MacOS Deployment to the Mac App Store

[HEIC-to-JPEG-Dev]

I'm looking at how to publish an App to the Mac App Store and the first sentance on the deployment guide states that "some extra legwork has to be done after your application has gone through the publishing process" - and no-where in the documentation is "publishing process" mentioned.

Is that something basic I'm miss-reading ? or is there some mysterious "process" you have to be in a club to know about.

[BAndysc]

Isn't it just dotnet publish? :) On Linux and Windows dotnet publish is pretty much enough to release the app, but it's not the case on macOS

Manual

First, publish your application (dotnet publish documentation):

dotnet publish -r osx-x64 --configuration Release -p:UseAppHost=true

[nicu-dev]

Definitive is an arguable term in itself, but it's the best we've got yet.

"change the project file with..." - those properties are good to have anyway, even for windows compilation

Then I see "dotnet publish -r osx-x64 -c Release" - where do you run this, - in the terminal, the the project location (where the .csproj file is)

"mac app" that makes all the changes for you, reconfigures the project - look out for this project, it will soon be available to package macOS installers automatically

more detailed documentation - documentation can always be better indeed, but it is what it is. maybe avalonia is not what you need for now at this point, and will be a better fit as it matures. till then, maybe a web app is a better approach if you need cross-platformity.

One important thing that this article doesn't mention, however, is that to be able to sign and certify your macOS app you need to pay $99 for the Apple developer certificate(apple appleing)

[MikeCodesDotNET]

The guide was intended to focus specifically on Apple-related aspects of packaging .NET apps for macOS rather than covering general .NET concepts. However, I can see how assumptions about readers' familiarity with basic .NET concepts might have made it less accessible for some.

Regarding your specific points:

The project file changes mentioned are not Mac-specific. They are general .NET publishing options that can be applied to builds for any supported platform, including Windows and macOS. These settings can be included in the project file for consistent builds or applied directly in the CLI command. Here's an example command that incorporates those settings:

dotnet publish -r osx-x64 -c Release \
  --self-contained true \
  -p:PublishSingleFile=true \
  -p:PublishTrimmed=true \
  -p:PublishReadyToRun=true

The only Mac-specific part here is the '-r osx-x64' flag, which specifies the target runtime. For Windows, you'd use something like '-r win-x64' instead.

The 'dotnet publish' command is typically run in the project's root directory on either Mac or Windows. This is a standard .NET practice across platforms.

I appreciate your feedback and will try to find some time to update the post to include additional context to make it more accessible to developers with varying levels of experience with .NET.

[HEIC-to-JPEG-Dev]

I appreciate the work, really I do. And I can handle the "quirks and workarounds" of AvaloniaUI apps (I would use it) - Deploying to a Mac app store is my ONLY issue. I'm not a Mac user; I do have access to a Mac to compile and test, and I do have a developer account.

I need a KISS approach. Assume nothing, for example, saying "in the terminal" could mean Windows or Mac - that's the level I/we need.

The items I mentioned above were two parts of the blog that assumes, basically everything in it does, for example, creating the pList file assumes this won't be going into the app store as it misses out almost all the requirements for that when using Avalonia; getting the certificates, which ones? from where? - there are details in the Avalonia docs, but they're wrong; "Create an app-specific password for your Apple ID" - what? where do I create it, where do I use it? -

I guess what I would need is a "Okay, you have an AvaloniaUI Windows app published to the Windows App Store - Here's a step by step guide to getting it into the Mac App Store"

I should note that the .Net CLI project does not mention Mac App Store packaging, only sideloading packages.

[MikeCodesDotNET]

I need a KISS approach.

We're working on it. I try my hardest not to talk about things still in the oven, but we're building a solution that makes packing your Avalonia apps incredibly simple. The goal is to require zero platform-specific experience so that Windows devs can deploy on non-Windows platforms and leave the platform packaging idiosyncrasies for us.

I can't give a timeline for its release, but I will share that it forms part of a broader plan to provide our users with "pro" tools to help folks be more productive with Avalonia.

[HEIC-to-JPEG-Dev]

You just made me very happy ! - I don't even mind paying (Pro sounds like a pay option, and I'm an indie, single developer).

Thank you, I'll keep monitoring this thread for that :)

[workgroupengineering]

https://docs.avaloniaui.net/docs/deployment/macOS

[HEIC-to-JPEG-Dev]

That points to the exact problem I’m talking about

[MikeCodesDotNET]

The document is a little long, but it does have everything you need. If you go to the Manual section, it includes information on how to publish.

[HEIC-to-JPEG-Dev]

I gave up. I also checked the MAUI documentation, but publishing doing all that manual work is too much hassle. It's easy in xcode so I'll just use that. Thanks for the help though. I'd come back to it if there was a wizard to help, even if the wizard was "click here to access site
URL and do this, download file to me and we move on" and "let me create the info.plist file for you".

[HEIC-to-JPEG-Dev]

Okay, I've been giving it another try. It's wildly out of date.

I'm at the "Getting Certificates" https://docs.avaloniaui.net/docs/deployment/macOS#getting-certificates

I'll be happy to help updating if I eventually get it working, but...

"go to Xcode > Preferences > Account > Manage Certificates..." should be "go to Xcode > Settings> Accounts > Manage Certificates..."

So next is to add "Apple Distribution" certificate - yep, that works
Next is add "3rd Party Mac Developer Installer" - that is not an options, those are...

Which one should I create ?

[HEIC-to-JPEG-Dev]

I'm also assuming this needs to be imported into the System Keychain, not the iCloud Keychain ?

[Noemata]

Using Visual Studio for Mac does simplify things to a degree. VS will do some of the heavy lifting for you.

[damonpkuml]

Visual Studio for Mac has been discontinued.