David, no offence intended here man, but you’re going against Apple’s grain here. You’ll get a lot of flack from Mac users for this. Not to mention the possibility that Apple may block your app in the future, mind you even following Apple’s guidelines is no guarantee any more.
Apart from code signing and your distribution method, where does the user place the database file?
Ideally I would recommend including the database file in the Resources folder. On first run you can either copy it to the Application Support folder and edit it there, or ask the user where to create the file, copy your database file there and then open it from the users choosen location.
Judging from the support requests I get from users who buy my apps, that are all signed and self contained (database inside as described by Sam), I can only imagine the disarray of users having to do convoluted things with extracting data, placing it there, then copy to the Applications folder, then have to open the said folder, then Ctrl-Click and say Open, then confirm they should really Open…
David, save yourself a lot of pain, and learn how to do things the right way…
Or not, and face the wrath of users, and their sharp tongue in reviews.
Guys I really appreciate that this isn’t the modern right way we should all do this, but I have a grand total of 2 Mac Sierra users to help and they are both savvy enough to do this. Everyone else already has my App running on pre Sierra systems and if they upgrade it will continue to run just fine.
It isn’t a business, I don’t need or read reviews, and honestly I just want to quickly get a couple of guys going with the app that works fine once It gets past the Apple roadblocks put in the way, without me having to do any programming just now, as I just do not have the time with my current health situation.
The purpose of this post was not to say this is how it should be done, but how I managed to do it as a work around.
I do however wish to thank you all for your excellent technical advice, it helped me understand what this translocation was all about and the reason for it.
I don’t think I am breaking any rules, distributing Unsigned Apps is not a criminal offence, nor is supply an App and a text file as two unsigned zipped files. The user has to physically move the files using the Finder and this is again permitted. The user also has to right click to open the App as it isn’t signed, again this is still permitted. Not to say Apple won’t in the future try to stop any use of unsigned Apps of course, but we just don’t know what their thoughts are on this, I doubt I will be around by then.
Of course if I get ever get healthy and have time I might revisit this so that users can have a more pleasant download and install experience in line with old Apple days.
Thanks again.
[quote=317117:@Sam Rowlands]David, no offence intended here man, but you’re going against Apple’s grain here. You’ll get a lot of flack from Mac users for this. Not to mention the possibility that Apple may block your app in the future, mind you even following Apple’s guidelines is no guarantee any more.
Apart from code signing and your distribution method, where does the user place the database file?
Ideally I would recommend including the database file in the Resources folder. On first run you can either copy it to the Application Support folder and edit it there, or ask the user where to create the file, copy your database file there and then open it from the users choosen location.[/quote]
Sam, the text file used for a database just resides in the folder with the App. So the user can see it and edit it and so on. It is crude but as explained this has been the way for many years. I don’t have time to change the program, so I needed a workaround. Apple please issue a cease and desist if this is verboten and I’ll sell my Mac now.
On many installations the Applications folder is locked; while users can copy apps in and delete them. Apps are blocked from writing to this folder.
I am sorry to hear this David, I do hope that you get better soon.
Okay, so you’e not looking for a mass market appeal.
If most of my market (80%) was on Windows and that’s the platform I was developing on, I would probably let my Mac go sooner.
IMHO Apple 3.0 doesn’t really care about 3rd Party Developers; I don’t think Apple 3.0 really care about the Mac anymore either. It appears to me that Apple is after the younger hip crowd, the kind that buy an iPhone, use an iPad to play games, an Apple Watch to tell the time and AirPods to listen to music. The rest of us are just tolerated.
2017 is the last year that we’ll be focusing solely on the Mac, towards the end of the year we’ll be launching a new product on multiple platforms and we’re looking at way to port our Mac applications to Windows.
