Mach-o Bundle Applications for Mac

#1 TGB games are Mach-O - you can check inside the .app bundle and use the file shell command to verify it:

sherm$ file TGBGame 
TGBGame: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures
TGBGame (for architecture ppc):	Mach-O executable ppc
TGBGame (for architecture i386):	Mach-O executable i386

What difference do you believe the binary format makes, anyway? What is it you're actually trying to accomplish with this "conversion"?

#2 Thanks Sherman,

I'm not much of a Mac person, so i'm in a bit of unknown ground.
What i'm tryng to accomplish, is just following a Portal guidelines, to get a Mac game ready for submission.
They ask the following :

• Mac games must be in the form of a Mach-O app bundle, which contains within it everything needed for the game to run.
• The app bundle must be delivered in a compressed dmg file (The resource fork can be ruined if the app is moved around loose).



So, to get the application in the form of Mach-O app bundle, i don't need to do anything special ? It's just the tgb executable, and that's it ?
And to make everything into a .dmg file ?

thanks,
Bruno

#3 I should write a howto. Maybe later :)

Don't worry about macho stuff; the OS is as manly as can be, and naturally all the compiler output defaults to that. TGB compiles to a self-contained .app bundle, with all the frameworks already inside, so the app is portable to other Macs right from compilation.

To do the first step of bundling all the data, all you need to do is right-click the app and select "Show Package Contents", then navigate to Contents/Resources. Put all the data directories and main.cs into this folder. Now the .app bundle appears as a self-contained "file". You could really stick any readme files and other documents in there. Everything! Just write functions to show the data within the game, or something.

Now for the disk image (DMG).

One tool you can use is DMG Canvas. This lets you drag and drop a background image for the window and any programs and documentation you want inside the DMG. If you want fine-control over what sort of compression you have, FreeDMG is a more low-level tool.

If you want an Applications link, you need to make a sparse image with FreeDMG (perhaps make the basic image with DMG Canvas first, then convert to sparse). Mount it and follow the instructions here:
digital-sushi.org/entry/how-to-create-a-disk-image-installer-for-apple-mac-os-x/

#4 @ Ronny

I tested that out with a game i made in the wee hours yesterday morning. Works great. I wonder why Torque2D doesn't just build the game that way to begin with.

#5 Add that one to the great T2D wish list :)

Amendment to the above DMG instructions: You can actually drag Applications into DMG Canvas. Seems it covers most normal distribution needs, but it wouldn't be too hard for TGB to export right to a DMG either. The MAS stuff is also fairly well documented.