How do I package a Mac OS application for install?

Question

I know on windows there are a bunch of installer tools you can use to create an installer, but on Mac OS I\'ve seen two ways to install apps:

1. A DMG file which y

Answer 1

In OS X, many applications are just created as a Relocatable application bundles that the user just need to copy to the /Application folder (or any other location). In other cases, when you need to perform some operations over the machine (such as adding users or changing permissions) you can use a PKG installer (for example built using PackageMaker), which allows executing some pre and post install scripts and support some basic installation configuration, like selecting the installation drive.

Sometimes, as with complex server software, you need more flexibility, for example to show custom pages to the end user requesting information required to install your application, like the MySQL port and password or proxy information to download requirements on the fly (or simply to make it look fancier :)). For this cases there are other installer solutions like our BitRock InstallBuilder (disclaimer, I'm one of the developers). InstallBuilder also has the advantage of generating multiplatform installers using the same project with very little customization per platform.