Plugins vs. the Mac app bundle

[Peter TB Brett]

Hi all,

There seems to some confusion about plugins/extensions and the OS X 
installation method for the LiveCode IDE.

Some OS X APIs require the app bundle to be validly signed.  Incorrect 
signatures have previously manifested themselves in horrible ways, 
including extreme delays when trying to open a file in the IDE, and a 
variety of other nasty symptoms.

The entire app bundle has to be signed, and any modification to the app 
bundle invalidates the signature.

To address this, we have recently made some changes to the OS X installer:

- we now just provide a DMG with a pre-constructed app bundle inside, 
rather than an installer

- we make the app bundle read-only to avoid any possibility of modifying 
it (and breaking LiveCode features)

Fortunately, these have fixed the bugs, and improved the LiveCode user 
experience! Yay!


This seems to have caused some issues for plugin authors who have been 
putting their plugins into the LiveCode app bundle, especially when 
those plugins try and save state or data back into themselves.  Please 
don't do this!

Instead, please put your plugins in the per-user plugins directory.  On 
OS X, the default location is /Users/username/Documents/My 
LiveCode/Plugins/.  You can modify the location in the 'Files & Memory' 
section of the IDE preferences.


For more information, please see the plugins lesson: 
http://lessons.livecode.com/m/4071/l/21341-how-to-install-a-3rd-party-plugin-in-the-livecode-ide

                                  Peter

-- 
Dr Peter Brett <peter.brett at livecode.com>
LiveCode Open Source Team

LiveCode 2016 Conference: https://livecode.com/edinburgh-2016/