[Mono-osx] Banshee on OSX

[Miguel de Icaza]

Hello Eoin,

> I'm at the point where I'd like to create an application bundle. My
> research has taken me to MonoDevelop. My understanding is that it's
> installed into the Mono installation prefix, linked into /usr/bin and
> then started by a script in the bundle. I'm not sure this is the best
> approach for Banshee. I'd prefer a more osx-like self contained
> bundle. However, it seems that OSX expects a binary within the bundle
> to be directly executable. In my situation I'll need to manipulate the
> environment a little and then point mono at the .exe.

Are you looking into having a bundle that contains Mono?

My advise is that you make your application depend on a previous Mono
installation as you should really think of Mono as a Framework, and have
users depend on that.   Otherwise users will end up with multiple copies
of Mono on their system.

> Are there any examples of self contained mono OSX bundles? I could
> probably create a script in python or ruby that set's up the
> environment, locates the binary and runs it but I thought I'd ask if
> the problem has been solved already. Or perhaps I should just be
> installing into the mono installation prefix.

I do not think that we have created any self-contained Mono OSX bundles,
we should certainly try to do one, and Banshee on OSX is probably a
great way of learning what is involved.

Your experience might be very useful in drafting the actual guidelines,
and the process required by others to create Mono-based bundles for OSX.

My suggestion at this point is that these bundles do depend on an
installed Mono framework package though.

Miguel.