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calumr · May 9, 2003, 03:36 PM

When gearing up for a release, I'll quite often redo the whole .dmg file building process several times. Maybe I'll forget to include the new readme, or I'll forget to do a clean 'Deployment' build etc.

The process of creating the final .dmg file is just crying out for some sort of tool to do the work for me. You could specify the steps in the process like build phases in Project Builder, and at the click of a button have a .dmg compiled from the latest source.

You could have shell script, applescript, Project Builder, HeaderDoc, copy files phases (and many more). It would even add the background image to the .dmg root directory window if you wanted it to.

It could also be set up to do nightlies, where you just leave it on and tell it where to ftp the final dmg file. It could fetch the latest source from CVS.

At the moment I just use a really scrappy shell script to do this, but a proper tool would be so much better. I have half a mind to do it myself (once I've completed one or two other things), but does anybody know of an existing tool (or do you have any ideas you'd like to suggest)?

Sarah31 · May 9, 2003, 05:33 PM

there are ALOT of linux package mnger and autobuild programs the could do the trick with some modification. the "makepkg" application in the distro i use (arch linux) may serve you well.

calumr · May 9, 2003, 06:22 PM

Originally posted by Sarah31:
there are ALOT of linux package mnger and autobuild programs the could do the trick with some modification. the "makepkg" application in the distro i use (arch linux) may serve you well.

It's true there are a lot of make clones (like jam and ant) but I'm talking about a drag & drop process with a nice GUI etc.

Sarah31 · May 9, 2003, 08:34 PM

well i am sure you could easily design a gui for one. as for drag and drop i would assume it could be done.

Angus_D · May 11, 2003, 10:08 AM

FileStorm is pretty good + is AppleScriptable so you could use it from a build phase.

calumr · May 11, 2003, 03:21 PM

I looked at FileStorm but it would still require a lot of work to create the AppleScript/shell script that used it.

What I'm looking for is a way to click a button and have a .dmg file on my Desktop.

Angus_D · May 11, 2003, 04:28 PM

FileStorm does that... I just do a clean build, launch FS and click the build/finalize image button. It merges in my resources including agreement, desktop picture, yadda yadda and shoves it into a nice dmg on my desktop. I think it's probably be a one line AppleScript, which you could do from a build phase in PB.