[Macpartners] Writing Macintosh Installers

[Patrick McNeal]

On Feb 18, 2009, at 7:10 PM, Rocklyn E. Clarke wrote:

> Is there a current standard MacOS installer application recommended  
> for use at MIT?
> Is there a clear winner in the marketplace of MacOS installer apps?

IS&T doesn't publish an installer standard per se, but does strive to  
follow Apple's installation guidelines.  Namely, using application  
bundles for simple applications that can be installed via drag-and- 
drop, and packages for applications with more complex requirements.   
Using these models also has the benefit of being supported by many  
remote management solutions such as Apple Remote Desktop and Casper.

For more information, I encourage you to checkout this Apple  
documentation:

http://developer.apple.com/tools/installerpolicy.html
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/SoftwareDistribution

If you end up deciding to use a package based installer, these are two  
popular package creation tools:

Iceberg
http://s.sudre.free.fr/Software/Iceberg.html
"An Integrated Packaging Environment (IPE) that allows you to create  
packages or metapackages conforming to the Mac OS X specifications."

Composer
http://www.jamfsoftware.com/products/composer.php
A free part of the Casper Suite that allows for the creation of Apple  
Packages

--Patrick