I'm attempting to create a signed macOS bundle/app version of Guiguts. The current Guiguts install / maintenance experience for Mac users is not great. There are many steps, it is easy to get lost in the process, and there is a lot of room for improvement.
The end result, I hope, is that users can simply download the .app bundle (in a
.zip or .dmg file), move it into /Applications, and launch it like any
other app. The only dependency should be installing XQuartz.
On a modern macOS, this requires the app be signed, and also notarized by Apple. I don't currently intend to distribute the app via the App Store, but signing/notarizing are still needed outside the App Store.
This project is licensed under the 3-clause BSD license (see LICENSE file). Guiguts itself is licensed under its own terms; see the guiguts project for more information on its licensing.
The user will be instructed that XQuartz must be installed prior to launching Guiguts. I won't attempt to install it for them.
In older Guiguts, settings were bundled into the app directory. It worked fine, but in the context of a Mac app bundle, the files are signed and cannot be changed.
This was improved in guiguts#959, which changes the behavior of the setting.rc file and a couple of other files. Now the files in the app bundle directory remain static (satisfying macOS), but the setting.rc located elsewhere can be freely written by Guiguts.
Obviously, signing the application will require a Developer Certificate from Apple. For the time being, that certificate will be mine, at my own expense. I would not expect DP or PG to take that cost or maintenance responsibility on (unless they really preferred to do so).