the same stuff. Best of luck in getting it ported.
There are different distribution for Mac with have java6 and below version, for java 7 and 8 you need to make another app to run and compatible with
I did it on my way:
Create exe/ setup for your jar.
follow the link ---> winebottler.kronenberg.org
download winebottler(GUI based tool) for your mac type and simply follow this link below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imPGlqEuYBk
No extra burden for you to how.
Note: This will pack your setup in app but app size will increase.