current state

Having dozens of mini reaper projects while doing N3 studies, want to organize them as mac app bundle for easier maintenance.

desired state

each mini reaper project as a self-contained mac app bundle with all media files grouped inside, double-click and the project file will be called by reaper.

tried but failed methods

• creating a folder with a .app extension, with the following structure :

[folder name].app
   Contents/
      MacOS/
      Info.plist

• manually crafted the content of Info.plist with the followings :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>CFBundleExecutable</key>
    <string>MyScript.sh</string>
    <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
    <string>com.example.MyFolder</string>
    <key>CFBundleName</key>
    <string>MyFolder</string>
    <key>CFBundleVersion</key>
    <string>1.0</string>
    <key>CFBundlePackageType</key>
    <string>APPL</string>
</dict>
</plist>

• with a script file like :

#!/bin/zsh
open -a [app name] "/path/to/[app project]"

• modify Info.plist to run the script file, which call the project file accordingly

but keep having different errors.

alternative approach that worked

1. create a simple apple application with automator

• create an application ;
• in the left panel, choose actions ;
• in the search box, type run ;
• firstly, add Run AppleScript ;
• then, add Run Shell Script ;
  • i.e. the Run AppleScript section should run first, the output from it will be fed as input for the next section Run Shell Script ;
  • in the Run Shell Script box, on the top-right pull down menu, choose as arguments ;
    • configured this way, the output from the applescript will be regarded as “$1” by the shell script ;

2. add custom scripts

appleScript

in the appleScript section, add these :

on run {input, parameters}
	-- Get the path of the running application bundle
	set appBundlePath to POSIX path of (path to (current application) as text)
	
	-- Pass the app bundle path as input to the next step
	return appBundlePath
end run

• what these do is simply providing the path to this app bundle at the time of running
• tried using shell script to get this info but none of the following works :

# all failed :
pwd
dirname
${BASH_SOURCE}
${BASH_SOURCE[0]}

in which :

• pwd will only output value equivalent to "$HOME" ;
• all other command will only output "." ;

shell script

in the shell script section, add these :

#!/bin/zsh

LOG="$HOME/Desktop/app.log"
echo "-----------------------" | tee -a "$LOG"
echo "app started : $( date )" | tee -a "$LOG"

# from applescript, get the current running application location
PATH_THIS_APP="$1"

# construct other vars accordingly
PATH_REAPER_PROJECT="$PATH_THIS_APP"'Contents/reaper'
FILE_REAPER_PROJECT="$PATH_REAPER_PROJECT"/'reaper.rpp'

# define the path to target app
APP_REAPER="/Applications/REAPER.app"

# optional logs to file
echo "input from applescript : PATH_THIS_APP : $PATH_THIS_APP" | tee -a "$LOG"
echo "PATH_REAPER_PROJECT : $PATH_REAPER_PROJECT" | tee -a "$LOG"
echo "FILE_REAPER_PROJECT : $FILE_REAPER_PROJECT" | tee -a "$LOG"

# run the app
echo "run the reaper project file now ... " | tee -a "$LOG"
open -a "$APP_REAPER" "$FILE_REAPER_PROJECT"

# make the end, this will be logged without waiting for the above opened app to end
echo "app ended : $( date )" | tee -a "$LOG"

notes :

• app bundle running path provided by appleScript as "$1" ;
• path to related application can be found via terminal ;
• open the app via open -a [path to app] [path to app file]

3. draw back / to be optimized

• size
  • original archive : around 1.5 MB
  • app bundle with icon file : around 6 MB
    • mainly owing to ( both under [app bundle root]/Contents/Resources/ ) :
      • ApplicationStub.icns : 1.6 MB
      • Assets.car : 1.5 MB
  • i.e. this approach by creating a minimal apple application to modify on guarantee to be running properly, but gaining some additional weight in file sizes ;
  • will be revised later on to see if these are inevitable or can be trimmed ;
• icon file
  • the app bundle comes with the icon file in

  [app bundle root]/Contents/Resources/ApplicationStub.icns
  

  • the icon file, when opened with Preview, contains different sizes of the same image, the appearance is optimized by zoom level ;
  • currently, the icon file is manually assigned by copying an image file to the info icon ;
  • next step to see how to build a customized icon file of the same .icns format ;
• mixin appleScript
  • not very ideal but got no choice at the meantime before a shell-native solution can be found ;

• IT
• Mac