How to package vips for distribution?

Question

I am trying to package the vips repository for distribution so I can double-click on it and install it on any Mac OS version. On Windows, this is easy - I just have to put the folder containing the binaries in the package. For Mac OS, I need to compile the binaries specific to each version of the OS.

I have tried to use the binaries generated by brew install vips and sudo port install vips, but as you can imagine, I cannot use these since they are specific to the OS. The only way I thought one could do this, is by installing from source.

Could you please give instructions on how to compile the binaries of vips from source (including the libraries it depends on) on Mac OS or provide any other methods by which I can create a distribution file? Thank you!

I am using Mac OS 13, M1.

Answer 1

I used to do it like this:

https://github.com/jcupitt/build-osx

That uses jhbuild to make a complete stack to a private prefix, and then package it as a .app.

But I've not touched it for ages, perhaps there's a better way now.