- Packaging Applications For Mac Os X 10.10
- Mac Os X Applications
- Packaging Applications For Mac Os X 10.7
Mac App Store: Official digital distribution platform for OS X apps. Part of OS X 10.7 and available as an update for OS X 10.6; Homebrew: Package manager for OS X, based on Git; Fink: A port of dpkg, it is one of the earliest package managers for OS X; MacPorts: Formerly known as DarwinPorts, based on FreeBSD Ports (as is OS X itself); Joyent. In order to package an NW.js application for Mac OS X, proceed as follows:Create a copy of nwjs.app and rename it to ToDO.app.Right-click on the ToDO. This website uses cookies and other tracking technology to analyse traffic, personalise ads and learn how we can.
The OS X operating system combines a stable core with advanced technologies to help you deliver world-class products on the Mac platform. Knowing what these technologies are, and how to use them, can help streamline your development process, while giving you access to key OS X features.
At a Glance
This guide introduces you to the range of possibilities for developing Mac software, describes the many technologies you can use for software development, and points you to sources of information about those technologies. It does not describe user-level system features or features that have no impact on software development.
OS X Has a Layered Architecture with Key Technologies in Each Layer
It's helpful to view the implementation of OS X as a set of layers. The lower layers of the system provide the fundamental services on which all software relies. Subsequent layers contain more sophisticated services and technologies that build on (or complement) the layers below.
The lower the layer a technology is in, the more specialized are the services it provides. Generally, technologies in higher layers incorporate lower-level technologies to provide common app behaviors. A good rule of thumb is to use the highest-level programming interface that meets the goals of your app. Here is a brief summary of the layers of OS X.
Packaging Applications For Mac Os X 10.10
The Cocoa (Application) layer includes technologies for building an app's user interface, for responding to user events, and for managing app behavior.
The Media layer encompasses specialized technologies for playing, recording, and editing audiovisual media and for rendering and animating 2D and 3D graphics.
The Core Services layer contains many fundamental services and technologies that range from Automatic Reference Counting and low-level network communication to string manipulation and data formatting.
The Core OS layer defines programming interfaces that are related to hardware and networking, including interfaces for running high-performance computation tasks on a computer's CPU and GPU.
The Kernel and Device Drivers layer consists of the Mach kernel environment, device drivers, BSD library functions (
libSystem), and other low-level components. The layer includes support for file systems, networking, security, interprocess communication, programming languages, device drivers, and extensions to the kernel.
Relevant Chapters:Cocoa Application Layer, Media Layer, Core Services Layer, Core OS Layer, Kernel and Device Drivers Layer
You Can Create Many Different Kinds of Software for Mac
Using the developer tools and system frameworks, you can develop a wide variety of software for Mac, including the following:
Apps. Apps help users accomplish tasks that range from creating content and managing data to connecting with others and having fun. OS X provides a wealth of system technologies such as app extensions and handoff, that you use to extend the capabilities of your apps and enhance the experience of your users.
Frameworks and libraries. Frameworks and libraries enable code sharing among apps.
Command-line tools and daemons. Command-line tools allow sophisticated users to manipulate data in the command-line environment of the Terminal app. Daemons typically run continuously and act as servers for processing client requests.
App plug-ins and loadable bundles. Plug-ins extend the capabilities of other apps; bundles contain code and resources that apps can dynamically load at runtime.
System plug-ins. System plug-ins, such as audio units, kernel extensions, I/O Kit device drivers, preference panes, Spotlight importers, and screen savers, extend the capabilities of the system.
Relevant Chapter:Creating Software Products for the Mac Platform
When Porting a Cocoa Touch App, Be Aware of API Similarities and Differences
The technology stacks on which Cocoa and Cocoa Touch apps are based have many similarities. Some system frameworks are identical (or nearly identical) in each platform, including Foundation, Core Data, and AV Foundation. This commonality of API makes some migration tasks—for example, porting the data model of your Cocoa Touch app—easy.
Other migration tasks are more challenging because they depend on frameworks that reflect the differences between the platforms. For example, porting controller objects and revising the user interface are more demanding tasks because they depend on AppKit and UIKit, which are the primary app frameworks in the Cocoa and CocoaTouch layers, respectively.
See Also
Apple provides developer tools and additional information that support your development efforts.
Xcode, Apple's integrated development environment, helps you design, create, debug, and optimize your software. You can download Xcode from the Mac App Store.
For an overview of the developer tools for OS X, see the Xcode Apple Developer webpage. For an overview Xcode functionality, read Xcode Overview.
The OS X Developer Library contains the documentation, sample code, tutorials, and other information you need to write OS X apps. You can access the OS X Developer Library from the Apple Developer website or from Xcode. In Xcode, choose Help > Documentation and API Reference to view documents and other resources in the Organizer window.
In addition to the OS X Developer Library, there are other sources of information on developing different types of software for Mac:
Apple Open Source. Apple makes major components of OS X—including the UNIX core—available to the developer community. To learn about Apple's commitment to Open Source development, visit Open Source Development Resources. To learn more about some specific Open Source projects, such as Bonjour and WebKit, visit Mac OS Forge.
BSD. Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) is an essential UNIX-based part of the OS X kernel environment. Several excellent books on BSD and UNIX are available in bookstores. But you can also find additional information on any of the websites that cover BSD variants—for example, The FreeBSD Project.
Third-party books. Several excellent books on Mac app development can be found online and in the technical sections of bookstores.
Copyright © 2004, 2015 Apple Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Updated: 2015-09-16
The open source Qt development toolkit is a popular choice for cross-platform development. It provides native-looking widgets and tight integration with the underlying platform on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Qt applications that are written in C++ are easy to compile and deploy across all three platforms, but what if you don't like C++? I prefer Python, a dynamic programming language with a richly expressive syntax and exceptionally powerful support for introspection.
Fortunately, there are cross-platform Python bindings for Qt. The downside, however, is that packaging PyQt applications so that they can be deployed to users on Windows and Mac OS X is an immensely frustrating and arcane process. I declared victory last week after spending several hours battling with MacPorts and distutils. Now that I have unlocked the toolkit's dark mysteries, I can show you the hidden secrets that will allow you to achieve mastery of the alchemical art of cross-platform PyQt application deployment.
First, you'll need access to each platform for which you want to build redistributable packages. The easiest way to accomplish this is to use a Mac and either triple-boot or virtualize Windows and Linux. The initial setup process for Mac OS X will require a lot of very heavy compilation, so you are going to be in for a world of pain and a very long wait if you try to do this on a Mac mini.
Mac Os X Applications
My test application
My computing environment is a quad core Mac Pro configured to dual-boot OS X and openSUSE 11.1. For Windows, I'm running XP in VirtualBox. I do most of my actual development in Linux, but you can do it pretty comfortably on any of the platforms.
Packaging Applications For Mac Os X 10.7
My test application, which I call Orbital Liftr, is a simple utility that I made for batch uploading graphics to Ars Technica's content management system. The Ars CMS is built on Movable Type, which means that it supports the MetaWeblog XML-RPC API, and my app lets you upload images to any standard Movable Type or WordPress blog that supports the API. The app has a few simple features like support for receiving images via drag-and-drop, and it can proportionally resize them before uploading.
The program consists of one module of Python code which contains the application logic and a few basic user interface forms that I made with the Qt Designer program. I have published the complete source code of the program on Launchpad. You can use it to follow along with this tutorial, or you can use your own code.
PyQt on Windows
To build a distributable PyQt package for Windows, you first need to set up a working PyQt execution environment. Start by downloading and installing the standard Qt SDK from the Qt Software website. Next, you will need to install Python 2.6.1. Use the binary installer for Windows from the Python website.
The next step is installing the Python bindings, which can be obtained from the download page at the PyQt website. You'll want to get the Windows installer that is compatible with Python 2.6; it's listed at the bottom of the Binary Packages section.
These components should be enough to give you a fully functional environment for running PyQt applications. You can test it by making a simple PyQt application with a few widgets in a single .pyw file. If your PyQt environment installed correctly, you should be able to run the program by double-clicking the .pyw file in the file manager. There are several example scripts that come bundled with the PyQt installation. These can be found in the site-packagesPyQt4examples folder.
Now that you have a working PyQt environment, you need to package up the application so that you can distribute it to users and make it possible for them to run it without having to install all of the dependencies. This is done with a utility called py2exe that leverages Python's distutils framework. An installer for py2exe is available from the SourceForge website.
You will need to adapt your setup.py script so that it can provide proper instructions to py2exe. If your program is simple and you already know how to use distutils, this shouldn't be terribly hard. The following example shows my setup.py file:
Most of that is pretty much standard distutils. The last two lines were added to accommodate py2exe. The 'windows' parameter specifies the script that py2exe should use to launch the actual program. As you can see, for a simple program that is being ported from Linux, it's the same thing that you already have in your 'scripts' parameter.
The 'options' parameter allows you to pass specific instructions to py2exe. For PyQt applications, you will need to tell it to include sip, a fundamental component of the PyQt binding system.
The py2exe tool will typically compress all of your required Python library modules into a single zip file in order to reduce space and keep your redistributable package clean. I disable that with the skip_archive option. My program dynamically loads the user interface description XML files at runtime, but it can't read those files when they are bundled up in the zip archive.
When you are building PyQt applications with py2exe, you need to either statically generate your user interface modules from the XML description files in advance, disable archiving with the skip_archive option, or structure your program so that the UI files will not end up in the archive.
After you finish making your setup.py script, you can build your redistributable package by running it from the command line:
The terminal will display a lot of messages as it byte-compiles your modules and copies all of the necessary dll files and other dependency components. The automated setup process will take place in the 'build' directory and everything that your users need will be copied into the 'dist' directory. If the script won't execute, make sure that Python is in your PATH environment variable.
To deploy your application to users, ship them everything that is in the 'dist' directory. This adds up to roughly 25 MB for a simple program. It includes the executable and all of the runtime dependencies, which means that users will be able to run the program without having to install the other components.
It's helpful to view the implementation of OS X as a set of layers. The lower layers of the system provide the fundamental services on which all software relies. Subsequent layers contain more sophisticated services and technologies that build on (or complement) the layers below.
The lower the layer a technology is in, the more specialized are the services it provides. Generally, technologies in higher layers incorporate lower-level technologies to provide common app behaviors. A good rule of thumb is to use the highest-level programming interface that meets the goals of your app. Here is a brief summary of the layers of OS X.
Packaging Applications For Mac Os X 10.10
The Cocoa (Application) layer includes technologies for building an app's user interface, for responding to user events, and for managing app behavior.
The Media layer encompasses specialized technologies for playing, recording, and editing audiovisual media and for rendering and animating 2D and 3D graphics.
The Core Services layer contains many fundamental services and technologies that range from Automatic Reference Counting and low-level network communication to string manipulation and data formatting.
The Core OS layer defines programming interfaces that are related to hardware and networking, including interfaces for running high-performance computation tasks on a computer's CPU and GPU.
The Kernel and Device Drivers layer consists of the Mach kernel environment, device drivers, BSD library functions (
libSystem), and other low-level components. The layer includes support for file systems, networking, security, interprocess communication, programming languages, device drivers, and extensions to the kernel.
Relevant Chapters:Cocoa Application Layer, Media Layer, Core Services Layer, Core OS Layer, Kernel and Device Drivers Layer
You Can Create Many Different Kinds of Software for Mac
Using the developer tools and system frameworks, you can develop a wide variety of software for Mac, including the following:
Apps. Apps help users accomplish tasks that range from creating content and managing data to connecting with others and having fun. OS X provides a wealth of system technologies such as app extensions and handoff, that you use to extend the capabilities of your apps and enhance the experience of your users.
Frameworks and libraries. Frameworks and libraries enable code sharing among apps.
Command-line tools and daemons. Command-line tools allow sophisticated users to manipulate data in the command-line environment of the Terminal app. Daemons typically run continuously and act as servers for processing client requests.
App plug-ins and loadable bundles. Plug-ins extend the capabilities of other apps; bundles contain code and resources that apps can dynamically load at runtime.
System plug-ins. System plug-ins, such as audio units, kernel extensions, I/O Kit device drivers, preference panes, Spotlight importers, and screen savers, extend the capabilities of the system.
Relevant Chapter:Creating Software Products for the Mac Platform
When Porting a Cocoa Touch App, Be Aware of API Similarities and Differences
The technology stacks on which Cocoa and Cocoa Touch apps are based have many similarities. Some system frameworks are identical (or nearly identical) in each platform, including Foundation, Core Data, and AV Foundation. This commonality of API makes some migration tasks—for example, porting the data model of your Cocoa Touch app—easy.
Other migration tasks are more challenging because they depend on frameworks that reflect the differences between the platforms. For example, porting controller objects and revising the user interface are more demanding tasks because they depend on AppKit and UIKit, which are the primary app frameworks in the Cocoa and CocoaTouch layers, respectively.
See Also
Apple provides developer tools and additional information that support your development efforts.
Xcode, Apple's integrated development environment, helps you design, create, debug, and optimize your software. You can download Xcode from the Mac App Store.
For an overview of the developer tools for OS X, see the Xcode Apple Developer webpage. For an overview Xcode functionality, read Xcode Overview.
The OS X Developer Library contains the documentation, sample code, tutorials, and other information you need to write OS X apps. You can access the OS X Developer Library from the Apple Developer website or from Xcode. In Xcode, choose Help > Documentation and API Reference to view documents and other resources in the Organizer window.
In addition to the OS X Developer Library, there are other sources of information on developing different types of software for Mac:
Apple Open Source. Apple makes major components of OS X—including the UNIX core—available to the developer community. To learn about Apple's commitment to Open Source development, visit Open Source Development Resources. To learn more about some specific Open Source projects, such as Bonjour and WebKit, visit Mac OS Forge.
BSD. Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) is an essential UNIX-based part of the OS X kernel environment. Several excellent books on BSD and UNIX are available in bookstores. But you can also find additional information on any of the websites that cover BSD variants—for example, The FreeBSD Project.
Third-party books. Several excellent books on Mac app development can be found online and in the technical sections of bookstores.
Copyright © 2004, 2015 Apple Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Updated: 2015-09-16
The open source Qt development toolkit is a popular choice for cross-platform development. It provides native-looking widgets and tight integration with the underlying platform on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Qt applications that are written in C++ are easy to compile and deploy across all three platforms, but what if you don't like C++? I prefer Python, a dynamic programming language with a richly expressive syntax and exceptionally powerful support for introspection.
Fortunately, there are cross-platform Python bindings for Qt. The downside, however, is that packaging PyQt applications so that they can be deployed to users on Windows and Mac OS X is an immensely frustrating and arcane process. I declared victory last week after spending several hours battling with MacPorts and distutils. Now that I have unlocked the toolkit's dark mysteries, I can show you the hidden secrets that will allow you to achieve mastery of the alchemical art of cross-platform PyQt application deployment.
First, you'll need access to each platform for which you want to build redistributable packages. The easiest way to accomplish this is to use a Mac and either triple-boot or virtualize Windows and Linux. The initial setup process for Mac OS X will require a lot of very heavy compilation, so you are going to be in for a world of pain and a very long wait if you try to do this on a Mac mini.
Mac Os X Applications
My test application
My computing environment is a quad core Mac Pro configured to dual-boot OS X and openSUSE 11.1. For Windows, I'm running XP in VirtualBox. I do most of my actual development in Linux, but you can do it pretty comfortably on any of the platforms.
