Clever Geek Handbook

Is PackageMaker the standard for installing Mac OS X software? Or is there something else?

I built my first package with PackageMaker (for a system service), but I'm not happy with a few errors:

  • Frequent crashes when applying permissions on source files
  • Package source files are not automatically updated or updated
  • The file filter is not working.

Is there something even more capable of this task? Free is not required.

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Yes, and yes, it is buggy. Apple uses the command line version pretty much exclusively, so the GUI feels like it was spanked by years of experience and never tested.



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PackageMaker is the default for things that require installation (many common applications just use a DMG, often with a background image telling the user to copy the package to / Applications - Firefox does this for example)

MindVision VISE is a commercial solution that you may want to look at used by some people, but personally I find the appearance of the resulting installers to be subtle (and slightly retro) - that's a subjective point of view, of course.



Package Maker works very well for many people, although the documentation is quite sparse; are you sure the problems you are experiencing cannot be fixed?

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There's (now) a great free alternative to PackageMaker with the simple title "Packages": http://s.sudre.free.fr/Software/Packages/about.html

It's really easy to use, very stable and mature, and even open source (in case you need to hack something). Plus: it has well-written documentation!

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I had the same problem until I added #!/bin/sh

to the beginning of the script. Obviously, PackageMaker needs this; I wish the log was a little clearer.

IHIH, Oren

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Since Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard it is recommended to use pkgbuild and productbuild instead of PackageMaker.

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