June 2016 - Installer-dev - lists.apple.com

Re: Accessing PackageKit programmatically
by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz 13 Jun '16

13 Jun '16

On 06/13/2016 06:48 PM, Greg Neagle wrote: > `/usr/bin/open /path/to/your/app.pkg` or the equivalent NSWorkspace methods. This will open Installer.app, ready to install your package. That's a very bad way of doing it as there is no way of catching any errors. >> This mechanism works perfectly fine on Windows and there is a well-supported and >> stable API for that. On OSX, the API is hidden and convoluted. >> >> I basically want to imitate what Adobe is doing with their apps manager [1]. > > Please don't. I'm sorry, but that's what's required by the customer. Adobe uses it in their extremely popular Creative Suite, so it cannot be that particularly wrong. Adrian -- .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz : :' : Debian Developer - glaubitz(a)debian.org `. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz(a)physik.fu-berlin.de `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913 _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Accessing PackageKit programmatically
by Julian Devlin 13 Jun '16

13 Jun '16

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Re: Accessing PackageKit programmatically
by Greg Neagle 13 Jun '16

13 Jun '16

> On Jun 13, 2016, at 9:40 AM, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <glaubitz(a)physik.fu-berlin.de> wrote: > > On 06/13/2016 06:34 PM, Greg Neagle wrote: >> Please no. I don't need software vendors "reinventing" the process of installing thing on OS X. >> >> Distribute your software as Apple installer pkgs. > > That's exactly what I want to do. I just want to initiate the installation process > programmatically, that's all, the same way it works on Windows. > > There is no new package format and there is no custom installer software, I just want > to be able to tell OSX "Please take this .pkg and install for me, ask the user for > permission, of course." `/usr/bin/open /path/to/your/app.pkg` or the equivalent NSWorkspace methods. This will open Installer.app, ready to install your package. > > This mechanism works perfectly fine on Windows and there is a well-supported and > stable API for that. On OSX, the API is hidden and convoluted. > > I basically want to imitate what Adobe is doing with their apps manager [1]. Please don't. > > Thanks, > Adrian > >> [1] http://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/desktop-app.html > > -- > .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz > : :' : Debian Developer - glaubitz(a)debian.org > `. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz(a)physik.fu-berlin.de > `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913 _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Accessing PackageKit programmatically
by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz 13 Jun '16

13 Jun '16

On 06/13/2016 06:34 PM, Greg Neagle wrote: > Please no. I don't need software vendors "reinventing" the process of installing thing on OS X. > > Distribute your software as Apple installer pkgs. That's exactly what I want to do. I just want to initiate the installation process programmatically, that's all, the same way it works on Windows. There is no new package format and there is no custom installer software, I just want to be able to tell OSX "Please take this .pkg and install for me, ask the user for permission, of course." This mechanism works perfectly fine on Windows and there is a well-supported and stable API for that. On OSX, the API is hidden and convoluted. I basically want to imitate what Adobe is doing with their apps manager [1]. Thanks, Adrian > [1] http://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/desktop-app.html -- .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz : :' : Debian Developer - glaubitz(a)debian.org `. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz(a)physik.fu-berlin.de `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913 _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Re: Accessing PackageKit programmatically
by Greg Neagle 13 Jun '16

13 Jun '16

> On Jun 13, 2016, at 6:15 AM, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <glaubitz(a)physik.fu-berlin.de> wrote: > > Hello! > > I'm looking for a way to invoke the functionality of PackageKit programmatically. > > The motivation for this is an independent application manager which is used to > deploy a number of similar applications on a single machine. Please no. I don't need software vendors "reinventing" the process of installing thing on OS X. Distribute your software as Apple installer pkgs. Or put your apps in the App Store. Or distribute your software as drag-n-drop disk images (if you must). Don't create Yet Another Installer Application. > The application > manager is deployed on both Windows and OSX. > > On Windows, there is a usable API provided by the Microsoft Installer (MSI) [1] > which can be used to install Windows application packages (.msi), query their > installation status and uninstall them. > > On OSX, there is just the UI installer (/System/Library/CoreServices/ > Installer.app/Contents/MacOS/Installer) and the command-line installer > (/usr/sbin/installer) plus tools like "pkgutil" to query the database. > > Thus, in order to trigger installation processes from my own application, > I would have to use something like NSTask plus some AppleScript code > to be able to gain administrator privileges which is a rather crude hack > and makes querying things like the installation status rather cumbersome. > > Does anyone know what the reasoning behind Apple's decision is to not make > PackageKit a public Framework? I think it's rather a pity that, although > OSX actually comes with a clean mechanism to install and uninstall application > packages through functionality provided by the operating system, this > functionality is not exposed in a public API so it can be used the same > way it can be used on Windows. > > Thanks, > Adrian > >> [1] https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/Aa369426(v=vs.85).… > > -- > .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz > : :' : Debian Developer - glaubitz(a)debian.org > `. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz(a)physik.fu-berlin.de > `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913 > _______________________________________________ > Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. > Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) > Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: > https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/greg.neagle%40disneya… > > This email sent to greg.neagle(a)disneyanimation.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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Accessing PackageKit programmatically
by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz 13 Jun '16

13 Jun '16

Hello! I'm looking for a way to invoke the functionality of PackageKit programmatically. The motivation for this is an independent application manager which is used to deploy a number of similar applications on a single machine. The application manager is deployed on both Windows and OSX. On Windows, there is a usable API provided by the Microsoft Installer (MSI) [1] which can be used to install Windows application packages (.msi), query their installation status and uninstall them. On OSX, there is just the UI installer (/System/Library/CoreServices/ Installer.app/Contents/MacOS/Installer) and the command-line installer (/usr/sbin/installer) plus tools like "pkgutil" to query the database. Thus, in order to trigger installation processes from my own application, I would have to use something like NSTask plus some AppleScript code to be able to gain administrator privileges which is a rather crude hack and makes querying things like the installation status rather cumbersome. Does anyone know what the reasoning behind Apple's decision is to not make PackageKit a public Framework? I think it's rather a pity that, although OSX actually comes with a clean mechanism to install and uninstall application packages through functionality provided by the operating system, this functionality is not exposed in a public API so it can be used the same way it can be used on Windows. Thanks, Adrian > [1] https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/Aa369426(v=vs.85).… -- .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz : :' : Debian Developer - glaubitz(a)debian.org `. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz(a)physik.fu-berlin.de `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913 _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev(a)lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists… This email sent to site_archiver(a)lists.apple.com

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