Thank you Tim. I have been looking at the MacOS pkgbuild to do the build. I have not looking into making it portable yet but if that can work, it's certainly the way to go.
The first (non-pkg) version I did ran OK but I believe there is a permission (ownership) issue with the current version. Carl On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 8:59 PM Tim Boudreau <niftin...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 4:27 PM Scott Palmer <swpal...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Really? Wow. Okay, another option (still preferable to a .pkg IMO) is > > to simply distribute the application bundle in zipped form. That has the > > advantage that you also don’t need a Mac to create it. In most cases > > Safari would automatically extract it and leave the application sitting > in > > your Downloads folder. > > > That's not a great user experience for Mac OSX users - it kind of > telegraphs "we don't actually care about Mac OSX users". > > Back in 2004-5, I wrote the first Ant-based stuff to generate a PKG for > NetBeans - it wasn't too hard. At the time I dug a little bit into making > that build truly cross platform. Think I wrote a blog about it on java.net > at the time. You needed to have pax to build the archive - it's actually > part of the posix standard and generates tar-compatible archives (after > much digging I figured out that tar would not generate a valid PKG and the > only difference in the archives was the inclusion of an entry for./ - > strange but true). The missing link was apple's hdiutil utility for > creating disk images - I remember digging around in OpenDarwin a bit but I > don't remember if I didn't find it or just wasn't ambitious enough to build > it for Linux. At any rate, that problem may have been solved by now. So it > would be worth looking into. > > I don't think PKG files are particularly fancy or difficult to build - the > plist format is well documented, and after that its just laying out the > files and bundling them up - fussy, but once it works it works. > > So I think with a little work we might be able to do portable PKG builds. > > It sounds like someone has been working a bit on PKG generation? If so I > could take a look and see what I remember from days of yore. > > -Tim > > > > > > > Regards, > > > > Scott > > > > > On Aug 12, 2018, at 12:19 AM, Tim Boudreau <niftin...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > > > > This debate was had once about 14 years ago - and the decision to go > with > > > .pkg installers on Mac OSX was made for this reason: There were a lot > of > > > "NetBeans is unusably slow" reports on OSX. > > > > > > The reason? A LOT of users never unpacked the .app - they were running > it > > > directly from the mounted, compressed .dmg image. It turns out that's > not > > > that unusual. > > > > > > Random access Java classloading does not play nicely AT ALL with the > > > compression used for .dmg images. > > > > > > I strongly recommend not repeating that mistake. > > > > > > -Tim > > > > > > Only Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 1:44 AM Scott Palmer <swpal...@gmail.com> > > wrote: > > > > > >> The macOS “installer” should be nothing more than a disk image with > the > > >> application bundle. It should not be a .pkg file that might require > > admin > > >> privileges as it would be a drag and drop install. The user should be > > able > > >> to drag the app bundle wherever they want. > > >> > > >> Scott > > >> > > >>> On Aug 10, 2018, at 6:54 PM, Carl Mosca <carljmo...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > >>> > > >>> I work in a place where you need admin rights to install on Windows > as > > >> well > > >>> but that's a policy. > > >>> > > >>> As far as the MacOS goes, it's based on BSD. > > >>> > > >>> Therefore if /Applications is owned by root:wheel (or something > similar > > >>> that's not the current user), you need privileges to "su or sudo" in > > >> order > > >>> to complete the installation process. That is to say, the filesystem > > is > > >>> requiring the elevated access which in my opinion is a good thing. > > >>> > > >>> One could/should be able to install in his/her home directory and not > > >> need > > >>> such access and I have seen apps take that approach as well. > > >>> > > >>> Carl > > >>> > > >>>> On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 5:57 PM Will Hartung <willhart...@gmail.com > > > > >> wrote: > > >>>> > > >>>> On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 1:10 PM, Kenneth Fogel < > > >> kfo...@dawsoncollege.qc.ca > > >>>>> > > >>>> wrote: > > >>>> > > >>>>> Yes, an installer is nice but all it should do on the Windows > > platform > > >> is > > >>>>> unzip NetBeans in the folder of choice and add a shortcut. > > >>>>> > > >>>> > > >>>> For some reason that I don't understand, and perhaps someone could > > >> explain, > > >>>> the installer for MacOS requires Administration privileges. > > >>>> > > >>>> Being that it, too, is essentially a "zip file" (it's an application > > >>>> bundle), I never really understood why it needs admin privs to > > install. > > >>>> > > >>>> Maybe it's some Mac specific thing. > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> -- > > >>> Carl J. Mosca > > >> > > >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@netbeans.incubator.apache.org > > >> For additional commands, e-mail: > dev-h...@netbeans.incubator.apache.org > > >> > > >> For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: > > >> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> -- > > > http://timboudreau.com > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@netbeans.incubator.apache.org > > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@netbeans.incubator.apache.org > > > > For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists > > > > > > > > -- > http://timboudreau.com > -- Carl J. Mosca
