How can I add a file to an existing Mac OS X .app bundle?

Question

I'm writing a modification for Arduino that turns an Arduino board into a game controller.

In order to add my board-specific files to the programming environment, right now, the user needs to open up the Arduino.app package, and then add a few different files into a various folders in the Arduino.app package. It is hardly user friendly. How can I make an installer which automatically moves my files into the appropriate locations within Arduino.app, or is that impossible?

Answer 1

I figured out how to do it using the magic of scripting!

You can take a look at my solution here: http://code.google.com/p/unojoy/source/browse/#hg%2FLeoJoy%2FLeoJoy%20Installer.app%2FContents%2FMacOS

The folder structure it's in makes it show up as an app on OSX, and the two scripts (LeoJoy Installer and LeoJoyInstaller.command) copy the files. There's two scripts there because I wanted to have a console window pop up to show the user progress, and that's the only way I could figure out how to do that. But, if you run this app in the same directory as the Arduino app, it copies files from the installer app into the Arduino.app package, updating the Arduino app so I don't have to distribute a whole separate version of Arduino.

Answer 2

You can download PackageMaker (available here, in the Auxiliary Tools for Xcode download).

You will then be able to make a .pkg that the user will be able to install simply by double clicking. You can also make a script that will check if Arduino is already installed and stop the installation if it's not. You get the idea.

Answer 3

Normally, especially in today's code-signed MacOS app approach (where any modifications to the app or its resources/files would break the app & make it not-launchable), I would say "you're out of luck".

But Arduino is one of the rare OPEN SOURCE apps.

You can fetch the source code from this page:

http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

And make your modifications to the project and then build a fresh, customized copy for yourself.