How do I create a Mac installer for my Java application?

Question

I have created an executable JAR file for my Java application. If I double-click then it works fine. But I want to create installer for Mac OS, because I cannot give a JAR file to my users. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I'd agree that a jar should be sufficent; but maybe you want to check this (ClickInstall MacOSX 1.0.2) Installer Build Tool for OSX.

Answer 2

The very first hit on Google for "Mac Installer" is the Wikipedia article about the Mac Installer.

You can click through from there to read Apple's Software Delivery Guide. It tells you in exhaustive detail everything you could possibly want to know about this.

Please, for your own good, read up on How To Ask Questions The Smart Way. You'll get much better results that way.

Answer 3

Well, all you have to do here is to create a beautiful icon for your app, bundle it to your jar file to make it look more sophisticated, instead of using the default coffee cup icon.

Here is how you can do it:

http://www.centerkey.com/mac/java/

Please read the sessions starting from session 7.

Mac has java by default. And if your users are not technical, it makes no different for them if they are using a mac .exe or not, right?

Answer 4

Just a comment to clear some of this up. Mac applications normally dont have installers. At all. They dont have a registry and normally you just drag the icon (which is actually a folder with the executables in a specific folder structure) into the applications folder. Thats it. Thats why if you have an executable with a nice icon and you put it in a .dmg image file nobody is gonna know the difference.

Answer 5

Try jarbundler from http://informagen.com/JarBundler/. You can create a nice OSX app including icon with it. Just ship that. The user can drag this app to Application. No explicit installation step necessary.

I use this for my projects.