How to create installer for mac software

Question

I've created software using Filemaker and I have to create an installer.

I already done it for Windows but I have to create one for Mac too. The installer will be able to install the software, install a font and ask the serial number. Can someone help me?

Answer 1

I think Apple used to (still does?) offer a program with Xcode that was called PackageMaker, but I don't think they still do. It might be available from a previous version of Xcode. I found surprisingly little information about it online.

However, the command line tools that it was based on, pkgbuild, productbuild, and pkgutil , seem to be installed on my laptop running Yosemite with an Xcode utilities installation.

I would check out the accepted answer to a similar question here on Stack Overflow. It looks quite detailed, but I think it's going to be very advanced work to get a successful package created.

The above is what you probably want if you want your installer to use Apple's own Installer app. If all you want is to create an installer that gets the job done, I would probably use FileMaker itself.

Create a FileMaker file that stores your solution within a container field, lock it down with security and scripting, use Export Field Contents to get the solution file and your fonts to the right places, perhaps with some supporting AppleScript that makes use of the command line. Use FileMaker Advanced to package this up as a runtime solution and all the user has to do is double-click the runtime app and you can guide them from there. Once the installation is complete you could even open the installed solution for them and prompt them at that point to enter a serial number.