Re: Moving files out of PREFIX on macOS

[ivan%ivanpollak.com@localhost]

October 1, 2026 at 12:57 AM, "Greg Troxel" <gdt%lexort.com@localhost mailto:gdt%lexort.com@localhost?to=%22Greg%20Troxel%22%20%3Cgdt%40lexort.com%3E > wrote:


> 
> You are right that macOS is a special case. As for .App vs 'be like
> unix', my point was only that different people have different opinions
> and it's not an obvious, agreed upon, answer.
>

I understand but thats why I've came here. I wanted to hear the opinion
from the pkgsrc people :)

> So application bundles are like snap/flatpak, and I wonder how that
> works building one from a project's distribution tarball.

Yes with the difference that .app's are not sandboxed. They just contain
everything that one might need for the program to work but otherwise are
"native".

Im not sure but if your second question is: What happens when building
an .app from a distribution tarball? Then it is worth to take a look
at alacritty. This project builds a .app from the source code and puts
it into ${PREFIX}/Applications on macOS.

> 
> I am just one person, and hard to say how consensus will come out. It
> will be easier to think about a workeed example than theory; a lot of
> this is a little hard to predict how it will go.
>

I have implemented both INSTALL and DEINSTALL scripts in a fork:
For .app: https://git.sr.ht/~arcathrax/pkgsrc/tree/main/item/x11/alacritty
For a font: https://git.sr.ht/~arcathrax/pkgsrc/tree/main/item/fonts/nerd-fonts-CodeNewRoman

Best regards,
Ivan (arcathrax)