Set the interface to SwiftUI, the life cycle to. In the sheet, enter MacLandmarks as the Product Name. When the template sheet appears, choose the macOS tab, select the App template, and click Next. Choose File > New > Target. Add a macOS Target to the Project.
Make Apps How To Navigate TheToday, I’ll help you understand how to navigate the rather convoluted process of signing and notarizing both an app and its installer. You probably downloaded Xcode from Apple’s developer portal (because downloading it from the App Store usually doesn’t work).I would like to share my experiences in developing and distributing macOS apps outside of the Mac App Store and show you how you can do it too. Yes, I know about the Apple Developer Enterprise Program, but it only “allows large organizations to develop and deploy proprietary, internal-use apps to their employees.” How many of you have obtained tools like Skype, Zoom, Atom, or Sourcetree? These are all “third-party” apps not distributed through the Mac App Store.![]() We’ll build an installer that has a splash page, installation instructions, a licensing agreement, and provides installation options for users. Finally, in Part III, I’ll guide you step-by-step through the process of using the excellent freeware app Packages to create an installer for distributing your app. We’ll also discuss the pros and cons of sandboxing and try to understand Apple’s reasoning behind providing loopholes for sandboxed apps. In the second tutorial in this series, we’ll turn the sandboxing capability and entitlement on in my sample app and explore ways that users can still gain access to files and folders outside of the app’s container. In this tutorial, we’ll build a non-sandboxed app, talk about certificates, sign the app, notarize it, briefly talk about building an installer, sign and notarize the installer, and finally cover distribution. you don’t have to pay Apple a 30%/15% fee for selling your apps or for subsequent “in app” purchases (you can call purchases from within your app anything you’d like to call them) you get to advertise, distribute, and sell your app any way and any place you like Probably the best reason: you save lots of money!Here’s a succinct list of the best reasons to distribute your macOS apps outside of the Mac App Store: Another good reason to avoid the App Store: you don’t have to follow Apple’s sometimes confusing and often draconian Human Interface Guidelines. You have much more creative, design, development, distribution, financial, and feature-full options than you would by putting all your work at the risk of sometimes arbitrary rejection by Apple’s notoriously fickle and opaque app reviewers.For example, you don’t have to sandbox your apps, giving you access to much of the macOS file system. ![]() You can download my sample project, built against the OS X 10.15 (Catalina) SDK at this link. Or if you just want to follow along using my existing code, then open my “AppNotaryAndDistrib” project and walk through it while reading this article. You can look at my storyboard and code for guidance. If you want to build a project yourself and follow along, then open up Xcode (I’m using 11.2.1) and create a new application based on the macOS App template. For now, let’s just say that, from my project’s NSViewController subclass, I’m using NSOpenPanel to enable the user to select individual folders:Most of you are familiar with building apps and submitting them to the iOS App Store or, in the case of this tutorial, submitting them for review and distribution to the Mac App Store. When you run the installer and then run my sample app, you’ll see this:Let’s take just a few minutes to go over the code wired to the button in the center of my main window entitled “Select folder.” Remember that in Part II of this tutorial, we’ll be having a very in-depth discussion about how a user can grant a sandboxed app access to specific folders outside of its container. Then you’ll configure, build, sign, and notarize an installer for my app. If you stay with me, you’ll configure, build, sign, and notarize my app. We’ll concentrate on app configuration herein. Please read “Signing Your Apps for Gatekeeper”, “Create, export, and delete signing certificates”, and “Distribute outside the Mac App Store (macOS)”.Because I regularly develop, sign, notarize, and distribute macOS apps outside the App Store, I have certificates with the following types of names in my Mac’s Keychain, shown below. Let me point you at some documentation that Apple has provided so that, for example, you can reproduce what I’m showing you in this tutorial on your own Macs. Preparing for app signingI can’t cover all the prerequisite components, protocols, and methodologies required to sign and notarize your apps, as this article would turn into a rather lengthy book. If not, please take the time to read up on certificates and signing. Digitally signing software with a unique Developer ID and including a notarization ticket from Apple lets Gatekeeper verify that the software is not known malware and has not been tampered with.To get you started, here is a screenshot from Apple’s developer portal showing how you would create the certificates you need for distribution outside the Mac App Store. From Apple’s docs:For software and applications that are downloaded from places other than the Mac App Store, developers can get a Developer ID certificate and submit their software for notarization by Apple. It behooves you to burn the phrase Developer ID into your brain’s neural net. These are just the ones most important for signing and notarizing apps and installers. He are the some of the relevant certificates I can see in my Keychain:This is not an exhaustive list of all certificates you need for day-to-day development. Hardening the runtime also prevents access to sensitive resources unless your application pre-declares its intent to use them, which reduces the attack surface by eliminating unnecessary access. As for hardening, according to Xcode 11 help:Hardened Runtime defends your application by preventing modifications to its code and provides fine-grained controls over what can run in your process. Delete the App Sandbox capability (entitlement) and leave the default Hardened Runtime capability (build setting), like this, and notice my annotations in red:Many apps benefit greatly from having the convenience of accessing files/folders anywhere on your Mac, excluding protected system areas, so my sample app is not sandboxed. Go to TARGETS -> -> Signing & Capabilities and make sure that setting is checked. Most of you use the Automatically manage signing setting. Add automatic signing, remove sandboxing, and keep hardeningWe’re going to diverge from from the default macOS app template while simultaneously leaving other settings as-is, re: sandboxing and hardening, respectively. Phone emulator macBuilding, signing, and notarizingYou all are familiar with cleaning and building apps.
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