I need Distribution Builder advice

[Graham Samuel]

On Wed, 1 Oct 2003 12:15:00 -0600, Alex Rice <alex at mindlube.com> wrote:
>
>Like Malte, I also construct my App bundles by hand on OS X. Because of 
>the new bundle/package format on OS X you are no longer dependent on 
>the compiler or resedit to create the application file.
>
>In addition to the other suggestions, here are some tips I thought of:
>
>1) I wrote a shell script to copy files, including my Rev standalone 
>executable, and my already existing app bundle. Then I double-click on 
>the bundle's Info.plist to edit the other bundle properties with the 
>PropertyListEditor.app
>
># example shell script command to copy the executable file
>cp 
>FacilityCa_MacOSX_Standalone/FacilityCalculator.app/Contents/MacOS/
>Revolution \
>     NPSFacCalc/FacilityCalculator.app/Contents/MacOS/FacilityCalculator
>
>
>2) Apple's Project Builder, although it is a compiler, also has really 
>flexible methods of creating application bundles, and has GUI forms for 
>a lot of the bundle properties. You can also add shell scripts to 
>customize the build process. One could use Project Builder to do 
>automate builds of app bundles, even if it's just collecting files from
>various places and not really compiling any C/C++ code.

Thanks to Alex and others who have replied so far: I am collecting 
all the material and I have some hopes of reaching a reasonable 
recipe for reliably generating an OSX standalone.

But what I realise is that my real wish is that I should not have to 
understand the topics discussed above just to generate a standalone - 
I think that RunRev in its guise as a RAD tool should handle this for 
me. In an ideal world, I don't want to know what a plist is (nor what 
it contains), or what a shell is, or what a bundle is, or even that 
Apple's Project Builder exists (let alone having to find it and then 
learn how to use it), just as I don't want to see, still less analyse 
or alter, the code of the RunRev IDE, or on the Windows platform have 
to mess with the Registry.

I admire people who do understand these things, and in my way I have 
been expert in similar arcane matters in other parts of my career 
(yes, I too was a geek and I was paid to be a geek), but now I want 
to use the power of RunRev to construct and then deploy apps across 
different platforms while being protected from the messy details. 
This to my mind is the true promise of Runtime Revolution for the 
majority of its potential users. So I want to see the whole 
standalone creation process smoother, more automated and more truly 
part of the RunRev experience.

Meanwhile I am still eagerly collecting information.

Rant over, I guess.

Graham


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          Graham Samuel / The Living Fossil Co. / UK & France