Just out of curiosity, what about distributing NetBeans via the Apple App Store? That of course is an issue post-installer creation. Most apps I install I get from the App Store - prefer the app store for a variety of reasons.
To do this, we would need an Apple Developer account owned by Apache. You have to provide some documentation to Apple to prove that you are a legitimate entity - something only someone at Apache could do. With the Mac installer, is the plan to include OpenJDK so that the IDE runs without any additional setup work? -Ryan > On Aug 12, 2018, at 9:21 PM, Carl Mosca <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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 <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 4:27 PM Scott Palmer <[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]> >> 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 <[email protected]> >>> 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 <[email protected]> >> 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 <[email protected] >>> >>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 1:10 PM, Kenneth Fogel < >>>>> [email protected] >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> 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: [email protected] >>>>> For additional commands, e-mail: >> [email protected] >>>>> >>>>> 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: [email protected] >>> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] >>> >>> For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: >>> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >> http://timboudreau.com >> > > > -- > Carl J. Mosca --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists
