Is PackageMaker considered the standard for Mac OS X software installation? Or is there something else out there?

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+1 Q:

Is PackageMaker considered the standard for Mac OS X software installation? Or is there something else out there?

I've put together my very first package with PackageMaker (for a system service), but I am not happy about several faults:

Frequent crashes while applying target permissions to my source files
Package source files are not automatically or easily refreshed
File filter does not work

Is there something else out there more capable of this task? Free is not a requirement.

+2 A:

PackageMaker is the standard, for things that need an installer (many regular applications just use a DMG, often with a background image telling the user to copy the bundle to /Applications - eg Firefox does this)

MindVision VISE is a commercial solution you can look at, used by some people, but personally I think the look & feel of the resulting installers is subtly wrong (and slightly retro) - that's a subjective viewpoint of course.

Package Maker works pretty well for many people - though documentation is rather scant; are you sure the problems you're experiencing aren't fixable?

James Turner 2009-10-21 12:59:07

The situation has gotten worse: It cannot run scripts on Snow Leopard during the installation, which I require. (I've another question here on SO about that.) So, at this point, *no*, I can't live with PackageManager as is.

Stu Thompson 2009-10-21 17:33:08

PackageMaker (or really, Installer.app) certainly *can* run scripts on Snow Leopard during the installation - it's a standard feature. Is there something unusual about your setup that might be affecting the results you're getting?

James Turner 2009-10-22 11:42:27

Yes and no. To ensure that it was not what my package was doing, I made a simple test case: I created a fresh package, had it install a static file to Documents, and had it run a script that consisted only of "touch /Users/stu/hi.txt". It installed file file yet the script did not run. It's been a few weeks since I did this, I will revisit. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Stu Thompson 2009-10-23 08:22:24

+4 A:

Yes it is, and yes it's buggy. Apple uses the command line version pretty much exclusively so the GUI tends to have the feeling that it's been slapped together by a summer intern and never tested.

Azeem.Butt 2009-10-21 14:50:16

It is really good to hear that it is not just me. *"it's been slapped together by a summer intern and never tested"* Exactly!

Stu Thompson 2009-10-21 17:29:48

ansaurus

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Is PackageMaker considered the standard for Mac OS X software installation? Or is there something else out there?

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