Hi all,

Exactly, *.dmg files are "disk images" and just stores files. In addition it 
supports encryption, password protection and compression. Moving the contents 
of such an image file to ~/Applications or /Applications is indeed the default 
behaviour on macOS.

I think it is quite deliberate by the macOS designers that you should have only 
one installation of each application in /Applications. That's why applications 
on macOS usually support having more than one instance/file/workspace running 
at a time. And also why we have the macOS Eclipse Launcher plugin[1].

If you want one Eclipse instance per project you should instead be using the 
Eclipse Installer[2] as it is designed for exactly that purpose. That also 
comes in a *.dmg, but you will only need one installation.

Best regards,
Torkild

[1] https://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/macos-eclipse-launcher
[2] 
https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/oomph/epp/2020-09/R/eclipse-inst-jre-mac64.dmg
> 13. okt. 2020 kl. 21:05 skrev Thomas Singer <ts-...@syntevo.com>:
> 
>> 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
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