Distribution of add-on

[kency]

We were wondering how add-ons are generally distributed. I had tried a couple of add-ons listed on the Graphisoft site and could see that most of them are Mac dmg or Windows installers, which copy and paste the .bundle/.apx to Archicad's Add-On folder.

Can someone share a brief explanation of how this packaging is done for both Windows and Mac? For example, we were thinking of making use of the pkgbuild in Mac and VS Studio installer project for Windows. But we are not sure if would need to have an installer certificate for building Mac installers and how do we deal with detecting the installed Archicad version etc?

[kolioi · Accepted solution]

We distribute Windows installers (exe files) and dmg on Mac. There are variety of tools to create them. On Mac we use notarytool to sign, Windows installers are signed manually. We run powershell script to build the installers (runs on both Mac and Windows) and currently support AC 24-27.

[kency]

Thank you for your response. Couple more doubts:

1. Shouldn't we be part of the Apple Developer Program to get the installer certificate and use the notarytool for signing? What are the impacts if this is not done?
2. What does the .dmg or installer do? Copies the .bundle / .apx files to a folder under Add-Ons? If so,
   1.   Does your mac dmg or windows installers detect where archicad is installed? Or does it assume it is installed at the default location?
3.  Does your add-on have to deal with updates? If so how was it handled?
4. Does your add-on have dependent library parts? How were they shipped?

[kolioi]

You need an Apple Developer Account and Developer ID Certificate to sign, notarize and staple your dmg file. On Windows I hardcode the destination path where we copy the addon but the user can change it during installation. On Mac the user can copy the bundle to the Add-Ons folder or save it somewhere and install it manually with the Add-On Manager. About the updates - we have implemented automatic updates for our Revit plugin; I am going to make it for AC as well. And finally - our plugin is a web page which requires users to log in to use it. Hope this answers most of your questions.