Building on Catalina - permissions

Targets macOS
1

Hi all.
I am a little late to the Catalina party but finally updated my build machine to the latest OS…

When I run my debug app from the Xojo IDE I get the standard OS prompt about the app requiring access to ‘Documents’ - that is fair enough. It is requesting access to some documents to load data.
I confirm the prompt and the app loads…

So two quick questions:
a) is there a test I can perform before attempting the TextInputStream.Open call or do I simply need to trap the IOException in order to detect the lack of permission to the file?
b) IS THERE ANYWAY - that I can add my debug app to the Privacy & Security DB so that the prompt is bypassed / pre-empted during development? I note that after I manually grant permission to my debug app, it appears in the Privacy & Security system preference and remains in the list after I quit the debug app… However, despite being listed with the correct permission, I still get prompted AGAIN the next time I run it. Give the app “full disk permission” doesn’t address this issue.

Just looking to understand how to deal with the change in Catalina.

Thanks very much…

2

To avoid the permission request on every run, you have to create a build step that sign (hardened) your debug app

3

Yup. That’s why I encourage everyone to CodeSign (with Hardened Runtime) each and every DebugRun on macOS, allowing you to develop and debug as close to a Release Build as possible.

You can do this such as @Antonio Rinaldi suggested. Or have a look at the example PostBuildScript Xojo2DMG. Or have a look at the most complete solution: App Wrapper.

4

David - you could use cfBookMarkMBS - to save bookmarks to the files you want to open every time. You’d need to save the bookmarks in a file in your app’s SpecialFolder.ApplicationData - but it saves having the prompt every time.