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Issue 5.1

REVIEW

DropDMG

Issue: 5.1 (September/October 2006)
Author: Michael Tsai
Article Description: No description available.
Article Length (in bytes): 3,808
Starting Page Number: 8
Article Number: 5102
Related Web Link(s):

http://c-software.com/

Full text of article...

There are many ways to compress and distribute your application on Mac OS X, but the one that has been implicitly recommended by Apple is the use of Disk Images: files which have an extension of .dmg and which, when clicked, mount a virtual disk containing the files which comprise your software package.

The DMG format is actually a very flexible and versatile format, and provides many features to assist in software distribution. However, the process of enabling these features can be arcane, requiring confusing terminal commands and a lot of time.

Michael Tsai's DropDMG utility greatly simplifies this process, and does so with an incredibly easy-to-use interface. The program's main window is simply a drop-target, with a single menu allowing you to select from a list of DMG-creation configurations. The details of these configurations are available by opening the Preferences window containing three groups of settings.

The first of these groups allows you to select a format for the DMG. In this area, you can select what type of file format you wish to use, and what type of compression to apply to the data. There are more that a dozen options, and each is clearly described with system requirements and other options available. In this section, you can also choose to encrypt the disk image with a password, or to split the image into several segments of a particular size (for splitting among CDs, for example).

In the next group of settings, you can choose to embed a license agreement into the disk image. This provides a virtual shrinkwrap license arrangement; the recipient must agree to a license agreement before the image will mount. The DMG format allows for multiple language translations of the license agreement to be included, from which the operating system will automatically select the correct one based on the recipient's settings. DropDMG allows you to include these multiple translations (though it won't do the translations for you!), and it provides the capability to type the licenses directly into the program -- using multiple fonts, sizes, and styles -- or paste them in from a word processor.

In the final group of settings, DropDMG allows you to select where you want the file saved in relation to the source material. It will automatically add the current date to the file, if you wish, and "sanitize" the filename to ensure proper behavior in URLs. This area also allows you to automatically have the source files deleted after the image is created.

DropDMG includes a complete help system, though the program is designed so well that you will very likely never need it. The program's interface is so simple, and its capabilities are so powerful, that DropDMG is a must-have for anyone who distributes software over the internet.

End of article.