Clever Geek Handbook

Convert Shell Script To * .app File

Using Automator.app and Platypus.app, I was able to bundle a simple shell script built to work with Wi-Fi on my MacBook Pro. Both the resulting applications work correctly, but there is one clear problem that I want to fix: applications refer to the shell script from outside the program. How can I embed a wrapper script and reference it from within the application resources so that the application can run even if the original source file is moved?

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Just to mention this, if you get information about the script, you can set it to open with a terminal. When double clicked, it will run the script.

Otherwise, wrapping a script in the .app pool is trivial. Mac OS X will happily run any script identified as an application executable.

At a minimum, you need the following structure:

  • (name) .app
    • Content
      • MacOS
        • (name)

If file (name) is your script (which should be executable and should have a shebang line). (name) must be identical in the .app directory and the script file: for example, if your application directory is named "My Shell Script.app" then the file inside the macOS directory must be called "My Shell Script", no extension .

If this is inconvenient, you can use the Info.plist file to specify an alternate name for the executable file. Info.plist is located in the Contents directory:

  • Wrapper.app
    • Content
      • Info.plist
      • MacOS
        • MyScript


This structure (MyScript executable in Wrapper.app) works if you specify MyScript as CFBundleExecutable

in the property list:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>CFBundleExecutable</key>
    <string>MyScript</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Using the Info.plist file is probably preferable, as it will allow you to rename your shell without breaking it.

Here's one example script that uses it /bin/sh

as an interpreter, but you really could do anything ( #!/usr/bin/swift

, #!/usr/bin/python

etc.).

#!/bin/sh
open -a Calculator

The script will run when you double click on the appset.

You can link whatever you need with your script in the directory Contents

. If you feel like you can reproduce the standard executable package layout with a directory Resources

, etc.

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While this works, there seems to be no way to access the content directory from a script. It cannot be passed to environment variables in bash or anywhere else I can find. This makes it difficult to package stuff into the Contents directory as it appears to be inaccessible by a bash script. There are various hacking techniques on the web, but they all involve efficiently searching for a script by name, which means that if there are two versions of an application in two places, it will crash. Anyone work it out?



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