[Mono-osx] Ported Win App to Mac, now need to build Mac .pkg

[Edward Ned Harvey (mono)]

> From: jds at theatrewireless.com [mailto:jds at theatrewireless.com]
> 
> I have successfully create a .app file, so that works.  What I was
> hoping to avoid was hassling our customers to separately download and
> install Mono.

If you distribute a java app, openjdk is available by default on osx and linux, but windows users have to install Oracle java (which sux, mostly because of parasite software in the installer.)  If you distribute a mono app, .Net is available by default on windows, but mac & linux users have to install mono.  Which is not too bad - no parasite software, no annoying updater with broken controls.

If you pay for Xamarin.Mac, you get a license to distribute the mono runtime with your application - but that *might* only be applicable to a minimum bundle of stuff bundled by their system and distributed via the AppStore.  I'm not sure if there's a way to bundle the whole mono installation with your app installer.  (You'd have to check with Xamarin to find out.)

If users launch a mono .app for the first time on a mac without mono installed, a mono auto-downloader appears, pretty straightforward.  Just like launching a .Net application for the first time on a windows system that doesn't have the specified version of .Net.

I have not experienced a minute long delay when launching a mono app for the first time.  The only thing I can think of like that is - if your application generates a large (4096) RSA key, the mono RSA key generator is slow and might take that long.  If this isn't what's happening to you, I would suggest you try, for example, sticking a WriteLine and Flush as the very first thing in your application, so you can confirm if the delay is happening before or after your app starts - and obviously - if it's in your app then figure out what specific thing is slow.