A .dmg is an installer.

Small correction (according to my limited macOS knowledge): a .dmg is no installer but some kind of "iso" image that can be mounted easily. Dragging the application inside that image to /Applications is the default "installation" for most GUI applications on macOS. Other applications, e.g. Git, really have an installer (.pkg file) which when run shows some kind of wizard.

Problem with .dmg files is that some users mount it and launch the application from inside. Then apptranslocation also happens and causes weird stuff.

Cheers,
Tom


On 2020-10-13 19:48, Homer, Tony wrote:
A .dmg is an installer.  In the case of the Eclipse macOS installer, I imagine 
it mostly just extracts the archive and moves it into the Applications folder.

Originally I was going to say that it wouldn’t be unreasonable to publish a 
.tar.gz for macOS but thanks Mikael Barbero for calling out 
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=507328.  The comments are very 
informative and the (accidentally) linked article 
(https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/app-translocation.html) is interesting as 
well.



Based on reading all of that, I think it would be best to stick with .dmg.

Providing instructions with a .tar.gz to drag the bundle into /Applications 
would take care of the issue if users actually read it and heed the warning ☺

But my guess is most people would extract the .tar.gz and run it from 
~/Downloads without reading anything, then get into trouble and be mad/sad.



Liviu, thanks for linking to your package page which has the instructions, but 
according to one of the comments removing that flag was not enough:

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=507328#c15

Maybe things have improved since Sierra, but even so, for most users it seems 
like moving the bundle out of Downloads would be preferable to changing file 
attributes.



Tony Homer


From: <platform-dev-boun...@eclipse.org> on behalf of Mikael Barbero 
<mikael.barb...@eclipse-foundation.org>
Reply-To: "Eclipse platform general developers list." <platform-dev@eclipse.org>
Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2020 at 10:45 AM
To: "Eclipse platform general developers list." <platform-dev@eclipse.org>
Subject: Re: [platform-dev] MacOS .dmg vs .tar.gz

I always released my macOS package as a .tar.gz and they work very well. Just 
that you have to remove the quarantine attribute added by the browser after 
download:

https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/iot.embed-cdt/downloads

You're right, it can also be done this way. However, to offer a seamless 
experience to the end users, one have to deliver a .dmg (or .pkg).


Mikaël Barbero
Manager — Release Engineering and Technology | Eclipse Foundation
🐦 @mikbarbero
Eclipse Foundation<http://www.eclipse.org/>: The Platform for Open Innovation 
and Collaboration


_______________________________________________
platform-dev mailing list
platform-dev@eclipse.org
To unsubscribe from this list, visit 
https://www.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/platform-dev

_______________________________________________
platform-dev mailing list
platform-dev@eclipse.org
To unsubscribe from this list, visit 
https://www.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/platform-dev

Reply via email to