How to have a natural MacOSX .app of a complex python application (including custom interpreter) via a shell initialization script?

Question

I am trying to integrate a complex python application (with a custom python interpreter shipped along) for OSX. In order to handle a set of issues due to cross platform requirements, I created a .app bundle pointing at a shell script with its CFExecutable entry in Info.plist. This works, and the invoked shell script starts up the actual application binary. However, I have the following problems:

• The .app icon bounces endlessly on the dock, never reaching the "activated" status. I guess it's because the shell script does not terminate. This dock entry has the correct "application icon"
• When the binary executable is invoked by the script, a new Dock entry appears with a generic python icon. This icon successfully starts up and stops bouncing as the application starts up.
• When I try to kill the first Dock entry via Force quit, the actual application still keeps running, as it's clearly controlled by the second entry on the dock.

Is there a way to have this setup behave more naturally? Do I need to ditch shell script for an objective C wrapper? If I have to use a obj-C wrapper (instead of a shell script) to spawn my application, how can I prevent the same spawning of a secondary icon to happen?

Edit: note, I am not running a python script. I am running a custom made python interpreter. py2app is not what I need.

Answer 1

It seems like many use py2app for this purpose with success.

If that doesn't work for you, the Java equivalent I'm famailar with, appbundler, does create a mach-o executable stub to fire things off. You might check out how they do things, particularly their main.m.

Answer 2

I solved the problem, and in hindsight it was rather trivial. In the shell script, I need to invoke my binary with exec, so that the running bash process is replaced (a la execve()) rather than spawning a new process. The only problem is that my interpreter now replaces the icon with the stock one, but I have only one icon in the dock now, and behaves naturally.