Packaging Applications For Mac Os X 10.7
My test application, which I call Orbital Liftr, is a simple utility that I made for batch uploading graphics to Ars Technica's content management system. The Ars CMS is built on Movable Type, which means that it supports the MetaWeblog XML-RPC API, and my app lets you upload images to any standard Movable Type or WordPress blog that supports the API. The app has a few simple features like support for receiving images via drag-and-drop, and it can proportionally resize them before uploading.
The program consists of one module of Python code which contains the application logic and a few basic user interface forms that I made with the Qt Designer program. I have published the complete source code of the program on Launchpad. You can use it to follow along with this tutorial, or you can use your own code.
PyQt on Windows
To build a distributable PyQt package for Windows, you first need to set up a working PyQt execution environment. Start by downloading and installing the standard Qt SDK from the Qt Software website. Next, you will need to install Python 2.6.1. Use the binary installer for Windows from the Python website.
The next step is installing the Python bindings, which can be obtained from the download page at the PyQt website. You'll want to get the Windows installer that is compatible with Python 2.6; it's listed at the bottom of the Binary Packages section.
These components should be enough to give you a fully functional environment for running PyQt applications. You can test it by making a simple PyQt application with a few widgets in a single .pyw file. If your PyQt environment installed correctly, you should be able to run the program by double-clicking the .pyw file in the file manager. There are several example scripts that come bundled with the PyQt installation. These can be found in the site-packagesPyQt4examples folder.
Now that you have a working PyQt environment, you need to package up the application so that you can distribute it to users and make it possible for them to run it without having to install all of the dependencies. This is done with a utility called py2exe that leverages Python's distutils framework. An installer for py2exe is available from the SourceForge website.
You will need to adapt your setup.py script so that it can provide proper instructions to py2exe. If your program is simple and you already know how to use distutils, this shouldn't be terribly hard. The following example shows my setup.py file:
Most of that is pretty much standard distutils. The last two lines were added to accommodate py2exe. The 'windows' parameter specifies the script that py2exe should use to launch the actual program. As you can see, for a simple program that is being ported from Linux, it's the same thing that you already have in your 'scripts' parameter.
The 'options' parameter allows you to pass specific instructions to py2exe. For PyQt applications, you will need to tell it to include sip, a fundamental component of the PyQt binding system.
The py2exe tool will typically compress all of your required Python library modules into a single zip file in order to reduce space and keep your redistributable package clean. I disable that with the skip_archive option. My program dynamically loads the user interface description XML files at runtime, but it can't read those files when they are bundled up in the zip archive.
When you are building PyQt applications with py2exe, you need to either statically generate your user interface modules from the XML description files in advance, disable archiving with the skip_archive option, or structure your program so that the UI files will not end up in the archive.
After you finish making your setup.py script, you can build your redistributable package by running it from the command line:
The terminal will display a lot of messages as it byte-compiles your modules and copies all of the necessary dll files and other dependency components. The automated setup process will take place in the 'build' directory and everything that your users need will be copied into the 'dist' directory. If the script won't execute, make sure that Python is in your PATH environment variable.
To deploy your application to users, ship them everything that is in the 'dist' directory. This adds up to roughly 25 MB for a simple program. It includes the executable and all of the runtime dependencies, which means that users will be able to run the program without having to install the other components.
You can just zip it up and ship it out that way, but it will be more convenient for your users if you give them a single self-standing executable with a standard installer wizard. A lot of PyQt developers seem to like Inno Setup, a free installer maker.
Crm app for mac. Although your users will not have to manually install Qt or the PyQt bindings, they might still have to install the VC++ 2008 Redistributable Package. This package is available directly from Microsoft.
Deploying PyQt on Windows works reasonably well. Inno Setup uses good compression, so you can get your final package down to an acceptable size and make it easy for users to install. The biggest challenge is getting py2exe to deal appropriately with certain kinds of corner cases.
If your application is complex or structured in an unusual way, you might run into problems. For example, py2exe doesn't respect the distutils package_data option. There are a few workarounds for problems of that nature, and you can get more details about py2exe from the project's website.
