alavorti.blogg.se - Mac app wrapper

Mac app wrapper how to#
Mac app wrapper series#

Change the variables at the top of the build.xml file to match your application.

Copy your Jar file into the current directory.

If you have that, this build process should work if you don’t have that, you’ll need a more-complicated build process. (I didn’t test it without one.)Īs mentioned earlier, the biggest assumption is that your application completely exists in one Jar file such that you can run it with the java -jar command.

The application probably needs a META-INF/MANIFEST.MF file in that Jar file.

This distribution includes a hello.jar file to show how things work.

Your Java application needs to be in one Jar file.

I tested this with Ant 1.10.1, which I installed with Homebrew. I tested this with Java 1.8 on macOS 10.12.5. The requirements for building a macOS/Java application with this specific build process are:

Mac app wrapper how to#

I write about it in my How to use javapackager to build a macOS application bundle tutorial. Update: While you can still use the AppBundler described in this article - and in some ways it’s a more obvious approach to building a Mac/Java application - Oracle now recommends building Mac/Java applications with their javapackager tool. They created an “AppBundler” Jar file that can be used with Ant to build a Mac application, and that’s what I use in this process.

Mac app wrapper series#

Many years ago, Sun (now Oracle) created a process by which you could create a Mac application from a Java Jar file (or even a series of Jar files). The directory must end with the extension, “. If you don’t already know it, a macOS application is actually a directory that contains a series of files in a specific, well-defined layout. More on those later.)Īs those assumptions infer, you won’t have a “perfect” app whose menu items work exactly like a native Mac application, but you will at least have a Mac application that you can start by double-clicking an application icon. (I understand that those first two items can be big assumptions. I assume your application is a Java Swing or JavaFX GUI app.You aren’t concerned about implementing macOS-specific features, like enabling the Preferences and Quit menu items, or implementing Mac-specific keystrokes in your app.You have a single Jar file you can already run with the java -jar command.I tested this with Java 1.8 on macOS 10.12.5 (Sierra) on June 29, 2017. In this article I’ll show how to build a macOS application from a Java Jar file.