installing Java apps on the mac

[Roedy Green]

What does a user have to do to run a jar on the Mac (other than JNLP),
where you actually install the jar for continued use.

 

[Rajiv Gupta]

What does a user have to do to run a jar on the Mac (other than JNLP),
where you actually install the jar for continued use.

Drag the .jar to the user's /Applications directory. Double-clicking
the .jar will launch it. The jar doesn't actually have to be in
/Applications it can be in any directory which has execute privileges
for the user.

 

[John]

Drag the .jar to the user's /Applications directory.  Double-clicking
the .jar will launch it.  The jar  doesn't actually have to be in
/Applications it can be in any directory which has execute privileges
for the user.

Rajiv is correct, but here is some more info.

Distribute your runnable jar file in a directory (folder), and have
the user copy the
directory to the applications folder. Include a command file in the
directory
worded something like:

#!/bin/sh
cd /Applications/YourDirectoryName
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Version/1.6.0/Commands/
java -cp ./YourJar.jar MainClassName

Double clicking on this *.command file will attempt to launch your
application using a version 1.6 virtual machine. If this doesn't work,
then tell your user to double click on the jar file to try and launch
it. This command file works with the older versions of Mac OS X, when
it was installed as part of the operating system. I'm not sure how it
is installed on the latest versions today.

I'm not sure about the first line of the command file above. I'm at
work on a Windows machine, and I can't test it.

Hope this is useful,

John