Converting the MacOS launcher into an normal application

[RoryMB]

Suggested MacOS Improvement (tested on M1)

The current instructions for playing on a Mac involve opening a Terminal and running a Java command to start the application every time. To avoid this, only 3 things need to be changed:

1. The entry point executable needs to be replaced
2. The entry point executable needs to be marked as an executable file
3. The unzipped directory needs to be named with a .app extension

Below, I outline how any user can do this, but the distributed zip file could also be modified in the same way so that users wouldn't have to do this.

As always, don't run code in a Terminal from untrusted sources without checking it yourself. Some resources for the commands I used in the instructions can be found here:

• What is cat ?
• What is #!/usr/bin/env sh ?
• What is that SCRIPT_DIR line of code?
• What is chmod ?

Instructions

1. Setup

• Make sure you have read the Discord instructions, installed the latest Java, etc.
• Unzip pokemon-wilds-mac64.zip
• Open Pokemon-wilds-v0.8.3-mac, open Contents
• Single-click on the MacOS folder, click on Finder on the top bar, then Services, then select New Terminal at Folder.
  • If New Terminal at Folder does not appear or work, try the following:
  • Open Spotlight by pressing command+space, or if that does not work, follow the directions at this link
  • In the Spotlight window, type terminal, and press enter
  • A Terminal window should have opened up
  • Type cd (MAKE SURE YOU PUT A SPACE AFTER cd !!)
  • Find the MacOS folder from before, and click-drag it onto the terminal window
  • Press enter

    2. Replacing the executable

• Type cat > pokemon-wilds and press enter (This will let us create a file with the below snippet of code)
• Paste the following into the Terminal (copy it from below, and rightclick-paste it into the Terminal):

  #!/usr/bin/env sh
  SCRIPT_DIR=$( cd -- "$( dirname -- "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" &> /dev/null && pwd )
  cd $SCRIPT_DIR/../Resources
  java -jar pokemon-wilds.jar

• For the very curious-minded:
  • This script finds its own location, knows where the pokemon-wilds.jar file is relative to that, goes there, and runs it for us.
  • We know this script will get executed when we run the application, because the Info.plist file says the CFBundleExecutable should be called pokemon-wilds, and we named our script that and put it in the right place.
• Press enter on your keyboard (so that the cursor moves to a new line), then control+D
• A new prompt (username@computer MacOS %) should appear after you pressed control+D to indicate that it has succeeded

  3. Marking the executable as executable

• Type chmod u+x pokemon-wilds and press enter (This tells the computer we want to be able to execute the code we just wrote)
• Your Terminal should now contain something like the following if everything was typed correctly:

  username@computer MacOS % cat > pokemon-wilds
  #!/usr/bin/env sh
  SCRIPT_DIR=$( cd -- "$( dirname -- "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" &> /dev/null && pwd )
  cd $SCRIPT_DIR/../Resources
  java -jar pokemon-wilds.jar
  username@computer MacOS % chmod u+x pokemon-wilds
  username@computer MacOS %

  4. Changing the directory into an application

• Go back the the Pokemon-wilds-v0.8.3-mac folder in Finder
• Rename to Pokemon-wilds-v0.8.3-mac.app (or anything ending with .app)
• Click Use .app in the popup

  5. Bypassing security settings for this application

• Double click the app
• Click Ok or Cancel in the popup (Apple tries to warn us that they don't know where this game came from)
• Right-click the app and select Open
• Select Open in the popup (We have to tell our computer to trust the game)
• The application should open (if it doesn't, try double clicking the app again)

  6. Cleanup

• Place app in desired location (Applications folder is a good option)
• The Terminal and Finder windows can be closed, and the zip file thrown away

[fourlastor]

@RoryMB thank you for the detailed info!

We went for distributing a jar because, without notarization, we found it was really hard for people to run the game.

Usually the game runs fine while you're on the machine from which you created the files, but starts to fail when you have downloaded it from the web

In the latest otherplatforms builds there is a .command script that does something similar to what you suggest.

Even that file though, when downloaded, is blocked, we found this to be a decent compromise as you can do cat original-launcher.command > my-launcher.command and create "your" copy of the launcher (after giving it executable permissions), and this is a simple enough procedure for people to follow even when they're not technically versed.

I'm not a mac user, do you know if there's a better way to make this reliably easy to setup, and easy to play? I could write a small bash install script that does what you suggest, but I'm not sure if that would work once you run it on a different computer than the one creating it